What do you do when your ‘happy’ marriage doesn’t feel that happy.

[PaddlingLikeADuck]

What do you do if your marriage that seems so perfect from the outside feels very lonely on the inside?

I’ve been with my husband for 12 years, married for 9 and we have two amazing children. We have good jobs, a nice house, a nice lifestyle and people probably think we have a great marriage.

There is nothing wrong with my husband at all, he’s amazing and a wonderful father and we get on well 99.5% of the time but it just feels like something is missing.

I would never admit it to anyone but underneath the veneer of happiness I don’t think I really matter that much to him.

I feel upset and confused and I don’t know what to do.

Forget about what your marriage looks like from the outside / on paper. It isn't true and so it's irrelevant.

It seems you're saying, basically, that you don't feel important to your husband. Has this always been the case? Is it a recent thing? Can you talk to him about it?

Do a marriage course. Lots of local churches run them for free or small donation or couples counselling. It sounds like there is enough to try saving.

We did when we had problems and a lot of it was to do with the different ways we give and experience feeling loved. So much happier now.

Talk to him.

It seems you're saying, basically, that you don't feel important to your husband. Has this always been the case? Is it a recent thing? Can you talk to him about it?

When I do try and talk to him he just gets mad and I’m made to feel like I’m overreacting or being ridiculous.

I’ve had a decline in a health condition over the last few years that’s had a massive impact on our life and I think that’s why I’m noticing the cracks more. Before that life was so easy for us and so we just happily lived our lives with no real challenges.

But things feel different now.

As a result of my health decline (though thankfully it’s on the way to improving again now) I began suffering really badly with anxiety a year or so ago and was started on a very low dose of a beta blocker which really helped. However, over the last 6 months it was getting worse again to the point where I went to see my GP about it. My husband knew I was going to see my GP but he didn’t even ask me about when I saw him that evening after work. I kept waiting for him to ask how it went and he didn’t.

About three weeks ago I started CBT and my first ‘appointment’ was a telephone call to discuss my anxiety, to do an assessment of me and see what steps we could take towards me managing my anxiety better. My husband knew I was having that phone cal and three weeks later he still hasn’t even asked me about it. Every day I kept telling myself, “this is the day where he’s going to show he cares by asking you how the call went….”. But he still hasn’t.

This morning I had to do something really difficult which I was talking to my DH about last night. He knew I was nervous about doing it and that I was worried but he hasn’t even text or phoned me to check how I am. I text him this morning once I’d done what I was dreading, to let him know, and he hasn’t even bothered texting me to check it ok. When I was talking to him about it last night I was upset so I guess I’m hurt that I don’t even matter enough to him for him to even check I’m okay.

I could give lots of examples like this. Lots and lots.

Sometimes he picks me up from work and doesn’t even ask me how my day has gone.

It’s like he’s just not interested in anything to do with me.

It just really hurts.

It sounds like an empty relationship. Plus he doesn’t want to listen and gets angry. Your feelings are an inconvenience he does not want to be bothered with.

So sorry OP. I don’t know what to suggest other than try talking to him again, telling him how much this is destroying any chance of a future together. Or consider leaving.

I completely understand. I had an ex that made me feel like I didn't matter. He never asked how my day was. if I told him something about a coworker or friend (like a serious illness), he never followed up later to ask how they were doing. He never asked how my interviews went, he never remembered them either. If i was sick he never asked how I was feeling, if I went to the doc he never asked how it went.

Just never interested and it made me feel lonely. I'm not sure you can change that type of person, but luckily I wasn't married to him.

So you connect on any other level? Have family days out / holidays? Do you have date nights and if so how is the conversation? Are you having regular (for you) sex?

Did he go to boarding school?

Yes we connect on other levels, we go on holidays, weekends away, we go out for meals together etc but when we are talking it feels like he’s only chatty if it’s a topic that he wants to talk about. I find myself initiating conversations that are geared towards him otherwise I fear we would sit in silence.

I spoke to him about it last night, about why he hadn’t asked me about the upsetting thing I’d had to do yesterday morning and he said he’d “forgot” and I was being unfair to him by making an issue out of it.

I asked him why he had never asked me about my anxiety therapy and he said “he forgot” about me having it.

He said sorry lots of times but in a nutshell he simply forgot.

Important things about me aren’t important enough to remember I guess.

It’s been really awkward since….we are sort of staying out of each other’s way and not really talking.

Are you having regular (for you) sex?

He would definitely say no.

But I find it hard to want to have sex with someone who makes me feel like I don’t matter.

And to the above poster - he didn’t go to boarding school.

This is a difficult one. It's easier to say leave when there is an affair or abuse. It's much much harder to see the best outcome for something like this.

It sounds more like friends who are co-existing.

If you are unhappy then in is ok to leave. You don't need a specific dealbreaker. For you it is a lack of emotional caring. And that sounds pretty reasonable to me.
You could try counselling, but it would probably only delay the inevitable.
Only you can decide when to leave.

Why does the default advice always have to be to leave? The OP and her husband have built a great life together. I think what the OP is experiencing is completely normal. You have your ups and downs in long term relationships. Periods of time when maybe you aren't getting along very well or you don't feel cared for. Or maybe you don't feel understood and you feel taken for granted. It can be small things the other partner does or doesn't do over time that can make you feel this way.

Ive been in a similar situation. Where after a few years we went through a really difficult phase where he seemed so uncaring and indifferent towards me. We had financial issues and were living in a 55m2 apartment with our two kids. And I was left pondering what had happened to us after the amazing early years of our relationship. He was a solid decent guy, not abusive etc. Then I slowly started to realise that maybe he feels the same? Maybe he is also feeling unappreciated and is harbouring lots of micro-resentments too that are starting to build up on his side.

