I don't love my DH what the hell do I do?

[WorryBadger]

I've finally faced up to the fact that while I care deeply about my DH, I don't love him and I don't think I ever did. We have a comfortable life, and get on well, and have a lovely daughter. I can't see how driving a truck through all that would be good for anyone. Yet I'm miserable and unfulfilled and have a strong sense of "Is this it?"
Is this normal? Are millions of other people just rubbing along OK? I can't believe that the norm would be life-long love between two people, it's never been the norm in history.

Don't know where I'm going with this, it's just that now I have admitted this to myself, it feels huge and I can't put it back in the box and pretend I never saw it.

Ignore @BubblyBarbara, he is always spouting misogynistic nonsense on MN.

I think you've got a choice of either being honest now (rip off the plaster) or probably ending up doing something you regret down the line that will likely end the relationship anyway. Or he could end it or have an affair as well, he isn't just a passive bystander wait for you to act. Spending years "just in it for the kids" is asking for trouble.

Sometimes it feels like the fiercest LTB proponents are being evangelical about the idea to somewhat justify their own decisions.
The more women LTB the more of a norm it becomes.

@praepondero

Sometimes it feels like the fiercest LTB proponents are being evangelical about the idea to somewhat justify their own decisions. The more women LTB the more of a norm it becomes.

I don't think anyone has said LTB.

OP isn't describing a situation where her husband is a bastard, but one where she has fallen out of love. It's absolutely different. Leaving bastards is hard but essential. That's why we tell each other to do it.

I do wonder that prae, it is often the case that a woman feels differently towards her husband or long term partner and it’s filled in no time with posters insisting she has “the ick” and this can never be resolved, she must leave or her children are doomed for all time to never have a happy and fulfilled relationship without taking into account the nuance of most LTRs.

Yes, we are such suggestible creatures, aren't we? I know I am. Often I have to say to myself - hold on a minute, woman, this is NOT how things are with you, this is someone else's situation that has some very minor similarities to what you're going through, but that's about it.
People tend to project their our own experiences and behaviours as the only right ones in a given situation and someone, hurt, confused etc. reading about a situation that on the surface seems similar to theirs, can be swayed in their own thinking to a dangerous degree without realising that their situation is fundamentally different.
For example, every couple goes through boring/unfulfilling/tedious sex periods. To put the blame solely on the partner would be wrong - if one would analyse the situation objectively as it takes two and all that.
However, we don't often analyse our feelings objectively, heart not head takes charge, usually. It's much easier to blame another than face up to our own issues/shortcomings that could well be half of the reason why things are going downhill.
Such as the 'ick', could well be both partners feeling unwanted and the bitterness that has built from that does not necessarily be the 'ick', but something completely fixable.

@S00LA There is a difference between misogyny and realism. On a thread the other day you said: "Most women are murdered by their ex or current male partner." I don't know any women who have been murdered by their partner.

I don’t know how the ‘ick’ found its way onto MN, but I wish it would leave via the same door it came in at. It isn’t based in any kind of fact and was never really meant to apply to women in long term relationships with children but to (usually) quite young women experimenting with different types of partners and different types of sex.

In my experience it is difficult to have a nuanced discussion about this on MN. I’m not trying to be critical of MN or its posters there - it’s just there are some areas that naturally bring out peoples defensiveness and this is one of them. But if we are to look at the raw sort of facts, there are better outcomes for children who come from children from a traditional family set up (children living with both their birth parents) and also non traditional family set ups where that’s been pre planned. So for example, children born to single mothers who have used sperm donors do well (statistically.) This contrasts with children from families where parents are single and it wasn’t pre planned (divorce) and although outcomes for bereaved children are overall favourable, when you break them into sub groups they are less so. Most bereaved children lose their father. In cases where bereaved children lose the mother, blended families soon follow (please understand I’m talking very generally here!) and then the outcomes aren’t so good.

The problem with stats is that a lot of the time we look at them and think they just don’t apply to us. Over the page I have an example of a child who is in many ways I’d say the typical product of divorce and subsequent remarriage or new relationships and chances are she wouldn’t ring any alarm bells at all. She’s under achieved at school a bit but she still did OK, and after all, her parents divorced at ten - her school work flagged after that so she wouldn’t necessarily be identified as not having reached her potential. She sees both her parents regularly and on the surface has a good relationship with both. It looks like a functioning blended family and her parents will probably say how happy she is and she is actually relieved they split up.

