Husband doesn’t love me

[StrawberrySquirrelThief]

Last October we had an argument as I felt DH was being cold and off with me, the outcome of which was that he said he no longer loved me.

There were tears and much discussion when it also transpired he didn’t find me attractive and didn’t want to have sex with me. To say I was devastated is not an understatement. He said he didn’t want to separate and wanted to be there for the DC (11).

My understanding at new year when we’d been talking about us again is that we would try and get happy (the last few years haven’t been easy for anyone probably) & work on our relationship.

Fast forward to now. We’ve been getting along better, I no longer feel the resentment seeping from him, we still kiss, hug, hold hands and he no longer seems to shrink back from touching me - I thought things were improving. Last night I made the mistake of asking how he thought we were. He agreed we were happy but his feelings hadn’t changed and he didn’t think they would.

What the hell do I do now? We’ve said we’ll get counselling and neither of us want to be without the other or the kids. Can we come back from this or do we admit defeat now?

You are worth more. Who doesn’t want love in their life? I know you don’t want to
Start again but for your future happiness and self esteem it might be worth moving on? I also think there is another woman waiting in the wings…..

I’m not ready to give up yet

I understand, OP, but unfortunately it's not wholly your choice
You can't force someone to stay in a relationship they're no longer happy with, and with everything you've said I'd be amazed if he hasn't started getting legal advice already

You'd be wise to do the same, and please don't say "he wouldn't have time to see a lawyer" - just as with OW they can be very creative with things they want to do, as I found out to my cost

Maybe he's at 'that age ' where you've done the work raised the kids and feel a lil lost in life. I like that he's been honest with you and although I'm sure it was hard to hear I'm also sure it's neither of your fault. If he wants to do counselling go for it and both give it your all and I hope you get your spark back and start some new adventures together. Good luck op !

If he feels like this the chances are he will leave anyway once the DC are older

Very possibly, yes - which is why I said it would be wise for OP to look into her own legal position

To be blunt few will accept a life with no intimacy at all, and while it can be rebuilt this particular DH seems to have been clear that it's not an option, at least with OP

I understand how devastating this must be but you both deserve to be happy and the happy ever after is no longer a part of your future together.

He may be content plodding along but you obviously want more. Hoping for more will slowly destroy your sense of self and as your children get older, they will pick up on the lie of their parents unfulfilling relationship. Don’t let that be your children’s primary relationship role model.

Staying together for the kids is rarely about the kids and usually more to do with fear of the unknown. Just because your parents divorce impacted you greatly it doesn’t mean yours will, especially if you are both committed to prioritising your children.

Sometimes marriages don’t make it and sometimes no one’s to blame. I definitely would recommend counselling so that your uncoupling if that’s what you decide, is as amicable as you both can make it.

Good luck.

I don’t think you’re naive OP and neither was I, but you noticed he was distant a little while ago, then the ‘I don’t love you any more’ then ‘I love you as a friend’ then ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you’ whilst all the time before this you were happy, noticed nothing wrong and thought he was too?
You’re not naive OP, but from experience I’d be very surprised if this wasn’t something to do with another woman. He’s following the script to the letter. I know you don’t think he’s capable of it and you think he’d never lie to you like that and you want to see him as the man you’ve always seen him as, the honest, decent husband and father who values your marriage like you do and would tell you he was unhappy and talk through it before he’d ever look at anybody else. I know. I honestly know.
Thing is, their ego and feeling flattered and just wanting to feel like a teenager again is powerful stuff and can override quite a lot in the moment. They can make ludicrous, awful, immoral choices that even they never thought they’d make. No, it’s not about evil temptresses, they have a choice, but head turning can and does happen and this is exactly how they behave. Sorry OP.

@StrawberrySquirrelThief

I’m not nanny, housekeeper etc. He does half the childcare - worked part time until last summer. He does more housework than me - I’m the lazy one. He encourages me to go out and do my own thing. He rarely goes out except to his one hobby which is maybe once a week and to work. There is no other woman - he has no chance for an ow.

Exactly what I thought about my husband.. I was wrong! My husband was a nice quiet man, who everyone in my family loved.. no one saw it coming. He spun me the ‘ I love you but I’m not in love with you’ line, straight from the cheater’s handbook. I gave him a chance, counselling etc.. it didn’t change anything and we are now getting a divorce. I really hope your situation is different and he just had to get away for his mental health- but knowing what I know from my experience, I find it unlikely. I’m not saying your hubs went looking for an affair, you say he has a hobby, is it possible he met someone through that or through work?

There’s another woman. There is always another woman in this situation.

He has a hobby you said.........
Unfortunately they can squeeze an extra marital affair in anywhere.
I know of one that took place exclusively during lunchtimes, both parties were married.

Get yourself to counselling as a last ditch attempt.

Tell him you want to try, but ultimately you need to me loved deeply and completely or else you need to separate.

Do not let him get you to agree to live together as friends. Do not accept second best. He is banking on your 'friendship' and kind heart to put up with this.

He doesn't seem scared or threatened at the thought of leaving you.

You need to lay the jaw down. 'I am amazing, I deserve to be loved like crazy' get tough! Know your worth!

If he doesn't have feelings for another women he will soon, you will lose him eventually, he will wander off looking for that spark elsewhere.

I'm so sorry you are going through this, you sound like a very special person. Please find your inner lioness here.