I asked myself at that point whether I was the same attentive/caring partner that I had been at the start of our relationship? The answer was no. I had changed too. Maybe for legitimate reasons i.e busy with kids etc. So little by little I started putting more effort in and he started reciprocating in buckets. We managed to crack through the barriers that had slowly crept up and discuss our issues and put them to rest.

Relationships are like bank accounts which have to be topped up regularly by both parties.

I realise that the above only applies to someone in a long term relationship with a decent bloke (not an abusive situation).

I also realise that I am probably going to get flamed for writing the above as the default advice here on mumsnet is to dump any relationship where the going gets tough and you are not 100% happy regardless of the consequences for your family. Plus not to make any effort when you are not getting what you want.

But real life long term relationships don't work that way. You have to take action to try and grow closer and not apart. That may mean setting your grievances aside and also looking at things from his perspective. That doesn't mean that your hurt/concerns shouldn't be addressed. But maybe you will both be in a better place to do that once you are in a better place with eachother? Because it seems that genuine communication is not happening and can't happen until you both open up allow yourself to be vulnerable with each other?

I am not for a second saying this is the case here but I do think living with someone who has health issues and / or anxiety/depression can be draining for the other person too.

It is no one’s fault and I’m not in any way blaming the OP for this, but I suppose I can see how there might be a well of sympathy/concern that starts to run a bit dry.

I was the same. Had the picture perfect family from the outside - married mum and dad, 3 beautiful DCs. My exH was never nasty or abusive - if anything he was bordering on “too nice”. But he was also so absorbed by his job, everything else, including me and the DCs came second fiddle. I felt invisible. Like nothing more than a housekeeper and live-in nanny. It got to the point of some serious resentment that I’d given up my career and the chance of developing a new one in order to be a SAHM, and yet his job was the most prominent aspect of our entire lifestyle and his personality. Every conversation came back to the job.
I even started “acting out” in an effort to get some sort of reaction from him - I’d have taken anything: anger, upset etc, just for him to show me some kind of emotion. But still nothing. I talked to him about it. Told him what I needed to change in order for our marriage to get back on track. This happened multiple times over the space of a few years, and every time I gave him the benefit of the doubt because I felt so guilty for even thinking about breaking up my DCs “perfect family”. Nothing ever changed. The resentment grew. And the misery that was my life began to eat me up. So I left.
Me and the DCs now live about 20 mins away, they still see ExH very regularly, and he and I are actually getting on better than we ever did when we were together. Clearly we are better as co-parents than we are as a married couple and I’m very much ok with that. From my situation I’ve learned that once the resentment sets in, the romantic kind of love quickly disappears and if the other party doesn’t meet you in the middle there’s not much you can do to get that back.
I think I’ll always love my exH because he’s the father of my children and he is still my friend, but any kind of romantic feelings I ever had towards him died a long time ago.

@Ringmaster27. That totally resonates. I have a similar marriage, certainly didn’t start like this but has become so over the years as he has gained more and more responsibility and prestige career wise. Not a horrible bloke by a long shot and I still care about him- but he is simply not very nice to live with.

It’s so difficult. I feel like every 6 months or so we have a big arguement and whatever the focus of the arguement is, underneath it, the catalyst is in some way related to me knowing he isn’t happy. Last time we fought I told him that I was worried he wanted to break up but was too scared to tell me but he assured me that wasn’t the case.

Sometimes I hear him laughing and playing with the children and he’s so happy, and I feel jealous that he’s never that happy with me. If anything it just points out even more and flat he feels around me.

Last night I was lying in bed because I couldn’t sleep as he was snoring a little so I decided that I would go and get some sleep on the sofa. When I got up he stirred and asked what I was doing, so I explained, and his answer was that we should sleep in separate rooms and that we could convert the dining room into another bedroom. I told him I didn’t want to sleep in separate rooms and hr just said, “We’ll talk about it in the morning” and then rolled over.

I know a lot of people have separate rooms and it’s fine, but when I’m already feeling that he’s so distanced from me it just feels like another nail in the coffin.

With that latest update I think he’s definitely distancing himself from you.
Maybe this is his way of communicating something so difficult and he knows it will be so painful he can’t put it into words. A bit cowardly but understandable. He may not even consciously be able to accept that is how he feels, maybe he doesn’t want to be away from the kids.
Staying with someone who doesn’t love you will just erode your self esteem and you’ll feel unlovable. You’re not!

If it's not working you make the decision to end things. I'm in the process of this and I'm not going to lie, it's horrible and it's hard but things haven't been right for coming up to 2 years and I can't keep going backwards and forwards.

There are so many issues when you start to unpick our relationship on both sides and it's time we were brave and admitted the marriage side of things just isn't working.

I'm in the process of sorting somewhere to live and I hope we can continue to have something of a friendship for the kids sake.

I’ll be honest here, I read your post a few weeks ago about how your DH goes on holiday a couple of times a year with the kids and without you and I did find that strange but so many posters said how normal it was I assumed I was the weird one!

But it does seem almost like you’re living parallel lives?

I’ll be honest here, I read your post a few weeks ago about how your DH goes on holiday a couple of times a year with the kids and without you and I did find that strange…

That’s been part of our family routine for over 5 years now and it’s only over the last 12 months that I’ve felt something wasn’t ‘right’.

He seems very different this morning though. We’re happily talking about our son’s upcoming birthday and the party he’s having with all his friends, and he’s also just announced that he’s booked us a weekend away in Paris for his birthday this Summer.

This is what I find so confusing, there’s just so many mixed messages. I feel like I don’t know what version of him I’m going to get…..the version where he seems happy with me and our life, or the version where he feels really distant.

I love him and I don’t want things to end, but it’s hard when so often I feel like he’s unhappy.