No sex, don’t want sex, is ending the marriage inevitable?

[Garfieldcake]

I don’t want to have sex with DH. I’m sure he knows it. Well he does know it, he says there are ‘more important things.’
We are 4 years and counting since we last had sex. I don’t even like kissing him. I find it difficult because we function in every other way, we don’t argue, I suspect there’s few people I could live with. The dc are settled and happy. We are ok.
And yet something is lacking - I don’t fancy him and years of him opting out with the dc and the house has made me resentful I suppose. I don’t feel seen or cared for or respected a lot of the time. I’ve spoken to him and he is trying but I feel as though it’s too late. Years of neglect, to a degree on both sides, means the rot has truly set in. He has quite a dominating personality which I find hard and I’ve never been in an doubt as to who has the power in our relationship in terms of money and decisions. Everything with the dc and the house has always been left to me and in 20 years he’s never cooked a meal or put the washing machine on and at times I’ve felt as though he speaks to me like an employee. The subtle signs that I am second to him have worn me down.
But the dc are happy.
Where do I go from here?

You are exactly where I am, and I empathise completely. My situation is complicated by children who have had enormous meltdowns and full on wailing about us not getting divorced (she has autism TBF) but it makes separating v difficult.

How does your DH feel?
Mine seems very head in the sand.
However if we split he’d lose out financially and he wouldn’t be able to do all the things he does leisure wise if he had the dc half the time. I’d hope for him not to have them half the time given that his investment in then has been low but he could if he went for it.

My friend is in the exact same position. She came to the conclusion that she will stay in the marriage for the children. She went to her husband who is happy to plod along in the sexless marriage and said "you do you, I will do me". They now live separate lives but live in the same house co parenting. He goes on holiday separately and so does she. They dont socialise together and sleep in different rooms. It works for now until I assume they will inevitably will meet someone else and things will probably have to change. Have you thought about a similar situation for you and your husband?

I’d be ok with that but DH wouldn’t. He says he loves me and I’m his world, but he’s always said that and that is not how it feels.

I feel really sad reading this thread.

I was in a similar situation after 20 years of marriage, although I was in charge of finances and household decisions. I felt like an employee and unimportant. He travelled a lot for work and I began to resent the weekends when he was home... especially as he often went to play golf, cycling or sailing for hours and spent so little time with the kids.

Eventually I no longer wanted to have sex, or any kind of intimacy with him and he showed very little interest anyway. We both, however, buried our heads in the sand and pretended all was well until he had an affair and left me for her. I don't miss him at all and am much happier these days, but still wish he spent more time with our kids... at least he saw them almost every weekend before... now it's not quite one weekend a month...

We should have addressed our problems years earlier... but maybe we'd just have split sooner 🤷‍♀️

I am back and forth on it all the time.
We get on ok, there’s no great drama and yet I’m always aware that he’s the ‘boss of me’ and I don’t especially like that.
I don’t think I’d miss him, I used to be glad when he was away for business. Sadly he’s here now all the time because of the pandemic.
I’d miss the dc though and they’d miss me.

Staying for the children is not beneficial for them, happy apart parents is better than together miserable ones.
Its 2021 not 1955, women do not need to stay with a man for security of money.

You are also teaching your DC that is what a relationship is like.

One person has all the power and the other just does everything.

This is sad. Life is short.

Two happy single parents are definitely better than two miserable together ones. I get you're not utterly miserable but sounds like you're heading that way?

Sorry this is happening

How old are your kids

I’ve another 13 years before the youngest is 18.
That’s a long old time to wait.

No way life is too short

But it’s my dc’s lives too.

@Garfieldcake

How does your DH feel? Mine seems very head in the sand. However if we split he’d lose out financially and he wouldn’t be able to do all the things he does leisure wise if he had the dc half the time. I’d hope for him not to have them half the time given that his investment in then has been low but he could if he went for it.

He completely has his head in the sand! It is never discussed. We get along well as friends, and I'm fairly sure no-one would have any clue about the true situation, not even our children. (Dd's meltdowns were triggered by other people separating, such as her friends' parents, not by any perceived issues between us).

He knows it's dead in the water, but easier to carry on as usual.
He used to work away 3 or 4 days a week, which helped enormously as I had space to myself, but has been WFH since the pandemic began, with no sign of returning to work location.

If your children are so young, I would say leave now, while they are young and more adaptable. Please don't leave it!

@Garfieldcake

But it’s my dc’s lives too.

Yes. That's why I didn't go when they were small- I couldn't stop him from seeing them grow and change, and as I did 100% of everything for them, it would never have been 50/50, he would have ended up probably two nights a fortnight, and then had no relationship whatsoever with them.

Where do I go from here?

Divorce.

Of course the children are happy. They’ve only known their parents together, they like it that way.

But in order to give them that stability you must suppress your own feelings, wants, needs. You already feel like you’re not the boss of you - and now you must subjugate all your life in service to your children and your husband (who doesn’t care enough to truly look at the power dynamics and his part in it and fix things). All your life. Decades and decades.

