I don't love my husband, sometimes (often) I hate him....... is it going to be possible to stay together?

[AndIWonder]

He is nasty, bitchy, shallow, selfish, rude, argumentative, sharp tongued, ignorant, highly strung, uptight, vain, I could go on and on.
He is not: physically violent or a bad father
Obviously I am perfect!
My life would on balance be nicer if he wasn't in it, he does nothing to help me with the children or home, but does earn good money and works long hours.
At the moment we can't do counselling, his hours of working plus lack of suitable childcare.
How do I turn it around. I know I will never be in love with him, but sometimes we get on well and I like him. Is it possible to actually get through this? Has anyone managed to? I have no idea how on earth I'd cope financially if we did split up. We live in an expensive area, and I am a sahm, and desperately want to stay that way. Oldest child 2 years old.

I should say, that for the sake of our dc I desperately want to stay together, but actually they hear arguments they shouldn't very regularly. I had the same through my upbringing, but my parents did/do love eachother, but don;t have a particularly nice relationship. His parents divorced when he was about 8 and fucked him up big time.

Could the hours of work/lack of suitable childcare be adding fuel to the fire? What I mean is, are you both exhausted and bitching at each other cos you need a rest and some time to yourselves/with each other?

Sometimes, it's like spinning plates and you wonder how long it can possibly last.

"He is nasty, bitchy, shallow, selfish, rude, argumentative, sharp tongued, ignorant, highly strung, uptight, vain" - has he always been like this? Presumably you loved him once? What did you love about him? Does he still have those qualities? Can you get that back? If you want to make it work you need to find some time to spend together to talk properly first and maybe think about counselling.

Please don't take any tone from this but were you ever in love? If so, isn't it possible you could be again. Having chn is really hard on a couple's relationship and maybe with help you could find a way of rediscovering whatever it was that you loved about each other in the first place?

AIW - I hope things get better for you and your family.

So you have more than one child and the eldest is 2 years old.
I quite often think I hate my partner too, but I can see that its the strain of having 2kids, eldest also 2, with 6m age gap, no family around and both working full time. Yes we hate each other quite a bit these days but I can still see the man I fell for in there (sometimes!) and thats what keeps us going. So in our case I am confident we can work through it and look back on this as a 'rough patch'.
Perhaps your husband feels strained at having all the financial responsibility. If you are 'desperate' to stay as a SAHM in an expensive area then you have to decide how much you are willing to sacrifice of your own happiness to maintain that lifestyle.
Times like this I am glad I had no choice about whether to go back to work, i earn more than dp so how I would manage financially would be the last of my worries if we split up.

If as someone else suggested, you didn't love him when you married him, and you knew all these personality traits....????

oops thats a 16m age gap!!!

If I'm honest, and I feel awful admitting this, I have never truly been in love with him. At times I have felt that I love him. I used to think he was quite funny, he made me laugh a lot, but tbh his jokes are mostly crap now. Not something I can pin my future happiness on! I think I ended up in a bizaar situation where I almost became obsessed with him early on in the relationship; he was mean to me and for some reason I kept coming back for more, and whenever I tried to break up, he wouldn't 'let' me. We've been together about 8 years and have never had a nice relationship, but we have had some really good times, and liked doing similar things (going out getting pissed and having lovely meals) so in some ways made good companions. If I'm honest, I found time ticking on, and wanted a baby, and now I find myself here. I have no idea how it happened really. I have know true love and to resign myself to a life withou it feels a little sad, but worth it for our dc???
I knwo that I have now shown myself in a truly awful light, I don't expect sympathy and know I won't get it.
AM I a hopeless case?

You do have my sympathy, you're in a crap place right now and that's horrible. It's just I think its sometimes easy to feel like things have always been bad when they're bad nw iyswim but I don't want to belittle your feelings, perhaps you have never and will never love him.

I hope not, but if thats true then I suppose you should consider the outcomes, breaking up a family is tough and not to be taken lightly, I would say at least have a go at rekindling your friendship if not your passion.

You need to work out why him being mean was attractive to you - were either of your parents like that with you?

