If you weren't happy at 27.. are you now?

[justwantabitofhope]

I really need a bit of hope. I met my partner when I was 20. We live together, lovely house in a lovely place, two lovely kids. I'm 27 now and I think for the last couple of years I've really known that something isn't right. Nothing awful has happened. The reality is I'm just a very different person now than I was at 20 and unfortunately I don't feel like my partner and I have really grown together, I think we've grown apart. We have tried to reconnect, to carry on having date nights etc, but you know deep down when your heart just isn't it?

I have young kids, and my reality is I don't want to lose them 50% of the time. I'm only young myself, I have a lot of life ahead of me, there is just no need to blow my life up now and lose any time with my kids. That may be an unpopular point to make, and I get it. My parents stayed together for the kids and we all would of been happier if they split up. Incidentally once the kids had left they never found the guts to do it and are still solidering on with a less than ideal situation.

The difference is my parents were at each other's throats. We aren't. Although my gut feeling is that my feelings won't change, we are still trying, still engaging with each other, still being a team, still trying to show each other affection so kids see a healthy dynamic. It's not an angry resentment situation, just a sort of sad one.

I guess what I'm trying to say if you knew at 27, that you probably weren't with the right person, but you weren't ready to leave yet, the kids were too young, you still weren't sure, you just needed more time etc. Are you further down the line and happy now? Did it all work out?

I do sometimes think that actually, relationships don't need to last forever. Maybe they can have a shelf life and that's ok. Maybe my partner was the right person to have kids with, I got my lovely babies, and I never had a lot of the issues my friends did, he is active and involved, it was 50/50 even when they were tiny babies, he cooks cleans and parents just as much as I do. He's a great dad and they love him.

Maybe once my kids are that bit older, maybe that's when our relationship is done, maybe that's when there will be others who are right for us both at that stage in our life. Has anyone had this? I guess I just want some hope that if this doesn't get better, there is life beyond it..

@justwantabitofhope be careful of grass is greener syndrome. As you acknowledge, most women would kill for what you have, having an involved man doing 50/50 and is a loving husband and father. Can you both not go for counselling?

You could leave and find another man then find that in 20 years time, the same thing happens again because we're always evolving people, no one stays the same or changes at the same pace throughout the whole of their marriage no matter what age they got together. It's totally unrealistic to expect otherwise. Bear in mind, men tend to mature differently from women, so for all you know, some years down the line, he could grow to meet you where you're at.

Often in relationships you swap one set of problems for another since no one is perfect. You also have kids to think of whose lives will be permanently affected by the breaking up of the family.

From a dating perspective, having kids will also make things a LOT harder for you. The reality is that men with the most desirable traits can afford to be picky with women and the vast majority of single men in their late 20s and 30s would not pick a single mother with kids from another man due to the huge "baggage", complexities and restrictions this creates.

This changes of course when men are significantly older since more of them have split up from their partners/wives but then you're also having to deal with someone else's kids and the natural baggage they bring. As well as the fact that a lot of them will have issues which led to the wife/partner getting to the point of splitting from them in the first place...

No advice but bump for you. I met mine at 18 and we are now 40. Another 15 years before kids fly nest.

Children change things, we have no help or extended family so he does a lot and is a good dad. (I think most dads of our generation do far more than our parents, so don't want to go too far in praise!)

I sometimes wonder if we will ever get that old bit back when just the two of us vs the world - fear it'd be too late. We had a great decade through uni and our 20s, travelling, socialising etc and I miss it. Now we're just busy in our careers, worrying over kids (1 is particularly challenging) and have more of a working relationship.

I met my partner at about 21 and I distinctly remember feeling quite disenchanted around the late 20s. I think the 7-year-itch is a real phenomenon.
We didn't have kids til 5 years later and that was another point where I nearly ended it. But got through it with therapy and work from both of us.
Hand on heart I'm now extremely happy at 53, it's til death do us part. A lot of that is to do with my internal happiness and fulfilment but we are also a loving partnership.
Don't stay unhappily married for decades. But divorce sucks. It's heartbreaking (my parents split, and I work in this area). There is middle ground between your parents' gritted teeth endurance test, and splitting, and that's where long healthy marriages are made.
As the above person said, you sound like you have a good foundation and maybe it needs some work.
Sometimes the problem is too much togetherness and too little differentiation. I really recommend individual therapy for yourself and maybe along the line some couples work.

Thank you, we haven't actually married. We got engaged and planned a wedding a few years ago, the wedding was booked 2 years in advance and when it came around so did the first lockdown so it got cancelled. Now it's been 4 years since we originally planned a wedding, and now the doubts have set in neither of us feel ready to plan another one, as I think we both know it would probably end in divorce eventually, so it seems silly to even do it. It's this sort of state of limbo now. Again that's a shame as I've always wanted to get married, but it just isn't good enough right now to do that

I agree with Mix, that you may be very foolish to think the grass is greener. I think you may find that the dating scene is filled with men who are not that attractive. And they are there for a reason, their wife left them for many reasons. You may meet a good'un, but they are few and far between. Don't you think that most of the good ones are already happily at home with their families.

Actually your latest post shows you've already decided.

DH and I were just 24 when we got together, so a bit older than you and didn't have kids till early 30's. We're 47 now and like PP said we're in it til the end now as we're happy. I have had some rough patches and doubts but that wasn't due to the relationship I now realise. We had good foundations and a parental partnership like yourselves. Lockdown has been hard to everyone and it's made a lot of people reassess their relationships. It made me realise the changes I needed to stop the doubts etc were internal ones, not relationship. I had to reassert who I was and move away a bit from being mum and wife. DH and I have always had our own interests, weekends away with our own friends and now our DC's are both in secondary, it's changed what we can do as a family. Whether you're married or not, being a family is hard work sometimes.

you have to be very careful at this point op.
would you go to a relate counsellor together to find if the relationship can be saved.