Think my marriage is over, son feels unloved

[Emmalemon100]

I think my 20 year marriage might be over.
I’ve been having these thoughts on and off for years. Generally we got on ok, he’s a nice person, but we met very young and are very different personalities.
We don’t really chat or laugh together anymore, although he doesn’t see it. I’m not really sexually interested in him anymore, again this is one sided. Our children are 6 and 9. I’m just ploughing along as the children are young and also my job is demanding and I would struggle for childcare.

Today my son got upset and said he doesn’t think daddy loves him. Husband is a bit emotionally/communication useless I think, doesn’t really understand how things he says may be perceived. 9 year old is quite a sensitive soul. Husbands response to this was to say something like “well you’re always shouting at me and stuff, I don’t think you like me”.
I pulled him up in this, he’s sulking upstairs while I’m comforting our son. I’m so cross that he just can’t seem to prioritise our sons emotional needs over his own.
How on Earth do you ever decide when a marriage is over. I could just plough on and suck it up and that’s kind of what I’ve been planning to do until the kids are older. Also we’ve had highs and lows before and I’ve been happy again so I don’t want to regret it.

Staying for the sake of the children here is a really bad idea. Quite apart from giving them a heavy burden to carry it teaches them that your relationship with their dad was based on a lie. Whose sake would you really be staying for; theirs or yours because its somehow "easier"?.

Do not further do your bit here to teach your children such damaging lessons about relationships. You have a choice here re this man and your children do not. You indeed do not have to plough on and suck it up till the kids are older (and how old as well?. You want to further pull the rug out from underneath them say when they go off to university?. Do not do that to yourself or them). Your children know on some level that things are not good at home and your son's already saying he does not think that his dad loves him. His father's response too is appalling and besides which sulking is an example of emotional abuse. Are you spoken to like that by him too?. Do not further stand by and watch your kids being spoken to like this by him.

There are plenty of posters on here who realised at a young age that their parents should have separated but stayed together because of the kids. Your children will not say "thanks mum" to you if you choose to stay with him and otherwise suck it up, they will accuse you of being daft and putting him before them.

I agree with @AttilaTheMeerkat, your son is bearing the brunt of a shit father.

You do not have to rush into anything but I think really thinking through how you could do it alone would be wise.

Would a live in au pair be a solution for a few years?

Quietly reflect, pland, get organised.

Get a file together of your financials.

Your husband's response to his childs distress is shocking and is hardly adult.

He sounds awful.

Start detaching and getting organised.

Keep posting

I would "plough" on IF the kids were happy and settled and fine. Ploughing on when your little son is being harmed by it, not a chance. As SOON as it effects the kids in this way, game over.

This sounds like one for marriage counselling. I do know couples who went through pretty hideous times when the kids were young and then came to be happy again and grew old together.

Something I see a lot (and have perhaps done myself) is:

• woman is an unusually affectionate and loving person who enjoys looking after others.
• woman finds herself drawn to an emotionally stunted, affection-starved man who needs a lot of affection and adores her for how generous she is with hers.
• they have children
• woman, rightly, prioritises the children and gives them most of her attention
• man isn’t psychologically mature to step up to his new ‘dad’ role and instead tries to stay in the child role ie competing for the mum’s attention.
• woman ceases to be sexually attracted to the man who she now sees as a man-child not a true partner.
• man sulks and wonders what is wrong with his wife / blames her changing hormones.
• they avoid each other.

The exits from this situation are:

• man manages to grow up, either of his own volition, or with assistance of a counsellor; or
• they split up

I think you have it in 1 @Skysblue.
He was an unwell person in younger years and things very much centred around him.
He really struggles with not getting enough of my attention, which I find a bit pathetic. Although to be fair to him I probably don’t give him enough attention because I find him a bit boring, we’ve grown apart. His self esteem is low though so I don’t want to have that conversation.
He loves the kids, adores them, but comes from a family where feelings aren’t vocalised, he’s improved a lot over time. I think his feelings are hurt because son prefers me in a very obvious way, but that’s because I’m more receptive to his sensitive needs whereas husband can’t really understand and is probably less ‘pandering’ to it.
So therefore don’t comes to Me to talk and husband feels rejected.
Most of the time we rub along fine and generally everyone is okay, Covid had brought extra pressures and my work has been extra intense and so a lot more childcare etc has fallen in him that what he’s previously been used to.
I don’t want to make any major decisions in the midst of a pandemic which later seem poor choices.

What do you get out of this relationship now?.

Joint counselling with an abuser however, is never recommended. Do you honestly think that he would even consider counselling anyway? He is very much a product of his own repressed upbringing and has to be the centre of attention/your world even now. His sulking behaviour here is designed to punish you all.

I would think you rub along find with him simply because you yourself have learnt and become otherwise conditioned to be quiet and never disagree when you are around him. Also none of this from him at all excuses his behaviour towards your eldest child in particular. He has not been at all concerned about hurting the feelings of his nine year old.

Dear OP it was difficult for me to read your post as I saw myself in it. I have recently separated from my husband of twenty five years and the reasons are very similar to yours. I am not sure what brought us together all these years ago, anymore, but we too grew apart. He has a very difficult personality, he is first of all very selfish and self centered, he has poor communication skills, wants to be right and make decision for both of us, cannot compromise or give in, is rude and obnoxious, criticizes and puts people down all the time. For me, the last straw were kids, although i made sure that through our separation process I did not mention kids at all as I did not want them to feel responsible. But when kids were young he was the best dad. I used to say that the only thing he never did was breastfeed, but when kids started growing up, talking back and such, he somehow got lost, did not know what his role in their life was. He would pester them for the simplest things, but never sit down to talk to them like you would with grown person. Respect their opinion, ask about their life, their day. Kids started growing apart from him, avoiding him and I tried to help him by pointing out what he was doing wrong, but he would get really upset. He would say, "if they do not want to talk to me, I do not want to talk to them". Totally immature, totally wrong. As a father you teach them how to communicate with others, you do not copy their behavior.

Anyway, I know that many women do stay with their men even with a lot worse kind of abuse that this, and I myself stayed for over two decades buy this is where I drew the line. My therapist asked me, " can you imagine spending the next two decades with this man"? That did it for me.

Also, when I realized that I could not even say "he is a good man", because he really is not. Not in my books. He does not empathize with others, does not like/want to help, gets really irritated if he ends up doing something for someone and expects a person or people to be really grateful, even if it was us, his own family. So could not stay with him any longer.

I was in your place - in many ways - a few years ago.
I decided to wait till kids were a bit older - in middle/senior school, as I thought it’d be easier for them to deal with it all. As well as easier on me as they won’t be needing childcare.
It mostly worked out that way. Although I did end up filing a bit before - as my hand was forced.

I don’t regret not leaving when kids were smaller. My life - like yours - wasn’t unbearable. It was comfortable in fact.
And I didn’t know for sure that me being unhappy at that then wasn’t just a rough patch.
As time passed - it became more clearly broken and when I filed it felt like that was the only way forward. I had no doubts by then.
As I said before on a similar post on MN - I don’t regret where I am now. Lots of things got better in my life. But with divorce - new issues arise as well. It’s not all plain sailing.

But what I possibly do regret is not tying to fix things back when they possibly could have been mended. Ex wasn’t very open to it back in the day, and I shit down and mentally distanced myself. Who knows - if we communicated more at the time - maybe we’d not be where we are not.

well you’re always shouting at me and stuff, I don’t think you like me. And that is what Dad said?

Oh Wow! Too much for a 9 year old.

No. This is NOT working for your children or you and also not your DH. I think you need to make moves to split up for the sake of all of you.