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.

Just to echo really what other posters have said. I don’t think any of us can give advice because it all depends on what you can live with and what your expectations and experiences in the relationship are. Some people absolutely cannot live without security and trust in a relationship (even if said relationship is dull) due to their own experiences growing up etc. And for some people who are very secure in themselves they need that extra zing in a relationship.
I agree that speaking to a counsellor to help you untangle your thoughts would be the best option for now.

For myself, trust, friendship and compatibility are the most important things due to my own past and if (as I have in the past) I found myself “not in love” or “unattracted” or “bored” or any of those things, I would try and work on it with my husband. I have been single for many years with multiple short-term relationships and I know that for myself at least, trust, compatibility, and friendship are very hard to find but sexual attraction isn’t but it doesn’t last

@PucePanther

I tend to think that if you have everything except love then that’s enough, at least while you have kids to raise. If you leave him you’d be a lot worse off and not guaranteed to find love with someone else. You can divorce him and look for love when your kids are grown up.

This is terrible advise. The fact that OP doesn’t love her husband is a big deal! Just because you have children to someone this isn’t a good enough reason to stay in a marriage with someone.

It’s hard but you have to live the rest of your life
I’m a single mum of two now but I’m genuinely pretty content

I feel the idea of you feeling trapped and unhappy for perpetuity a depressing one

Can I ask what would you do if single ? What are your hopes and dreams
Or do you just want the same , but single ?

I also don’t agree that divorce harms kids
I think what harms kids is abusive and chaotic homes , addicted and unhappy parents , bullying , neglect

If I look at damaged adults and kids there is always a complex back story

Rarely ‘my parents amicably split ‘ is the cause of some of the pain and damage we see

@Blossomhill4 it depends what she means by she “doesn’t love him” anymore - to some people that means they don’t feel sexually attracted and/or it’s lost it’s sparkle. But that to me doesn’t mean you don’t love someone. Love means many different things to different people and it’s up to the OP to work out which way she feels. If she just doesn’t feel the fuzzies anymore but still cares deeply about him, then it’s up to her whether she feels this is enough to work on

OP, I highly recommend having a read through this site with an open mind
conscious-transitions.com/relationship-anxiety-collections/

It's not just about you though is it, doesn't your dh deserve to be in a relationship with someone who loves him?

If you love him but it's the initial in love rush has gone then work to get that back, it can be done but just take effort and less rut\routine. If you don't love him and the situation is unbearable then go, my exh parents stayed together for their dc and my exh lacks empathy and emotional depth because of the way they treated each other.

@MrsKingfisher

It's not just about you though is it, doesn't your dh deserve to be in a relationship with someone who loves him?

We don’t know yet what her definition of not loving him is. She might well be mistaking the steady, rather dull lack of lust as having fallen out of love.

To me "caring deeply" is the definition of love. Not (necessarily) sexual or romantic love, but love nonetheless.

@irregularegular

To me "caring deeply" is the definition of love. Not (necessarily) sexual or romantic love, but love nonetheless.

I agree with this. The Greeks had many different words for different kinds of love. It's unhelpful that we lump them together in a single word!

• *Eros (romantic, passionate love)
• *Philia (affectionate love)
• *Agape (selfless, universal love)
• *Storge (familiar love) Mania (obsessive love)
• *Ludus (playful love)
• *Pragma (enduring love)
• *Philautia (self love)

You have to be attracted, not lusting attracted, but you mustn't feel repelled by they're presence/touch. However much you work at it, if you are physically flinching away, it'll never work.

I also agree with caring deeply = love.

PucePanther and you think her child will be happy witnessing a mother who never really seems happy?
Probably more happy than they’d be living in a dodgy area with no money for anything and no opportunities, a mum who’s always at work, and step siblings who they have to share everything with. Kids are more disadvantaged by poverty than by an unhappy mother.

I disagree entirely, I grew up in a rough area with no money and had opportunities if I wanted to go out and find them so I disagree on that statement. A mum whose at work shows how hard working she is, and if she comes back feeling like it gives her more appreciation when she does see her kids than being part time but miserable because she isn't happy with her life I think the former is better position to be in for both mother and children, they may really like step so siblings, they may enjoy new company and the opportunity of having aquired more family, this isn't just a negative scenario. To see your caregiver happy more days than not I think is worth a lot more to how a child feels than to see them in mental turmoil, a child doesn't know the difference between living in a detached house or a terraced for example, they feel what goes on inside of that home...

PucePanther - ruin her kid's life?
Well I can tell you for sure that when I was that kid who was financially worse off because my parents got divorced, I didn’t give a shit about whether my mother felt happier. I just wanted to be in a nice home with decent peers and money for extra curricular activities.

Wow this comment! You didn't care about whether your mother felt hall

PucePanther - ruin her kid's life?
Well I can tell you for sure that when I was that kid who was financially worse off because my parents got divorced, I didn’t give a shit about whether my mother felt happier. I just wanted to be in a nice home with decent peers and money for extra curricular activities.

Wow this comment! You didn't care about whether your mother felt happier! You put a house, money and activities above feelings, that's not right at all, you were a child then though, perhaps as you get older you'll undertand that the way you feel on a daily basis can never be replaced by any thing in this world, being happy and content emotionally is what keeps a person sane and able to continue no amount of money, house or stuff can ever make up for that

I wouldn't at all assume fireworks and romance will happen just because you've divorced. At least there is a slightly bigger chance of it happening if you do divorce.

It is selfish to risk everything for your love life but then I am not convinced it's wrong to be selfish either. I mean, your dc has had a great start with home comforts and security. They know both parents love them.

It will be a bomb in the dcs lives and it will impact them negatively at first regardless of how amicable the divorce is.

I would have a proper, honest conversation about it all with your h. He might be thinking the same as you.

Tbh I've been with my partner 7 years I do deeply care but I don't love him like I used to as such although we're happy enough we have a good life 2 incomes good sex life but I definitely don't love him like I used to but u know what it's a 2 way street we're still capable of living a good life together we have good similar interests to would i leave him hastily,?? No definitely not but you know what life is short if things changed and I Met someone who I loved again maybe who knows

My best friend was in the same position. She knew before she married that she did not love him but was very young and too scared of her parent's reaction to call the wedding off.
Intimacy was rare and only when she was very drunk. She was too scared of being on her own to leave so had a child to make her life bearable.
Then she fell in love with another man. She wasn't looking but one day he walked into her office and her life. As result she blew her marriage apart.
She has been happily married to the OM for 30+ years; her ex remarried a few years later and is still happy with his 2nd wife. Down the line their DC can see that their parents are happier apart and thinks her life would have had a strange model of a relationship had they stayed together.
I suppose the question is are you depriving yourself and your husband of a fulfilling happy relationship.

Zombie thread from 2020