And to fix things, you've got to make time for couples counselling. Well, you might manage to work it all through with a book?

And probably admit some flaws yourself. I find it rather unlikely that he's such a terrible ogre while you're just lovely.

Well I am in the same position in that I am not in love with DH, have never really been in love with him and the sex has always been crap. We get on ok though mostly I think he is boring. He is a good man, good dad and had himself a very difficult life. Kids are now at school so life not so hard now. I really want it to work as I am not a quitter.

Not quite sure how it is going to pan out, really just saying I know how easy it is to fall into a relationship and stay there espcially when you dont think to highly of yourself. Personally I think the key is self esteem, until I get that sorted out don't think that I am in a position to make any decisions.

By being with someone whom you do not love you are repeating the same relationship patterns as your parents thus teaching your children those patterns of relationship behaviour.

After all we learn about relationships first and foremost from our own parents, what did both sets of these people teach you both?. You were both taught damaging lessons by these people. It seems to me you are both now repeating what you learnt from them to your childrens' detriment, not just your own relationship.

Staying together just for the sake of the children is in my opinion a huge mistake. That can just screw the children up emotionally even more besides which as adults they won't thank you for staying with him. They are currently hearing arguments between you two and perhaps blame their own selves for their parents fighting. They may not be able to articulate but they are aware that things between you are not good.

You both need to talk honestly to each other.
You can both unlearn these patterns and low self esteem but it will take much time, effort and work on both your parts. You need to make time to go to counselling if you really want to save this, otherwise you are both now better off going your separate ways.

If he won't go to Relate then go on your own and talk.

If all you are worried about is the finances then don't. I have had a stint onm benefits and I was much better off.
Your council has to provide for you, and the gov has to.

If the only reason you are with him is financial then leave him.

LIFE IS SHORT, you get one go at it, be happy and don't stay with someone you don't love when there is someone out there whom you will love.

I agree with Attila that the real issue here is why you are repeating behaviour patterns which are in the long term maybe going to damage your kids. I know it sounds tough, but IMO you are going for the easiest solution short term (ie stay with DH because he's the provider and enables you to have the SAHM lifestyle you want) but ignoring the long term consequences of what is a loveless marriage. You show great awareness of your own parents' marriage (ie they loved eachother but wasnt a good r/ship) so it's likely your own dcs will pick up on the true state of your marriage too. Children are incredibly perceptive. So what lesson will they learn? That it's Ok to build a life long r/ship that's not based on love?
I also agree with flippertyjibbet - I'm really glad that financially I never had the choice of being a SAHM, because in many ways it's made my r/ship with my partner a r/ship of equals. Your marriage is very polarised - he works long hours but obviously earns good money (in itself a huge pressure) while you take sole responsibility for the home and children (also a huge pressure).
I think you need to try to find the time to have a proper discussion about what you honestly want out of life. Does he love you? Does he know you don't love him? Is your SAHM lifestyle really so important that you can countenance staying with a man who frankly you describe as pretty dreadful? How does he feel about basically just being a provider?
Sorry if this sounds harsh, and I feel for you as you are in a horrid place right now. But if you want things to change, then honesty is the only way forward.

Bandofmothers - its easy to say don't worry about finances because you will be provided for by the council etc, but it sounds like the op has been accustomed to a very wealthy lifestyle so settling for anything less is going to be very hard.

I personally think the op is only staying with her bloke because of the money, i.e. nice house, DH has well paid job etc, and this is the reason lots of women stay in a very unhappy marriage.

I think she should try to work at her marriage & if all else fails she should get a job & try & support her kids somehow.

It's very difficult i know. I am in a similar situation.

You must find time for counselling/Relate. Make it your absolute priority.

Good luck

I agree Littlegoldfish - work at the marriage because throwing it away when you have 2 dcs would in itself create new problems, and you need to know you've done everything possible to keep it together.Yes, it does sound like the OP is in the marriage for the lifestyle rather than anything else. IMO, getting a job may well be the start of the solution to the problem though, not something to do 'if all else fails'. It would give the OP a life outside the home, some self respect and raised self esteem because she won't be totally relying on her DH. And it sends out the right message to her DCs too.

