How do I accept the end?

[ZigZagZen]

I'm trying to come to terms with the breakdown of my marriage. Been together 13 years married for 8. Have two kids, 6 and 1.

We've always had intimacy problems. Basically he has always struggled with confidence in the bedroom with me. Now he says that it's because he doesn't feel close to me, he says he needs to feel connected to have that confidence with me. I feel like I am very emotionally available to him but that he's anxious and wants constant reassurance.

He's a great dad, does his fare share around the house, he makes me laugh. I fancy him. We just sort of put up with the lack of sex because everything else was great. Now he doesn't want to put up with it anymore. I feel this isn't fair now that we have children. But I feel like he is wearing me down to his way if thinking that our relationship is doomed.

Neither of us have any family so the breaking up will be very hard and drawn out as neither of us will be able to stay with family while we sell the house etc.

I really want it to work. But maybe it can't work and my resistance to us breaking up is just a resistance to change rather than what it would be changing to.

I feel so sad for my children. On top of not having any grandparents they won't even have their parents together. Christmas's would be awful for them!

I wouldn't want my kids to have a step father. I wouldn't want to be a step mum. I guess at some point I would like to get into another relationship though. Is that even realistic? An every other weekend partner?

If a future relationship will never happen for me then whats the point in us breaking up? Obviously it's not just up to me.

I always thought we'd be together for life.

I'm so sorry for your pain.

It seems to me a little suspicious. I'm sorry to say that but as a cheated on wife, when a man suddenly starts talking about connections, sexual imbalance etc it is usually because his head has been turned. Someone has made him think differently about a situation that was seemingly acceptable to him before.

Why the sudden change in attitude?

Hes definitely not met someone else. He finds everyone irritating now. He's depressed

The change has been since his Dad died.

Ugh.

Jesus @Tyrellius way to derail OPs thread, you need a whole new thread for your post. But in answer to yours, harsh truth; women want to 'get sex over with' when it's no good for them, basically the guy is a shit and selfish lover. They are basically just doing it to shut you up. Is that the sort of sex you want? Also many women usually hate being groped by their partners, it's not a turn on actually has the exact the opposite effect -lets be honest it's hardly romantic is it? You need to start with turning on her mind not just grabbing at her parts, women are not like men!! I can just imagine you presenting this poor women with an array of 'toys' ball gags etc and other horrors and expecting some wild sex when all she actually wants is some romance and intimacy!!! Most women want to feel loved, and made love to, not to feel like a piece of meat you 'do sex to'. Did she ever (really) orgasm when you had sex? Do you watch a lot of porn? Because FYI the women are actors in porn and many women in real life aren't instantly turned on like this, it's purely designed for male fantasy. Many women take a lot longer than a brief fumble to be turned on, i.e lots and lots and lots and lots of foreplay! I find men who watch a lot of porn don't understand women in real life because the porn has addled their brains, they usually make shit lovers as a result. Getting in the mood starts way before anyone takes their clothes off! Do you run her a bubble bath with candles for her? Give her back massages without there being a heavy expectation of sex after? Do you do nice things for her. Like give her nice flowers just to surprise her (not from the petrol shop, from a florist!!) Do you do nice romantic gestures like thoughtful birthday presents, arrange a kid free date night for you to be able to talk? Cook her a nice meal with wine after the kids are in bed? Does she get a night off from the kids? Do you help with the mental load and with the kid's because it's hard to even make time or think about getting turned on if there are a million things on her mind. Most men have sex to relax, most women need to be relaxed to have sex. I hope this is enlightening for you!

@Tyrellius start your own thread. This isn’t about you.