I think this is a fairly common setup and one the resident parent can't prevent, the other parent can go off and start a new family and show they will stay with this lot of children right through to adulthood whereas the last lot of children get to visit and witness what could have been. And in cases where the resident parent also has a new partner and children - step or birth - this feeling of displacement is heightened. And bear in mind that’s functioning families. There’s a darker and more sinister side but I’m working on the assumption we aren’t talking about that here.

My own thoughts here are that I don’t feel a relationship where the ‘love’ has gone is necessarily the worst thing in the world, providing it is tempered by at least liking, friendship, mutual respect and care. After all, many of us will have applied that same logic to jobs - I’m not convinced I’m living the dream with my job, but if I left it tomorrow to fulfil my potential and live my dreams I’d ultimately lose everything that really does matter. Adults do not-fun things all the time.

If we work on the assumption that romantic love and finding it and keeping it is the only way to be really ‘you’ I think that’s wrong, I can’t speak for everybody but many posters have come on to say that they lived with a man who didn’t excite them but didn’t abuse them, was great with the children, but the unhappiness that led to was overwhelming, which I do find really odd. For my part I feel you more able to express my authentic self than if I was single and became a penniless single parent with no evening childcare and therefore could not exercise or go to your karate club or play in your orchestra or work on your novel or whatever it is you do.

And I do find this assumption childish, if I’m totally honest here. Perhaps because I was young when I was obsessed with having a boyfriend and now I am older I am more interested in my children, my security for myself and for them, being fulfilled at work, and various other things. It is up to individuals what they do but I think telling them their children WILL be happier (and the more extreme version, that not to do so is actually making the children unhappy) and that they will enter a new phase of their lives, is wrong.

@Welcometonowhere, can I ask, assuming someone does as you suggest and stays for the benefit of their childrens' wellbeing, do you also advise they stay once the children are independent?

Do you believe that once women have children in a relationship they should stay in it forever, assuming no abuse, because they should be able to find life fulfilment outside of their relationship to compensate?

I am genuinely interested btw, though I think it seems very sad for two adults to stay together when they don't make each other happy.

My MIL and FIL have just split interestingly, she is 78! My husband and his sister, all fully grown, have struggled so much in accepting that they never really loved each other and yet stayed for them.

[quote SirChing]@LilyWater I don't think anyone is "divorce happy" on this thread. I was suicidally UNhappy when I was living a half life with my ex. I would rather my child had both parents alive than both parents together.

Everyone knows that lust and romance don't last, and it's patronising for pps to suggest that we end marriages because the thrill has worn off.

When it comes to the point that you would rather live alone with your child, and all the stress and hardship that brings, than be in a shell of a marriage, the marriage is dead.

No-one necessarily expects or wants to meet someone else. That's no reason to stay in something deeply unhappy. Its far lonelier to be lonely with someone than alone.

I can't help but feel that some posters on this thread are making massive presumptions that we don't put the children first. And that we all want a hot new bloke. That's not necessarily the case at all.

I also think some posters are trying to convince themselves they did/are doing the right thing in staying, when in some ways they wished that they hadn't.[/quote]
@SirChing I'm sorry for your experience but nowhere has the OP said she's suicidally unhappy and it's not right to project your own experience onto the OP. There's no mention of abuse etc. and the OP herself has said she cares for him deeply and they get on well. Going through stages of feeling unfulfilled, boredom, or 'is this it?' in a long term relationship is completely normal and is nothing to do with your partner, but simply the dynamic of life. If she's feeling suicidally unhappy in that situation, it would indicate issues with her own mental health or a need to focus on more fulfilling activities/gratitude, and not with him.

Much better for her to take responsibility for improving her own wellbeing instead of depending on others to be devices that exist to provide her with fulfilment then just repeating a cycle of going for a new relationship thrill that will make her feel better temporarily, then settling into the same situation as before with a different man. As I said, the eye watering second divorce/partnership rate sound their own warning about going through a succession of people thinking they will be the ones to fix your desires for fulfillment.