Hello, Thank you so much for your replies. I really appreciate it. I have a lot to think about, and a lot of what has been said is very true.
I am not staying with OH for the money, although I accept that if he didn't earn good money, it would be much easier to leave. I am staying with him primarily because I believe that divorce can be very damaging for children, but in my case, I am really trying to understand if a divorce would be worse for them than what we currently have.
He can be a great father, and they are both mad about him. I on the other hand spend the majority of our time together being irritated with him for basically being himself. My mother has spent her entire 40 year marriage irritated and nagging my father, with occasional periods of being very loving. I can see myself turning in to her in this way. She did and does however love my father. I wonder if I'd be just as much of a nag if I did love my oh.

I'm waffling again, I have so many issues to work through. He can be and often is thoroughly unpleasant to me, and I stand by my description of him in my op, but I can be dreadful in response. We so desperately need to see a therapist.

I was just going to ask you wonderful oracles one last thing, someone said that in counselling that we need to actually start being honest with eachother, and I need to tell him I don't love him. I honestly believe that if I do this, then he will be furious, and it will destroy any chance we have at all of sorting ourselves out. I am almost certain that he doesn't love me either, but I don't think he would ever admit this, so we would be talking at crossed purposes anyway. Should I be prepared to tell him that I am not in love with him in a counselling situation, or do I work on the basis that the positive feelings I have about him could be classed as some form of love and go from there? What do you think?

Sorry for so much waffling.

Attilla, what you have said about dc hearing arguments and blaming themselves has really struck home, and made me feel ready for action! Thank you.

Also, do you think it is possible to learn to love someone? If we can quit this dreadfully destructive pattern of horrible behavious, would it possible for us to learn to love eachother?

If counselling is going to work you need to be as honest as possible with him. What about saying that you do not know if you love him which is not as harsh as saying that you don't love him.

Yes, you are going to have to be honest.

AndIWonder - could it be possible that you have PND?? You are very down on your DH and very down on yourself (more importantly!). Sometimes i get like this about DP, but i love him dearly.

You must have loved him (or thought you did), you married him and had children - it doesnt sound to me that you took either of these things lightly so that is not a criticism. But a glimmer of hope?

In all of your posts, you dont give examples of how you feel your DH treats you badly or is all the things you say he is. Could it be that you are looking for these things as an outpouring of your sadness??

Go to your GP, ask for counselling, ADs? (saved my marriage) get things straight in YOUR head about how YOU feel. Like you say, if you barge in with I dont love you anymore, he is bound to react badly, hurt pride, loss, bewilderment. Could it be that you are treating him in an offhand manner because of all your feelings and he is reacting accordingly? I guess until you have the answers to these questions, you wont know as that certainly becomes a vicious circle.

After 15 years together, i still felt "in love" with DP, but there is nothing like a baby to dampen even the most ardent flame - as you have said, sometimes i even question what i see in him. But then, one look, one gesture, and i realise, this man is my soul mate.

i do agree with Attilla though, if after all of this you decide your relationship is over, do not stay together for the children. My parents did this and my memories of my childhood are that of constant arguments, so much so that arguments now make me so anxious, then i get even more argumentative and insecure. The sad thing about my parents is, my mother always treated my father badly, partly because he had an affair, but she did love him. BUT i actually wish that my father did not come home, that he stayed with his "mistress" because both of my parents would have been happier that way, but he came home for me, and i have to live with that guilt, hes gone now and the end of his life was awful (alzheimers and cancer) and i regret every single day being the reason my parents stayed in an unhappy relationship. Even though there is no question that actually, my mother adored my father, they were poison to each other.

Have you ever loved him?What was it like in the days before kids and the humdrum of every day life?If it was good at one time I would say it is possible to work to regain thjat if you both want it.Otherwise NO You can't have a full life with someone you neither love nor even like It is a waste of both of your lives which are short and should be lived to the max and enjoyed