A QUESTION FOR HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEARTS

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I’ve been with my husband since we were in our teens and we are now early 30s. We are considering ttc soon and I am so panicked, I just feel like we are not “in love” even though we love each other very much. Just little things like finding each other’s eyes in a crowded room, texting during the day - we don’t do anymore.

He’s a wonderful man, a truly great guy, he’s funny, handsome, smart and caring and my friends all love him and they love us as a couple too - but sometimes I wish I had met him when we were in our late 20s and had had more of a chance to sow our wild oats.

I know it’s unconventional and would probably risk losing him forever, but has anyone in a similar situation ever tried a no questions asked break where you just have 6 months of being “single” - living alone, getting to know yourself, maybe even dating a bit etc before getting back together? Would this ever work? Is this insane?

I don’t want to necessarily meet anyone else, and obviously don’t want him to meet anyone else, but I do want to experience that adult life of dating and living alone, just doing things all my friends have been doing for the last decade - before we go into the next stage of our lives together. A part of me also maybe wants to test us, to have us both “choose” each other again!

I don’t want to lose him but I’m also panicked and unsure about having children when I feel so disconnected and have never had another romantic experience, the chance to find ourselves as individuals, or ever really even been adults independently of each other!

I know as well that covid and the various lockdowns haven’t been brilliant for relationships, and I don’t want to discount the negative impact that might have made on my feelings of connection and excitement.

For people who are with the person they met as a teenager, have you ever felt this way? What did you do about it? Did you just give your head a wobble and carry on or did you come up with a unique solution and manage to make it work? Is it independence I need or is am I going about it the wrong way and what we really need is more connection? How would we achieve that?

Please help me mumsnet

Hello Op,

I’ve been with my DP since uni, but cannot say on my part that I had a proper relationship before meeting him. We are in our early 40s now for reference.

There was a time when I felt like you, thinking I haven’t done a lot of stuff on my own, that it would have been nice to go out with other people, etc, but it was just a phase. For a very long time no man I found a bit interesting would measure up to my partner; we actually were apart for 6 months but not broken up at one point, just living in different countries. That didn’t stop him from sleeping with someone else and although I realised something was off it didn’t make me go through a “wild” phase, I just went through the worst nightmare I could envisage existed when you’re 23. 10+ years later life gave me what I wanted when I was younger, to feel again like in the incipient phase of a relationship. But it was such a slap on my wrist, as it didn’t present how I’d envisaged it. It was an EA and it was horrible. One thing I learnt from that is that I’m not wiling to go through that incipient phase again.

Op, I think you have an idealistic view on relationships, and although you two have been together a long time you come across as not having had major issues in your relationship. I don’t believe there is such a thing as no questions asked break without affecting the other party. And you cannot ask for you to go out on dates while he carries on and not meet anyone else. I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t go for what you want, I am just trying to make you aware that it may not go the way you thought it would. As you recognised it yourself, all of this is brought by the fact that you are preparing to enter a new stage in your life, motherhood. But that is not the end of the world.

I suggest you talk to him and see how he feels about life in general, does he feel he has lost any opportunities by being in a relationship with you? Think carefully though before you open Pandora’s box.

I'm not with a school sweetheart, in fact, I'm in my 30s and single so I know it's not really me you're asking but I'm kind of on the other side of what you think you might be missing. I've dated loads, had several long relationships and lived and travelled independently for years.

I see where you're coming from but would advise caution and some creativity in how you explore being more independent before going to the next phase of being settled together. That is to say this jumps out:

i don’t want to necessarily meet anyone else, and obviously don’t want him to meet anyone else

Well, if you're both dating and looking around, this is exactly what might happen. I have no doubt that it would be upsetting in the extreme.

I wouldn't like to say 'ignore these feelings and count your blessings'. However, perhaps you're feeling like bookends as you've been together so long, and this could be relieved in other ways without necessarily enacting the single life which I think would be risky if what you really want is to reconvene and carry on life together. Perhaps you could travel alone, do more stuff separately, reevaluate your individual goals. I get the impression that a bit of separation might actually help you connect more, especially after lockdown.

However, you mention a disconnected feeling, and also list how your friends see him in a positive light, rather than you. Could you actually be tentatively reevaluating whether you want to be in this relationship at all? If so, think this through properly, rather than just visualising a temporary rumspringa type-break as a permanent solution.