@ZigZagZen it doesn't sound good. Unless you both agreed to a sexless marriage then one or both were going to be unsatisfied eventually with this. What then usually happens is the unsatisfied person either tries to work with the partner to resolve, leaves or takes the cowards way out and seeks an affair/finds satisfaction elsewhere. I hope for you it's not the latter. Unfortunately if sex was bad before kids it rarely improves after them because there is even less time for yourselves after kids unless you have great childcare options or willing family to help with them. The only thing you can do is talk to him. Find out of there is still attraction there both sides, you say you still fancy him but is that feeling mutual? And referring to my reply to @Tyrellius does he make any effort to please you? Was the sex ever good for you? People tend to stop bothering if the sex is crap, because well why go to the effort! I suspect @Tyrellius situation is a good example of this. You mention confidence issues..does this mean he had problems getting an erection? If so did you both look into any reasons why this might be medical or psychological? Does he want to save the marriage or is he looking elsewhere already? Could his head have been turned? I'd say sticking together in a loveless relationship for the kids probably won't end well and will build resentment, doesn't role model a good relationship for the kids.

@ZigZagZen and @Tyrellius is there any way of marriage counselling? To be able to talk things through? It would be a shame if both of you broke up due to not talking about problems.

This is an odd one. op. So you fancy him and aren’t averse to sharing a bed with him. But he says the relationship is doomed because he wants more sex but he doesn’t want it with you? and his reason is he doesn’t feel connected to you?

what kind of connection is he looking for… what would a “good “ relationship look like? Have you asked what he would like to change if he had a new relationship for example?

I agree if the reason is possibly depression, he needs help. I would start by asking him more about what underlies all this. With a one year old it is very unreasonable for him to expect a very active sex life - even the best of marriages find it hard in the early years, even with family support which you are lacking.

you could also suggest marriage counselling. You could drop into a session that you think dh is depressed and the counsellor should pick up on that and explore it objectively. Cheaper than a break up, would help dh and you see what’s going wrong and decide how to move forward.

perhaps also he is missing what a less troubled life used to be like.- before his dad died, before the stress of kids. There have been a a few golden times in my life when I was happy, and I am nostalgic for those times now I’ve lost both my parents. I miss my mum and dad terribly, even though it has been some time now. And it definitely has made me feel less close to my dh who has no clue what is going on inside my head. Perhaps your dh feels he SHOULD be unhappy, he deserves to be, and his depression is engineering a situation where he is making himself as miserable as possible. Like he thinks it will all go wrong in the end so he may as well convince you of this and end the marriage now.

Yeah yeah yeah @Tyrellius we get it.
Soembody else's thread is JUST the place to make it All About You.
You want your very own Manic Pixie Dream Girl, so that you get the woman who will love you like your mother did, except with sex on demand, despite you obviously being so shit at it that your poor current woman just wants to "get it over with".

I hope you find her, & divorce, because obviously you won't split with your wife until you have your next sex source woman lined up. Here's a tip: if you dismissively view them as a "rebound", feel the need to Pygmalion them by coercing them to commit mortgage fraud & faking their cv's for them, they are probably not the woman for you.

Please don't feel the need to reply, my advice to you is given freely & I hope you take it & piss off. Also that your wife gets a huge settlement when finally find the MPDG you crave.

But I feel like he is wearing me down to his way if thinking that our relationship is doomed.
OP, sad as it is, if one of you thinks it's doomed - then it's doomed.

I really want it to work. But maybe it can't work and my resistance to us breaking up is just a resistance to change rather than what it would be changing to.
Good instincts.
The way you describe your marriage, it's you going all the emotional giving.
You say your sex life isn't great, & that this is due to his lack of confidence, so your role is to reassure him.
But now that isn't enough for him, & instead of communicating, he tells you he wants to split because ... he's not getting enough? WTF is he like?!

I feel so sad for my children. On top of not having any grandparents they won't even have their parents together. Christmas's would be awful for them!
50% of marriages end in divorce, so half of all kids are in this situation.
It's not a tragedy, & it won't make Xmas "awful" unless you or their dad make it so.

I wouldn't want my kids to have a step father. I wouldn't want to be a step mum. I guess at some point I would like to get into another relationship though. Is that even realistic? An every other weekend partner?
Anything can happen, but your focus is in the wrong place.
You need to concentrate on making the best split you can for you & the DC.
Now is not the time to be dreaming up a Replacement Man.
And it is certainly not the time to be thinking of step relationships.
Many single mothers keep their DC entirely separate from whatever shape of love life they decide to engage with, post-divorce.
It's not healthy for you to be thinking about men, or complicated step relationships right now. You need to be thinking about you, your kids, & your career. Everything else can wait.