It doesn’t get easier when they’re grown. My DH’s parents had what appeared to be a very happy marriage. Then when he was 25 his dad left his mum out of the blue and it turned out they’d basically been celibate for decades, he’d had all sorts of affairs - my DH felt his “happy childhood” was a complete and total lie. And because he and his siblings were adults now, they got dragged into things they’d no business being part of. You wouldn’t express the deepest issues of your marriage to your 5 year old now, but when that 18 year old asks why you’re splitting up now...

Look, the kids are happy because you pretend to be happy. You’ll still pretend to be happy. Some things will certainly be more shit in the short term. But life’s not short term.

Don’t make your decisions on what’s best for other people. In this situation a happier mother = happier children.

I was in a similar situation. We used to work on the same industry, but then I stopped to raise our family while he continues up the ladder. Eventually, as he became more and more senior it also felt like he was treating me like an employee.
Slight difference is that I never accepted that, at it did cause tension over time.

Similarly to you - I couldn’t have sex with him once resentment reached a certain level. And after that it was too late to fix anything.

My plan was to wait at least until my youngest was at secondary before separating. Like you, despite resenting him and not being happy I wanted to prioritise my kids stability.

It didn’t quite work out quite that way. I had to file earlier and it’s been a year since divorce finalised and he moved out.

It hasn’t been all easy in the past year. On balance - it’s been OK and I have been calmer and happier most of the time.
But - I do worry about the kids and Interactions with ex sometimes cause me anxiety. Kids are affected by the divorce although they did adjust better then I expected. Life is more complex than it used to be, and it times it feels hard.

Sometimes I regret the past. Not the recent past where things were irreparably broken and couldn’t be fixed. I do regret earlier phases of the relationship where things weren’t as broken yet. Maybe things could have gone differently back then. Who knows.

Divorce - at least in my experience has many sides. I gained freedom to be me, and not needing to bend over backward and force myself to fit into someone’s idea of a wife.
But I also lost something - I do feel guilty for the kids losing their family unit. And for myself - I did lose some sense of security and dependability. My ex - despite his many difficult sides did provide that.
Now I have to count on myself. Which I do sometime find a bit stressful.

Thank you for the measured responses.
I sometimes feel mumsnet is quick to jump to divorce as a solution.
I’m still in the place where I cannot imagine leaving OR staying. It’s so much easier to stay, and I would like what I have with DH to be enough. I’m concerned that there is no way back now though, I feel on edge around him - meanwhile he’s making plans for holidays etc and I’m thinking I don’t want to go. I want to go with the dc but I don’t find myself wanting to spend the time with him. He’s not even done anything ‘wrong’ he’s still the same person I married, it’s me who has changed.

If you stay together for the kids be aware that you are modelling what a relationship should look like to them.

I think it probably looks ok to them though, although ds sometimes comments things about my being allowed or not allowed to do things. I said I’d like to go to a concert when things opened up and he said dad won’t let you. He would let me I think, but it probably would have to be a negotiation.

Honestly, if you're going to leave, leave. Don't stay for the kids. It just makes for an unhappy home and a really unhealthy example of what a relationship should look like.

Your kids are young. It will be upsetting, but they will adapt.

My parents waited until my younger brother left for uni before they split up. I was 24 and it was just hell - they tried to lean on me for support because I was an adult, I had to get involved in many aspects that I would have been shielded from as a child.

I wish that they had split when I was a child. It brings all sorts of worries with it if you wait. I'd have much preferred them to split when they wanted to (when I was 8) and perhaps they'd have met someone else.

Instead, I'm left with 2 ageing parents living alone with no support apart from my brother and I.

I think the thing that really sticks out from your post is resentment, which is a result of physical (sex, intimacy) and emotional (not feeling cared for, respected etc) neglect. I think your post resonates with many women, myself included!
It’s strange how when we have children, our needs/happiness no longer become important because we only want what’s best for our children, we don’t want to hurt them, break up their family unit.
It sounds very much like you’re in a rut in your marriage.
Firstly, you need to tell your husband how you feel, then if you both agree, try couples counselling, this may or may not work, sometimes there is no coming back but at least you have tried. With the counselling you can learn to compromise, so everything is more balanced. It doesn’t always work but in some cases it can change a marriage for the better but you’ve both got to want it to happen.
Good luck. X

I do feel resentment because I’m actually not stupid and yet I feel like I’ve had to maintain a little girly type act. My decisions aren’t my own. I am not very confident and tend to just go along with DH because it’s easier but it’s not always better.
I am just tired of it. I am tired of him having enough money to just do whatever he wants without having to even mention it, whereas the same isn’t true for me. I am tired of endless sport on the tv where I get to watch nothing I might like. I am tired of constantly fitting in with what he wants. I’m just tired of it. I’ve reached the point where I’m so tired of it I am now mostly ambivalent. I just don’t care.

Unfortunately that feeling permeates the marriage and the thought of having to sleep with him makes me recoil.

Why stay?

You are literally sacrificing your one and only life to facilitate this guys life.

The kids will be fine and there's no way he will want 50/50 contact if he hasn't even cooked them a meal or washed their clothes ever!