There's no mention of abuse etc. and the OP herself has said she cares for him deeply and they get on well

Yep, this was the same in my relationship too, @LilyWater. And I was still suicidal due to being unhappy and feeling I "should" stay.

I am not trying to project my issue onto the OP. I am merely trying to counter the numerous suggestions that women need to "suck it up" for the sake of their kids as there is nothing to complain about. Living a lie IS depressing and can actually CAUSE the mental health issue of which you speak.

There are so many posts here from women who haven't been through the same thing, pontificating to those who have. Until you are in that situation, it's impossible to know the grief and heartache it causes.

It would be great if OP and her DH were just having a lull which could be worked through. I am a huge fan of both individual and joint counselling for this reason. BUT sometimes it's ok to say "enough".

thinking they will be the ones to fix your desires for fulfillment

Only an idiot would think another person could make them feel fulfilled in all ways. It is STILL ok to decide to leave an unfulfilled relationship, with a view to being single instead.

I have no idea why you think people are leaving marriages simply to find a better partner. Sometimes, it's merely to leave an unhappy situation.

Torres I’m not telling anybody what to do here. I’m just saying that personally I think there are so many more worse things in the world than not being in love with the person you share your life with. Mutual respect is key, I think. For my part, my sex drive has gone, disappeared, moved out It might come back and it might not. I don’t know. But because it HAS decided to take up residence somewhere with my unwrinkled skin and pert boobs, I find it difficult to feel any sort of romantic overtures towards my own husband. Leaving him for this reason would however lead to such hurt and distress for everybody it simply isn’t worth it to attempt to find something that in the context of a whole life isn’t all that important (to me.)

I can’t and I won’t speak for others, I can see that it must be very difficult for some, but I do think a blind “it will all be fine and the children will be happier” approach is cavalier at best.

do think a blind “it will all be fine and the children will be happier” approach is cavalier at best

I am gobsmacked that anyone thinks anyone leaves a marriage in a cavalier manner when there are kids involved. If the OP was cavalier, she would have already left instead of listening to advice on both sides of the coin from posters here! Those of us who have ended our marriages, I would put money on 90% of us not being cavalier in the slightest about it. Trying to reassure OP that it's ok if she chooses to end her marriage, and discussing our own experiences, does not equate to us being cavalier about our marriages ending. That's just offensive.

@Welcometonowhere

I don’t know how the ‘ick’ found its way onto MN, but I wish it would leave via the same door it came in at. It isn’t based in any kind of fact and was never really meant to apply to women in long term relationships with children but to (usually) quite young women experimenting with different types of partners and different types of sex.

In my experience it is difficult to have a nuanced discussion about this on MN. I’m not trying to be critical of MN or its posters there - it’s just there are some areas that naturally bring out peoples defensiveness and this is one of them. But if we are to look at the raw sort of facts, there are better outcomes for children who come from children from a traditional family set up (children living with both their birth parents) and also non traditional family set ups where that’s been pre planned. So for example, children born to single mothers who have used sperm donors do well (statistically.) This contrasts with children from families where parents are single and it wasn’t pre planned (divorce) and although outcomes for bereaved children are overall favourable, when you break them into sub groups they are less so. Most bereaved children lose their father. In cases where bereaved children lose the mother, blended families soon follow (please understand I’m talking very generally here!) and then the outcomes aren’t so good.

The problem with stats is that a lot of the time we look at them and think they just don’t apply to us. Over the page I have an example of a child who is in many ways I’d say the typical product of divorce and subsequent remarriage or new relationships and chances are she wouldn’t ring any alarm bells at all. She’s under achieved at school a bit but she still did OK, and after all, her parents divorced at ten - her school work flagged after that so she wouldn’t necessarily be identified as not having reached her potential. She sees both her parents regularly and on the surface has a good relationship with both. It looks like a functioning blended family and her parents will probably say how happy she is and she is actually relieved they split up.

I think this is a fairly common setup and one the resident parent can't prevent, the other parent can go off and start a new family and show they will stay with this lot of children right through to adulthood whereas the last lot of children get to visit and witness what could have been. And in cases where the resident parent also has a new partner and children - step or birth - this feeling of displacement is heightened. And bear in mind that’s functioning families. There’s a darker and more sinister side but I’m working on the assumption we aren’t talking about that here.