If a future relationship will never happen for me then whats the point in us breaking up? Obviously it's not just up to me.
So you want to stay in a sexless relationship that isn't making either of you happy, just in case you Never Get Another Man?
Can you see how destructive & self-defeating this is?
Maybe you'll split & become the best version of yourself that you've ever been. You don't need to find a man just because you're single, & you don't need to worry about it before you've even agreed to divorce.

TL:DR if he wants to divorce, go with it. Concentrate on you, your kids & your career, & build yourself up before worrying about rushing into another relationship. You are enough. You are good enough.
You don't need to be defined or validated by relationship 'status'.

@Tyrellius And... twins. It's always twins.

Sorry you're going through this @ZigZagZen but don't throw in the towel yet. Marriage counselling? Have you thought about that?

Tyrellios just did 'man here' and completely derailed the thread. And by the way, you sound awful.

OP are you sure there is no affair? Has he had/having treatment for his depression? It's not up to you to fix him only he can do that. Marriage counselling?

@PurpleButterflyWings I don't want to throw in the towel yet. he's not getting the depression treated. He won't go for couples counselling. Ive told him that he shouldn't make decisions when he's this low as his depression is tanting everything.

I honestly think it's got to this because of his mental health but he thinks it's our relationship. I believe he will carry this shit into another relationship.

@KettrickenSmiled thanks I appreciate all your comments.
@WhatsInAMolatovMocktail @KettrickenSmiled
He's not complaining about not having enough sex. I probs complain about that more. I just think since that's literally the only issue in our relationship.... if I accept us breaking up then I'm basically choosing the the potential for a better sex life over my children having two parents in one house.

@QueenoftheNimbleFlyingCat definitely no affrair. I always know where he is. I completely trust him in that way. He's too grumpy to be having an affair plus he needs connection to have sex. For him to connect he needs to be happy and he's not.

I honestly think it's got to this because of his mental health but he thinks it's our relationship. I believe he will carry this shit into another relationship.
Stop trying to fix the mental health of a man who refuses counselling & won't get medical help for a self-diagnosed 'depression'.

You are absolutely correct - he will take this problem into his next relationship. Why don't you let go of the rope, & let him?

He's not complaining about not having enough sex. I probs complain about that more. I just think since that's literally the only issue in our relationship.... if I accept us breaking up then I'm basically choosing the the potential for a better sex life over my children having two parents in one house.
It's not the only issue in your relationship.
It's the red herring you are hanging his failure to deal with his emotional problems on.
He says he can't have sex without connection. So you make huge efforts to ensure HE has connection. That's not good enough for him, so he wants to leave you. If you accept breaking up, you aren't choosing to LTB to get better sex. You are choosing to accept his rejection of you, & his dismissal of all your efforts to give him the connection & reassurance he wants.

It's jack-all to do with sex.
If you let him go, in a few months you will wonder why you thought it was.
He has made you his full-time Emotional Support Human, but refuses to even consider marriage counselling, because YOUR emotions obviously don't count.

Why are you not more angry about that?
Why are you hoping to hang on in there, in this decidedly unacceptable & unfair dynamic?
Why do you reckon it's better for DC to "have 2 parents in the house" when one of them is so emotionally selfish that he's allowing his misery to infect the entire household?

@KettrickenSmiled

Why don't you let go of the rope, & let him?

Because I want the best for my children.
Because I want the best for him and I think the best for him is to sort his mental health out.

It's not the only issue in your relationship.
It's the red herring you are hanging his failure to deal with his emotional problems on.
He says he can't have sex without connection. So you make huge efforts to ensure HE has connection. That's not good enough for him, so he wants to leave you. If you accept breaking up, you aren't choosing to LTB to get better sex. You are choosing to accept his rejection of you, & his dismissal of all your efforts to give him the connection & reassurance he wants.

It's hard to read that but I agree with all of it.

He has made you his full-time Emotional Support Human, but refuses to even consider marriage counselling, because YOUR emotions obviously don't count.

