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.

Oh OP, I've been here. Turned myself inside out and upside down to try help and support him through his depression - in an effort to fix him and fix us, with no thought or concern for myself. The TLDR is that you can't fix him, and you're not responsible for him. I couldn't even comprehend leaving, I felt I owed it to my children and I couldn't abandon him as he was. Not that he seemed to overly want to stay with me. I encouraged him to get therapy, antidepressants, went to couples therapy with him, got therapy myself, and ended up depressed too with the turmoil of it all. Still couldn't rescue him or fix him.

Anyway, in the end when the first affair came to light I was actually relieved to know I wasn't going crazy. He fell apart and promised to do everything to repair. That was short-lived and upon discovery of the second affair, I could call it quits with no regrets.

Save yourself. Don't let him drag you down and destroy you. Let him go if he wants to go - that is what he's telling you. You can't save what isn't there to be saved, and you certainly can't save anything on your own.

Thanks @Oodie29 . Really my only option is to let him go. Ugh.

Honestly OP, he sounds like an utter drain. How can you put up with him? Given that he has 2 young children, I'm not sure how genuine his claims of lack of intimacy are. Some people are just never happy. I think you could be much better if you got rid of this moaning, grumpy man. It sounds like it might be his personality (disorder of some sort?) and just the way he is. Bonus that he seems to be offering to remove himself. You might find that a weight has been lifted off your shoulders once he is gone. Given that its going to be financially disruptive, it surely cannot be as bad as putting up with him and his constant vague moaning?

As for the guy who posted all about himself. Seriously?

OK @Tyrellius I'll bite, but only this one more time.

See the 'Report' button in blue underneath posts?
Go to your offending post, hit 'Report' & ask MNHQ to delete it for you.

If is stops you coming back to merail under the guise of -"oh silly me, can join a SM platform without issues, write beautifully constructed stories all about myself, & post them without hiccups, but just can't seem to work out how the software functions, even though I'm such a smart guy I have to invade somebody else's thread to tell PP how clever I am" -
it'll be worth it.

@AchatAVendre yeah I guess since I've put up with the lack of intimacy for so long I've already accepted that. what I haven't accepted is the financial strain of splitting, the loss of what's left of our relationship, the loss of the kids having a joint home and the loss of hope for our relationship.

It's sad.

Again, apologise to the OP for my crap. Any advice I receive here would apply to their situation. I have reported my original post, see if it gets removed. If need be I can start my own post.

This should apply to the OP too, in my case I mentioned it and nope... I would be going alone:)

Also before I get any more stupid responses, I tried everything, also I am one of those people that get pleasure from giving pleasure.

I imagine that some relationships are like a problematic car, you love it, but you keep giving it your time, money, all the TLC and parts and yet it still breaks down all the time, so at what point to you just let it go?

Even if he has mental health issues, or is just unhappy, you need to give him his agency. He wants to end the marriage. If he is wrong about his decision then he is wrong and he will have to live with that.

Basically you are not functioning as a family. That will gradually turn for low level unhappiness to toxicity. Or worse a family devoid of emotion and honesty where suppressed feelings burn away at happiness.

He has told you that he is not happy and wants to end the marriage. You must now accept that and work with him to end it in a way that ensures the children are secure and can be in a relationship with both of you.

I would also echo the need to examine why you need this form of a family. It’s not form that gives you happiness or even security. It’s is function.

You have some seriously weird issues, it's 2022, who has heard of a forum where you can't edit or delete your own posts?

@Tyrellius how gracious of you to acknowledge my help to you in finding out how to get your post deleted as you wish with an insult. I don't actually own mumsnet, so as you can imagine I don't sit on the policy board of their sub-par tech dept.

I'm not interested in engaging with you again so if you want to post about your own issues, why not start your own thread, as you keep annoucing you will do, & piss off from this one? Zigzag doesn't need her thread derailed any further.

Tyrellius You have some seriously weird issues, it's 2022, who has heard of a forum where you can't edit or delete your own posts?

You've had it explained to you multiple times. Its very easy to understand. No idea why you keep using the forum if you don't like it. I've never heard of someone with such bad netiquette in 2022, who takes over another posters's thread and then keeps posting about themselves, over and over again. This isn't a thread about narcissistic personality disorder or hystrionic personality disorder, so this can only be repeated attention seeking on your part. It is however very amusing, so there is that. There is little more dreary than someone who talks constantly about themselves and particularly about their love lives (I'm thinking of someone I know in person who does this here) and generally people just walk off mid sentence as they can no longer endure it!

Something no one has mentioned, but I think that he is also emotionally abusing you, since you are in a relationship where your partner tells you it is doomed to fail, that they no longer find you stimulating enough to be intimate with, but they don't give you a reason for it, thus making you brew over the reasons causing you emotional distress. The root problem here is your partner and whatever underlying reason they have.

Tyrellius I get it, my reply is too long as I am covering all the basis and you can't be bothered to actually read all the points I made, so you are just blabbing out whatever comes to your mind. It is a difficult scenario and I am simply stating some of the many, many variables at play.

I mean this in the kindest possible way, but are you struggling? You seem obsessed with arguing with total strangers, but the sheer verbosity of your adjective use is really quite a sight to behold. You don't seem to follow standard rules of human interaction (accusing someone of "blabbing out" isn't socially acceptable. You cannot seriously expect people to wade through all of that dramatic text. As you have been told many times, create your own post. But try and make it more succinct. You know when you're in work, you have to make things short (but accurate) so people don't waste hours of their time?...