What is love anyway??? Am I being unreasonable for not being able to love my ex anymore?

[MeMySonAndI]

Several months after we separated and we can still claim we have had an extremely friendly divorce: we are friends, we have very little in common, but still can have this looooooong very interesting conversations. We enjoy each other's company, can meet with friends or alone as if nothing has happened, I worry for him and do as much as I can for him to be OK, he does the same. I love him, I really do, but I'm no longer in love with him. He feels the same.

And I'm so bloody very annoyed at having to let go the most important relationship I have had in my life, a complice, a friend, an intellectual challenge, who gives me a combination of things I feel will be unlikely to find in another person again, just because we can not bring ourselves to feel in love with each other.

Before somebody tell me I am crazy (which perhaps I am) and that that's the way love ages, I must add that I can not bear the thought of kissing him or even holding hands with him. It is soooo unfair!

And I'm weeping like an idiot at writing this post... can anyone here make sense of this?

.

i can understand every word of that......i split from my long term partner last October and we get on great as friends, but there really was no way i could stay in a relationship with him.

How did you feel? how has it gone? I supose I may be mourning the friends rather than the husband as I am well aware that this interim friendship may go as soon as any of us fin another person (and to make the things even more bizarre, the other day we said that if we were to be in another relationship the first thing to check in prospective new person was that they were not jealous )

I believe the in love feeling can come back, a version of it anyway.

I think the not wanting to kiss or hold hands thing is perhaps to do with the old 'familiarity breeds contempt' thing. I think it happens to more people than we might realise.

Problem is the familiarity is gone to a point as we are no longer living together, but no matter how goos our relationship is now...it hasn't come back

i fell 'out of love' with my ex before but we worked hard at the relationship and got it back..........this time however it really is over, for both of us (we both moved on very quickly and have new partners now).

i spent months soul searching and making sure it wasn't a phase, and we've talked it through and realised our relationship began based purely on lust and once that ran out of steam we were just going through the motions of a relationship. I found it unbearable to have sex with him, and that was when i realised it was time to call it a day.
We really are very good friends, when we drop off/collect our ds (we have shared custody) we more often than not spend an hour having coffee and a chat. Our relationship lasted so long i think because of the friendship and respect we had for each other, but ultimately we were both becoming unhappy with not having the emotional aspect to the relationship.......and we both realised that we wanted each other to be free to find that happiness.

"Our relationship lasted so long i think because of the friendship and respect we had for each other"

That sounds so familiar

I'm afraid this is not a phase, we have been through this so many times. A few weeks ago he did something that made me think he was already seeing someone else. What I found more shocking was that although I felt stronge at first it took me 5 minutes to get over the feeling and be my normal safe again, no jealousy, no sadness. He seemed to act in the same way yesterday when he realised somebody was interested in me.

I wonder about my life, which was not perfect but was not bad. I'm sorry to let go of all the routines, the family structure, the nice times together with DS. I know it is for the best, as we were already getting very sad and frustrated at things, I know that we can keep pretending we are a couple for the rest of our lives, but still I will miss what we had.

i must preview my messages appologies for all the words mix up, I supose I'm getting a bit tired.

I feel similar to queenrollo. H and I are in the process of separation/divorce and now the 'relationship' aspect has been removed, we get on very well and hope we can remain friends.

I love him as a friend, but haven't been in love with him for a very long time.

I'm sure this is quite normal isn't it? This whole process you are going through. Don't feel bad if you do. You can have friends and love them as friends and not as lovers. And leaving someone who was a great friend always hurts because he was such a major part of your life.

I think you both sound quite mature and level headed and insightful about the whole thing.

it hurts like mad every day i realise that the 'routine' of being a family has gone. i really wanted me and my ex to be 'in love' because everything else about our life was damn near perfect.
it felt incredibly selfish to break up what was essentially a happy home for our ds, simply because we wanted to find a bit of happiness/emotional fulfilment for ourselves, but we honestly knew that friendship wasn't enough for either of us......and it wasn't just about sex, so scratching that itch 'outside' of our relationship wasn't an option, if you understand what i'm getting at.
we would have ended up hurting each other, hating each other and i have no doubt we would have reached a point in our future where we would have 'resented' wasting our lives on an unfulfilling relationship.

this has been the single hardest thing i have dealt with in my entire life......and i was beginning to think i was alone. i'm sad that others are going through this but it's a comfort to know that i'm not the only person who left what was essentially a good relationship.......

And I may be having a bad day myself as I have started weeping again at reading your posts.

I'm sorry that you are going through similar, but I am also finding some comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one going through this.

I supose that one of the questions that keeps popping in my mind is "have we done the right thing?" In the surface it may even look as if we are just playing at being separated, many paople just can't understand why we decided to leave it, and a lot of them think that if we tried a bit more things would be fine. It helps to know that what I feel is not unusual, and that is part of letting go.

This thread is making me emotional too MeMySonAndI...........people have been so shocked at our seperation as they all thought we were such a happy couple, and we were in that we got on very well and laughed and joked when we were out and about. But those of us on this thread know it's about more than that.

I wasn't looking for a new man, in fact i'd decided it was time to be on my own and 'find myself'.....but i've met someone who has made me realise what i've been missing all those years, and he also wants me to be ME and not just one half of a relationship.

