Love DH but have never fancied him.

[Brightskieswinterdays]

Has anyone been in this situation and what was the outcome?
I’m finding it more and more difficult, clearly we should never have got married but at the time I settled. I shouldn’t have settled.
Sex is nonexistent, he’d like it, I wouldn’t. He’s trying to do all the right things but I’ve never fancied him so I’m not sure there’s much he can do. When he tries to initiate sex my body just says no and even kissing him feels wrong.
We’ve three children, 5, 9 and 12.
Things have sort of come to a head this Christmas as he’s tried to initiate sex and I just haven’t been able to do it.
What do I do?

Oh dear
You end the marriage
It’s sad and terrible
But one day he will thank you for it (hopefully !)

And , don’t beat yourself up too much
Lots of people get married for the wrong reasons
Lots and lots and lots x

Split up. Coparent as well as you can. Expect him to be pretty unhappy though he will be already.

Somewhere out there might be a woman who’d adore him. He deserves better than being stuck in a sexless marriage against his will because you settled for him. That’s just brutal and awful.

Set him free.

We are drawn to people for complicated reasons and it can be that it either replicates a familiar pattern for us or feels ‘safer’ to be with partners for whom we feel little or no sexual attraction. Maybe that’s what we witnessed in our parents’ marriage? Maybe we struggle to reconcile the vulnerability of desire with needing to feel safely ‘parented’ by a partner.

There are many ways of doing relationships, not all involve ending them - though perhaps that is where you need to go, OP. Some couples are able to negotiate what is an acceptable compromise with sexual needs being met elsewhere; some co-parent but separately etc. However, this is going to require a lot of honest communication in order to resolve it. You express love for him, and that’s hopeful. You’ve had children and raised them together; that shows you can work together. Good luck.

Craftycorvid
Very wise post indeed

@inmyslippers

Tell him, not brutally. Sign up to a life of no sex or separate

Or actually have the guts to make the decision yourself rather than presenting someone with two shit sandwiches and asking them which one they would like to take a bite of.

Hi there, I just wondered how you got on and what decisions you took in the end?
I am in a very similar situation and the guilt I feel for staying with someone for years, when very early on I had a 'gut' feeling I ignored and would look around at how wonderful he was - and my brain would say why would you leave this? There is just some gut feeling that is off? I now in hindsight see that I didn't 'fancy' him but that felt trivial compared to how kind and lovely to be around he was, and we had so much in common in terms of how we liked to work and spend our spare time.
But the feeling has resurfaced on and off over the past 10 years, and now it is at a point it is unbearable and I have finally realised what I have done...I didn't intend to hurt him or be in this situation, so I really don't want to be judged on here, just here about others situations and the outcomes? Xx