My own thoughts here are that I don’t feel a relationship where the ‘love’ has gone is necessarily the worst thing in the world, providing it is tempered by at least liking, friendship, mutual respect and care. After all, many of us will have applied that same logic to jobs - I’m not convinced I’m living the dream with my job, but if I left it tomorrow to fulfil my potential and live my dreams I’d ultimately lose everything that really does matter. Adults do not-fun things all the time.

If we work on the assumption that romantic love and finding it and keeping it is the only way to be really ‘you’ I think that’s wrong, I can’t speak for everybody but many posters have come on to say that they lived with a man who didn’t excite them but didn’t abuse them, was great with the children, but the unhappiness that led to was overwhelming, which I do find really odd. For my part I feel you more able to express my authentic self than if I was single and became a penniless single parent with no evening childcare and therefore could not exercise or go to your karate club or play in your orchestra or work on your novel or whatever it is you do.

And I do find this assumption childish, if I’m totally honest here. Perhaps because I was young when I was obsessed with having a boyfriend and now I am older I am more interested in my children, my security for myself and for them, being fulfilled at work, and various other things. It is up to individuals what they do but I think telling them their children WILL be happier (and the more extreme version, that not to do so is actually making the children unhappy) and that they will enter a new phase of their lives, is wrong.

Such a well written post.

Unfortunately some posters on here apparently can't see past the "me me me" mentality and that it's completely bonkers to hold a man (or woman) responsible for making you happy and fulfilled throughout an entire lifelong marriage. You married a person, not an entertainment device. Every reasonable person knows it's unrealistic so they wouldn't give much thought to it, which is why the OP sees most people in the real world just getting on with life, with its peaks and troughs, like an adult, instead of preoccupying their minds with how they can blame their partner.

And any decisions you make have profound consequences on the innocent children you chose to bring into the relationship and who depend on their parents for their security and wellbeing.

Yep, I'm another one who could have written your post. I have a young daughter too. We've been in separate rooms for nearly a year, argue a lot. But we're very financially secure and have a nice house, 2 cars and good holidays. It's not enough, I'm unhappy. He won't leave and neither will I. I don't know what to do, but I hope for you (OP) and me that this situation will not last forever. I try not to think about it all the time as it drives me mad.

Hope to go to counselling one day when face to face is available. Until then I try to enjoy my work and the life I lead outside of the relationship (my running, being with friends, parents, sibling). I do think life is too short and I wish there was an easier way. So difficult when you have a mortage and children, and yes, I do think a lot of couples are in this situation sadly.

Unfortunately some posters on here apparently can't see past the "me me me" mentality and that it's completely bonkers to hold a man (or woman) responsible for making you happy and fulfilled throughout an entire lifelong marriage. You married a person, not an entertainment device. Every reasonable person knows it's unrealistic so they wouldn't give much thought to it, which is why the OP sees most people in the real world just getting on with life, with its peaks and troughs, like an adult, instead of preoccupying their minds with how they can blame their partner

Yeah. That's exactly it

I’m sorry if you were offended by it, SirChing, that wasn’t my intention. But I’m surprised you can’t see there is sometimes - often - an agenda on MN, or rather something becomes a bit of a go-to response to posters seeking advice.

On the Doghouse, someone can post to say they are looking for a small breed of dog which is good with cats and doesn’t bark much and they will still get several replies urging them to rescue a greyhound. Any suggestion that a pink party dress is maybe not suitable attire for a boy to wear to a non school uniform day are shot down. And any child who wants more than a tangerine and some chocolate coins for Christmas is spoilt. I’m being a bit facetious there and it’s intended in good humour but you get the idea. There are MN “lines” that are trotted out.

One of those “lines” is that being single is superior to being in a relationship - I see this at this time of year especially, someone posts about being alone and gets lots of “how lucky you are OP” replies. I think that’s partly a reaction against the sort of attitude that any relationship is better than being single which is obviously nonsense.