I know i've done the right thing......my ds (who is 2 and a half) said to me a couple of weeks ago 'mummy happy' as he hugged me. I was a sobbing wreck as you can imagine, but i'd not realised how unhappy i had been, and the fact the my son has noticed the difference in me confirms i was right to do it.

I know what you mean. I know that if h and I had carried on as we were, we would have come to hate each other and that is the last thing I would have wanted.

People outside your relationship only see what you want them to see, and most couples put across a 'good' relationship to the general public. No-one but you knows what goes on behind closed doors.

You are not unusual or bad in anyway. In fact, I bet there are quite a few woman who ache to do the same but just can't. A friend of mine actually said she admires me for having the balls to do what feels right deep down.

Yes, that's the thing, perhaps because you (or we) are friends people see the relationship as something special. Even before this happened there were so many people who told us they dreamt with having a relationship as good as ours, so they have been quite shocked at seeing us part. More so because they still can see what a good friendship we have and don't understand that there were other things not going as they should.

I agree that it takes a lot of courage to finish a relationship when still in good terms, but I'm convinced that continuing it would have been far worse.

wow, this thread has answered unanswered questions and me and xdh.

i love him as a friend and dd,s dad but i cannot live with him, we ended up hating each other, we recently tried to get back together but it was the wrong decision.

it helps to know that these feelings i have are normal and its a comfort, i too am not looking for anyone else, i just want to concentrate on me and the kids and be happy.

THis is how it ended with me and ex dh. We had no kids.
I still love him very much and he loves me.

I will never have a more special relationship.

I was pleased when he met someone else ( and is now remarried)

He is my soulmate and will never be replaced in my heart

That's exactly my main fear Jasper... that he was my soulmate, someone who nobody could replace however out of love I feel

I have had a very good time focusing in myself, there had been some moments when I have felt madly happy. I have not met anyone yet but I feel I'm not ready to get into another relationship yet, I know I don't love DexH anymore, I know he feels the same, but I still can't bring myself to start another relationship, I know is stupid of me but I feel as if I were being unfaithful, not to him, but to the happy memories from when we were together. Although perhaps that's my subconscious not wanting to let go of a possible reconciliation that my conscious self knows to be impossible.

I can't pretend it does not still cause me pain - twelve years since we split up! - but I am no longer crushed by it.

I see him a few times a year and the connection is instant. In fact we usually cry at some point in the proceedings. It is a very hard thing to explain to others ( I don't try!)

When we were in the long drawn out process of possibly splitting a mutual friend asked me somewhat bluntly " do you want to shag him?" .

The answer was a definite no, so I figured whatever kind of love we had it was not a suitable love to sustain a marriage.

I know some people can have a sexless marriage but personally I don't see the point.

I would absolutley take care of him in his old age ( he has major health problems)if it ever gets to that point.

we too had a friendly divorce with no lawyers and agreed on all aspects of the settlement.

---

"That's exactly my main fear Jasper... that he was my soulmate, someone who nobody could replace however out of love I feel "

Four months down the line I... stand corrected ... I have found someone else who has replaced DexH in my heart.

Sometimes I wonder how life can be so amazing! I have found a new man, he is absolutely adorable, and DexH and him get along so well it is unbelievable. So I have a new soulmate and an excellent friend, I feel blessed.

That's wonderful news.

However I am crying buckets reading your original post because I have just gone through this with my h of 13 yrs. I ended it 4 weeks ago and I'm devastated - I feel I've made a mistake but he won't take me back. I think I'm in shock. I love him and he loves me (he says) but he just couldn't meet my emotional needs - he has quite basic needs and I'm more complex. I feel like I'll never meet anyone again. I'm so sad.

glad you have found happiness MeMySonAndI.....

charlottesmum.......you will meet someone. I was happy to be on my own, but didn't want to spend the rest of my life alone.....i was terrified that i would be lonely years down the line, but then out of the blue i met a wonderful man. I feel like this is the person i am meant to spend the rest of my life with. And having been in a relationship that wasn't quite working i can tell the difference in this one.
You probably are in shock, 13 years is a long time to be with someone (mine was 14 years) and so much about your life has and will continue to change. You've had the comfort of a routine which has now changed. I love my ex, like a dear friend.....he is the father of my son and that is a very strong emotional tie, but i just wasn't in love anymore and personally i couldn't live the rest of my life like that. I've explained already about that.
You will find many ups and downs, good days and bad, but i will be here if you need me.

Charlottesmum,

It takes a lot of courage to end such a long relationship, so I'm sure you have thought it through many times and you know that ending it was the best for you. The first few months after a separation are very draining, it hurts to let go of routines and to accept things are no longer the same, but once the initial shock wears off you will be fine.

Regarding finding someone else... well, I have to say that when I separated from DexH, I jumped into my new life convinced that life on my own could be good, obviously I didn't like the idea to die on my own surrounded by my dogs, but I tried to find the good aspect on everything, even started fantasising about getting yet another puppy/dog to share my death bed)

I thoroughly enjoyed the new "me time" I got when DS started to visit his dad, my life became full of interesting things to do. And when I finally was at peace with myself, new man came into the picture.

I am very happy, the more that I know him the more things I realise we have in common, but I am, at the same time, protecting those "me times" which keep me grounded and happy with myself so I can bring that happiness into this new realtioship.

So, carpe diem and all that, but make the best of this time, take care of yourself and life will take care of you

Thankyou girls xxxxxxxxx