He doesn't seem scared or threatened at the thought of losing* you. (Not leaving)

What I'm his mind is attractive ?
Surely when we first got together his must have found you attractive then . Apart from the obvious ( natural ageing ) and the possibility of weight loss / gain . What has changed ? I'm sure your personality hasn't changed much , maybe your life ideals etc .
I'm wondering if he is shallow enough to see himself as a young man / Prince among men , and his ideal woman would reflect someone 15 - 20 years his junior . If that is true , let him know he is no Adonis himself , and needs a reality check.

My XH was shagging his bird in the car at lunch times

There’s not always another woman/ man. Sometimes people just fall out of love, life gets in the way, people change. This can happen to women too, not just men.

It doesn’t really matter what the reason is, it’s just incredibly hurtful when someone tells you they don’t love you, find you attractive.

This won’t go down well on MN but I’d personally, focus on myself, exercise, eat well, do things for yourself, go out with friends, take up a hobby or class. Stop running after him, make a life for yourself. You aren’t ready to cut and run so it’s pointless trotting out the LTB line. Just yet.

You deserve more

Completely different, but a friend’s relative chose to stay with her DH despite him telling her he was gay. He promised that once their oldest turned 18 he would leave. They got by for over a decade, they were ok, nobody knew. He kept to his word, once the eldest had his birthday that was it. He saw a solicitor, they got divorced, she had a breakdown (she’s ok now) but it was a dark few years. She lost her home, the stress of living a lie took its toll, she isn’t in great health as a result. Six years on she’s turning a corner, has met someone else. But she lost a huge chunk of her life, because she didn’t listen to him. He was unhappy, but stayed for the children, insisted he give them a “happy” childhood. He kept his promise once the eldest turned 18. He also revealed he had a few boyfriends in this time. The children now much older said they always knew mum was unhappy/things weren’t right/sincere. The children wished they had spilt earlier. It’s a painful decision to make, when you think you can just get by, puts off the inevitable. Unless you mutually agree friendship and security truly are ok. You are both still very young for that.

The clue is that he’s saying something.

In my opinion most faithful men in long term relationships are just happy with the status quo, they don’t think too deeply about whether they are ‘in love’ with you or just ‘love you’ , whether they find you attractive or not (happy to have a warm body to cuddle up to and bonus if sex happens regularly too!), and they are just generally accepting of the ebb and flow of things given the age of the relationship.

It’s only when they ‘fall in love’ with someone else do they start complaining to their wife. Suddenly they have someone to compare their boring old wife too, suddenly they realise what animal attraction is, suddenly they think ‘shit, this is amazing, and my wife isn’t even close to making me feel this good’.

That’s when they start talking…

@Blackbird2020

This is very true.

I second @Onthedunes. @Blackbird2020 is spot on.
Everyone is faithful right up to the point until they’re not. It’s sudden, brutal and so intoxicating that their former self gets left standing in the whirlwind of newer, shinier playthings.
Nobody outside of me and my best friend know what my husband did. And they wouldn’t believe me if I told them. My best friend knows him incredibly well and for over 30 years. You could have knocked her down with a feather too. They’d have bet their house he was the last man they’d ever believe capable of such a thing. And at the time, so would I. There’s no one ‘type’ of man or woman who cheats, and there’s plenty of stereotypes we’re taught to look out for as the ‘bad boys’ or ‘siren husband-stealers’. They are nothing but pantomime villains.
Everyone is a potential cheat, but nobody likes or wants to hear it. It’s only what we do when the opportunity arises that differentiates us, and until you’ve genuinely been there you can never say never. Past behaviour isn’t always an indicator of future behaviour, bad or good, and it shocks the hell out of us to discover that.

OP, I don’t think you’re an idiot.

I have also been the husband in this situation. At some point I fell out of love with DH and ultimately he confronted me and I told him. There definitely wasn’t another man.

We decided to stay together - I guess the difference was that I hoped and believed that I would fall back in love with him, because he was/is such a good man, and I also wanted to give our DC a home with both their parents, rightly or wrongly.

It hasn’t always been easy. Sometimes it has been awful. I love him very much; we are very, very good friends; but I’m still not madly in love with him like I was in the past. I so wish that I was.

I’ve told him so many times that I think he deserves more than I can give him. It’s not the relationship either of us envisaged when we were newlyweds, but we have a lot of fun, we always fall asleep holding each other, we share all hopes and dreams and fears with each other, including those about our relationship. We are extremely open and honest with each other and that has taken time and work.

Good luck, OP - I hope you can find some sort of resolution.

It’s not the relationship either of us envisaged when we were newlyweds, but we have a lot of fun, we always fall asleep holding each other, we share all hopes and dreams and fears with each other, including those about our relationship

This sounds like a normal marriage after 10/15 years + to me. Of course we are all different and are entitled to have different needs, but I always thought that heady ‘in love’ feeling was temporary, and is (hopefully) replaced by a deeper love that certainly isn’t as exciting, but is so so much more profound.

Maybe that’s true for most Blackbird2020… maybe I’m the normal one. DH is still giddy in love with me like he was when we met. I know this partly because he tells me and partly because, well, I can just tell from the ways he acts. But perhaps that’s very unusual.

@DogsAndGin

What a miserable sod!

We are rather stiff in this country, though. If you were posting in a French version of MN, they’d probably say, stick with him, but get a boyfriend too, to provide you with the love and intimacy you require.

Not every marriage is ‘traditional’, and lots of different arrangements can work. Would you be open to this? Would he? The best of both worlds - dad for your kids, stable household, peaceful domestic life for you both, but also, you get the no-strings romance and fun, elsewhere.

Fantastic idea 👏🏼

Somehow I have a feeling he wouldn't be game for OP having a boyfriend though.