Just the same, I think women are sometimes encouraged to leave when I’m not at all convinced this is in their best interests (I don’t mean abuse here, but situations like the OPs.) The “ick” has been mentioned but you also do tend to get a lot of people insisting the children are clearly woefully unhappy due to telepathic signals from the mother and I REALLY don’t think that’s true.

@SirChing

There's no mention of abuse etc. and the OP herself has said she cares for him deeply and they get on well

Yep, this was the same in my relationship too, @LilyWater. And I was still suicidal due to being unhappy and feeling I "should" stay.

I am not trying to project my issue onto the OP. I am merely trying to counter the numerous suggestions that women need to "suck it up" for the sake of their kids as there is nothing to complain about. Living a lie IS depressing and can actually CAUSE the mental health issue of which you speak.

There are so many posts here from women who haven't been through the same thing, pontificating to those who have. Until you are in that situation, it's impossible to know the grief and heartache it causes.

It would be great if OP and her DH were just having a lull which could be worked through. I am a huge fan of both individual and joint counselling for this reason. BUT sometimes it's ok to say "enough".

No one's saying that she should "live a lie" and pretend she's completely fulfilled when she's not. We're simply saying that such feelings are common and normal, that she herself has to take responsibility for making her own life fulfilling, and that her own current feelings won't necessarily be fixed anyway by her leaving her husband, breaking up her child's home, and creating a new set of problems.

I don’t know the first thing about your marriage, SirChing, it’s not my place to probe. I will say in a very generalised way, not aimed at you, that actually feeling actively suicidal - that your life was actually potentially in danger of you ending it prematurely because of a non abusive spouse you don’t love - is quite an extreme stance. Domestic abuse does sadly often lead to partners having thoughts of suicide and tragically sometimes acting on this but for a marriage that is in no way abusive but the love has gone, that’s very, very unusual.

@LiliWater

"No one's saying that she should "live a lie" and pretend she's completely fulfilled when she's not. We're simply saying that such feelings are common and normal, that she herself has to take responsibility for making her own life fulfilling, and that her own current feelings won't necessarily be fixed anyway by her leaving her husband, breaking up her child's home, and creating a new set of problems."

This nails it.

For my part I feel you more able to express my authentic self than if I was single and became a penniless single parent with no evening childcare and therefore could not exercise or go to your karate club or play in your orchestra or work on your novel or whatever it is you do

I think this is key. It all comes down to circumstances. If you are miserable, living in poverty and isolated, if that is your new reality if you leave, then you need to weight that up pretty seriously against how your current situation is.
Some posters who have left, will have left to very different circumstances than others.

I am a single parent. Not through choice. I was certain I would never be one of 'those' statistics.

Unfortunately though, after 13 years married and 2 children, my husband decided his life wasn't exciting enough and had an affair. As far as I was concerned we were happy and we had a lovely life.

So my kids world was ripped apart in the space of a few days. I couldn't bear to look at my ex but because I love them more than I hate him, I was polite to him during our separation and I made every effort for their relationship with him to be strong.

He slit from the OW and is now in another relationship and I have also been with someone for 15 months. Ex lives alone though and so do I. I can't speak for him but I have no intention of moving in with another man while my kids are at home. I believe I can have a relationship for me as a separate thing from my relationship with my kids but I also believe that I deserve to be happy and my kids benefit from that.

So our home is not 'broken', it is very much full of love and happiness. I don't live in a 'poor' area and my kids still go to the same school they went to before, which incidentally is the best performing school in my county. My ex rents a nice house with enough bedrooms for everyone a mile away from us. Please don't make generalised statements about divorced/separated parents and pleased don't assume that being a single parent is always a choice. I forgave my ex once for cheating on me 'for the kids'. He did it again so how many times should I forgive and lead a life of misery and mistrust, just to keep the family together?

Basically op, I wish he had told me if he was so unhappy he felt he wanted to have an affair, rather then me find out the way I did and our marriage end the way it did.

It isn’t necessarily a generalisation, though, sunshine

The simple fact is that two homes are more expensive than one. Depending on income levels this will have more or less of an impact, but there will still be a reduced level of income.

That can easily be offset against other factors, but it is not something to totally ignore either.

Please don't make generalised statements about divorced/separated parents

I agree. My entire points have been exactly that one should not make generalised statements but encourage people to weigh up the choices in their own very individual situation.