Again hard to read but yeah that's right.

Why are you not more angry about that?
I rarely feel anger.

If he’s recently bereaved then it’s bereavement counselling he needs. Loading a parent is overwhelming and can totally derail you.
I was lucky that my DH was totally supportive after my parents died and didn’t let the low moods I experience reflect on our relationship.
Have you let him talk. The mind does weird stuff during bereavement and his reactions are those of someone who perhaps feels that their partner is not really understanding their loss but he is unable to explain. There is no set time line to “getting over it”. Losing a close loved one set off a cascade of thoughts. The pain is excruciating and you don’t want to have to go through it again so part of you shuts down, sometimes forever. Your DH may be shutting down in an attempt to cope with the overwhelming feeling of loss. Inadvertently you seem to be whitewashing his grief and making it all about you. Try reflecting on how you would be feeling in his position. Your comment about your sex life is quite revealing, in that you seem rather arrogant that you are somehow better than him in bed.

Have you let him talk. I am always there for him when he wants to talk. He has spoke to me about it a lot. On an evening he is either out with friends or talking to me about the grief.

Inadvertently you seem to be whitewashing his grief and making it all about you.

He's the one saying that he can't try anymore with out relationship. he's saying the problem is us I'm saying it's the grief.

@Tyrellius

WTF are you doing posting that on someone else thread for! I read the first paragraph because I was trying to see how it related to OP but then realised it didn’t so stopped.

I notice someone picked up on twins, I hadn’t got that far. Twins. Right.

What's the significance of twins?

Because I want the best for my children.
Because I want the best for him and I think the best for him is to sort his mental health out.

ZigZag, the best thing for the children is a happy, thriving mother.
And he has to be the architect of what is best for him - even if you disagree totally, & feel that his problems are due to bereavement, rather than an unfixable fissure in the marriage.

If he refuses to accept that his current malaise is due to bereavement, & won't seek help for depression, or attend counselling to help him reconcile whatever is going on with him ... there's not much you can do, because it's not in your power, no matter how hard you try or how good your intentions, to fix it for him.

I am very sorry about how hard it's been for you to read PP's responses.
But your H seems to be telling you he cannot be intimate (sex?) with you because he is not feeling the closeness he needs to be confident. So you respond by reassuring him further. You spend the evenings he is not out with friends talking with him, all about him, & seeking to establish connection. Nothing changes.
He tells you again that he is not connected to you, you try harder, he stays withdrawn - although I note he feels close enough & confident enough to rely on you as an unqualified therapist evening after evening ...

I understand that this is painful OP, & it certainly is not my intent to cause you additional hurt. But if he refuses to help himself, & continues to accept all your help (on this unfair one-way basis) while simultaneously telling you it's not working to bring you closer together, nothing is going to change. You will each become further entrenched in your helpmeet wife/disatisfied husband dynamic, until there's not enough of you left to recognise yourself anymore. So you need to start considering YOUR welfare too. He cannot keep dragging this out at your expense, while refusing to get concrete help for his bereavement /depression/ lack of confidence/ feelings of disconnect from his wife. That would be far worse for your children to live with, than sharing their homes with 2 separated parents who are no longer keeping each other in an unhappy dynamic, & who can start to find their own contentment again.

That's not to say LTB: it's to, I hope, validate your right to your own contented life, without having to defer all your happiness to somebody else's stubborn refusal to get help or start getting honest about what exactly he feels is wrong in the marriage. Because his current narrative makes no sense whatsover:
"I'm not unhappy 'cos my dad died, I'm unhappy because the lack of closeness to you makes me lose confidence, so you need to spend all evening reassuring me so I can feel confident again - but no, I STILL don't feel the connection - no matter how much you pour in, it's not enough."

Sounds pretty much like "I'm unhappy, it's your job to make me happy, so when I'm not happy, it is your fault, & you need to work even harder to make me happy", doesn't it?
You say you rarely get angry, but ... that is a deeply unfair position. You would not be unreasonable to be pissed off about it.

Thanks @KettrickenSmiled 💐💐