You've missed out an important life stage, the teenage and 20s dating, finding your independence, the struggles that go alongside that, and the achievement of coming out the other side as a well rounded person with a variety of experiences. It's fine to feel sad about that. You haven't had the opportunity to find out who you are and to create and recreate your identity as an individual. Your identity or at least a big part of it, has always been as part of a couple and it sounds like you feel like people don't see you, they see the couple.

It's fine to grieve the youth you've missed out on but that isn't necessarily a reason to end a happy relationship. The grass isn't always greener on the other side but your issue is that you haven't had the opportunity to explore any of the other side at all to find out.

What happens on this break if he meets someone and decides he doesn't actually want to get back together?

Hi there,
I’ve been with my husband since I was 15 and he was16. We are 62 and 63 now. We married at 20 and a year later moved halfway across the world.
I can honestly say I have never thought that I had missed out on anything. We are friends, lovers and partners. We’ve been through all kinds of stuff, job losses, childbirth, child death, parents deaths etc. but we are a team and so far things are still good. We are now looking at retirement and are excited for the next chapter in our lives.
Sometimes it does work.

I'd seriously give it some thought if you're having doubts because having a child changes a lot. Depending on how hands on your husband will be - I think that has an impact. But I'm married to my first and only partner and in our early 30s with a young child. I think I definitely ignored doubts or worries like yours and didn't have that time in my 20s to "figure out" who I was or what I wanted in life (that's not to say I didn't have a good time but a part of me always wanted to do that but I lacked the courage I think). Now I'm in an awful situation where I'm not happy but feel stuck and possibly causing a lot of upset breaking up a family. Having said all that though I don't for one second regret having a child because it's changed me as a person in so many (good) ways. So maybe that's just my journey 🤷‍♀️ I guess you need to figure out what you want your journey to look like.

The thing is OP, the 'scene' you missed out on from,say, late teens to early thirties is not the scene you will experience as a 'single' thirty-something. Once again you will be on the flip side of what everyone else is doing - you were settled in a LTR when they were dating and living single lives and now it would be vice versa.
You grew up when/how you grew up, can't re-run it now!
A temp split (how would that even work?) will cost you your relationship. Be ready for that. And that's fine if that's what needs to happen, before you bring children into the equation.
If you're imagining 6 months of carefree flings then a seamless return to your DH, think again.

You can't have a no questions asked break. Think about it, OP!

If you have a 6 month break are you seriously going to get back together at the end of it and will it honestly never cross your mind how many other women he's had sex with in that time? Will you never drive yourself mad wondering if he had 'relationships' with any of them? Or just much more exciting sex than he has with you?

Yes, it's insane. You have to accept your teenage 'sowing your wild oats' years are gone forever and either settle down in your marriage or split up for good.

OP ask your single friends In their 30s what being single is actually like at their age. Especially for the ones who want to have children.

Dating is very different now. It’s online. It’s brutal. It’s cruel. People ghost you. People lie about their age, their height etc. I was single in my late 20s, in my early thirties and again in my mid 40s. I wish I had what you have. The stability and the history.

Have you lost the romance? Do you have date nights?

So you're going to date other guys but with a plan to return to your man after six months?
Obviously some of these guys will be happy for a shag but if they're looking for a partner you're just wasting their time?

I agree that your teenage serial snogging phase is gone forever. But it sounds like you could benefit from doing something alone for you - go travelling or something?

Hi, I’ve been with my dh since we were in high school and now we are in our early 30s and just found out we’re expecting our first child.

I totally understand where you are coming from.
Dh and I relationship kinda fizzled out a few years ago. We loved each other, we are best friends but j think we just lost our spark.
Without fully speaking to each other I found out he was having an emotional affair.
I was broken, i felt more hurt than I actually expected. When confiding in a mutual friend, I became close with that person and felt a spark with them. This freaked me out and I didn’t want to continue with it so stopped.
We took some time, whilst still living together, to figure out what we wanted.
We had both given each other such a fright and felt awful about it. I regretted it massively, I just needed the spark with my dh, not the attention of another man.
After a lot of work, openness and building up our trust again, we found our spark. It became apparent that we stopped dating each other. We started having date nights, doing something special for each other and genuinely tried for each other.
I am more in love with him now and I know he feels the same.
I’ll always hate what happened with us, we are both not proud but it was now over 6 years ago and we’ve worked hard to where we are today.
My advice js to think about what you want. I think you’re panicking about the future and settling down. If you see yourself ending up with him then work on your relationship. Sadly I don’t think you can have a break and return as normal as there will always be questions between you of what happened.