Thinking of leaving my husband

[Donotjudgeme]

Just that really. Together for 14 years. Nice life, 2 kids. We are a regular couple, with a comfortable life. Nothing wrong, but we just drifted apart over the years. Doing couples counselling to help us but I think I have checked out.

My question is: anyone on here who has left a perfectly ok marriage? I believe my husband deserves happiness and I can't give it to him. There is no intimacy (my issue, not his) as I just don't have the need. I feel like I am stringing him along and ultimately wasting his "good years".

Please don't say love is a choice. I know!

I am asking if there is anyone who has left a good enough marriage as they just didn't see themselves staying in the marriage, making everyone miserable? I worry for my kids.

Don't be horrible to me please, I am struggling enough here.

How would you feel if you split and he moved on?

As it stands now, it he came home and said he had somebody I would thank him. On the other hand, I can't imagine the pain I would go through knowing there is another woman taking care of my children. It breaks me just imagining that. Not being able to see my children every day.
However, I can't imagine staying in a loveless marriage but probably will for the children.

If you think of your ideal future, what does that look like? It sounds like you don't want to leave him because you feel bad for him, but it's not fair to him or you. You both deserve to be happy. I'd also go to GP as it could be underlying medical, such as depression. But there's nothing wrong with not wanting a mediocre life anymore

I don't know the answer, but I will say I hope you manage to find the love/spark again. It sounds like you like him, and care about him and that's a good place to start....

That 'want to rip your clothes off' thing doesn't last forever for most couples, but equally you there does ultimately need to be some sort of physical attraction.....it can get lost in life with young kids though so you are not in your own with that.

It doesn’t sound like your relationship is the root cause of how you’re feeling. Maybe some individual counselling to get to the bottom of how you feel? Maybe a health MOT (you can get blood tests online) to make sure hormones etc are ok. What else would you change in your life to make you feel more alive if separating weren’t an option?

If you know it’s your partner that is making you unhappy/unfulfilled then leave.

I apologise if my words are a bit clumsy OP, bear with me!

Going off what you said about waking up one day and feeling like this, it could be depression. A sense of numbness to feelings and sudden change in your mood are symptoms, so don’t completely rule that out. It may be worth checking in with the GP before making any life changing decisions.

The other thing I’ll say is that I felt similarly when I had a small child. It didn’t feel very exciting, I longed for the energy and strength of feeling I’d had before. I was also being a bit of a brat. I was bored.

Suddenly, life was turned upside down with serious illness. And just like that, I remembered how lucky I was, how easy it is to be bored when things are good and how devastated I was that I’d - even briefly - deemed my relationship not good enough. In those awful times, I realised how good we had it.

It was a perfect storm of complacency, the drudgery of little children and nostalgia for the passionate days before. I found my husband again and I was so glad he didn’t give up. I’m not exaggerating when I say that over a decade later, I’m thankful every day that we stuck it out. My feelings were wrong and it chills me to the bone that I could have lost him due to some sort of temporary madness on my part.

Benn where you are a few times. We had to start dating again. Not just co parenting or sharing a room but rediscover ourselves.

Firstly plan date nights. If you have baby sitters it's ideal. If not nice meal in the house, music, nice wine etc.

Ban talk of kids or house and reconnect. Board games can be good for this to ease the pressure but still communicate.
Once a week at least.

6 second kiss. I know you don't want to. A 6 second kiss each day. It introduced intimacy and connection without pressure to have sex.

Then in a few weeks try to book a night or day trip away. Nice meal, fresh air and no kids! Dats each other again.

I'm confused.

How can it be "good enough" if you're on the verge of leaving and have checked out? It's actually as bad as it can be?

I worry this could be me in the next few years. We are still absolutely in the trenches with a baby and toddler and I am hoping to find the spark properly again when we come out of the fog. I don’t think I could cope with being apart from my children, and I think ultimately life would be worse, separated (from a good husband and father) than in a marriage which isn’t as sparkly as it once was.

More broadly, I also wonder if this is just the natural course that marriage takes, and if we are sold unrealistic expectations of marriage. I find it hard to imagine putting my babies through a divorce because we aren’t as crazy about each other as we were. I feel that I owe them stability, having brought them into the world. I don’t have any answers but I relate to your questioning.

I think you need some individual therapy OP. I think you might actually have a bit of a misplaced view of what a loving, committed relationship truly is. Im not sure many couples in their mid 30s with 2 small kids and full time careers maintain a lustful, spark filled, spontaneous marriage. It takes effort to not slip into drudgery and complacency, but that doesn’t need to be trying to recreate the relationship you had in your early 20s. Your life sounds really wonderful. You have friends, hobbies, a good job, wonderful children and a DH a lot of MN users would kill for. I’m not saying that to make you feel bad. But it’s not remotely ‘mediocre’ as a PP said above. Throwing it all away would be huge and, if you were my friend in real life, I would be telling you to tread very carefully. The potential for regret is beyond huge. I think you need to do some serious inward reflection before going nuclear.

So here's a thought. In the past, children were not the persistent priority over everything else the way they are now. I do sometimes wonder if we focus a bit too much on the children and neglect our partners.
A friend of mine is still very happily married after 20+ years. When asked how her DH and her have achieved this, she always replies: I love my kids but I love my DH more.
Maybe this is the answer? Let's stop pressuring women to EBF, parents to co-sleep and basically the whole world to revolve around the DC within a family. Let's make time for each other. This extreme child-centredness is not preparing the DC for the real world and sometimes prioritising one's partner would actually help foster a very stable and loving family for the child to grow up in.

Sounds like you want a friendship, and he's able to fulfil that.
But he also wants intimacy, and you're not able to fulfil that, although you seem quite accepting that what he desires is not unreasonable.

The French (reputedly) have found ways round this conundrum ... Maybe encourage him to have an affair? Or visit a prostitute? Or if you think he wouldn't - maybe hire an escort for him as a gift?

If this suggestion doesn't fill you with horror - then that's a pretty clear sign. And if it does - that's a sign too.

Yes, 2 DC but they're older than yours, teenagers. I'm older too. Probably about 10 years older than you.

In hindsight it's been a 4-5 years process for me. Actual work with councelling, couple's as well as my own, started about 18 months ago. A few months in, it was very clear to me that I had to leave. But I tried for another 6 months.

I now regret that I didn't take the step earlier. We're talking a few years earlier. I'm not sure that there's ever a good time to leave..

We are all different. I personally don't believe in staying, saying that "the grass isn't always greener" etc. To stay with someone because the unknown is scary is not my way. Nor is it very honest to your partner in my opinion. I also want to teach my DCs to not stay in a relationship where you're not happy, just for security.

But I had tried everything, turned every stone and I think you need to do that first too.

I don't know what you should do, I've never personally felt like that but I don't think its uncommon for women to feel this way when their children are very small. Could be hormonal or situational. Not saying that's what is happening here but something to consider. Once you start down the road of separation, divorce and single parenthood it's not going to he easy and it would be very difficult to get back.

I think you’ll be making a grave mistake if you leave him. The problem is you don’t know it yet but you really don’t know what you’ve got. (You think you do).

I’ve know 3 people like you over the years. Just like you they met/married young, and we’re always seeking something else.

It’s only when they left their husbands, did they realise, what they really had had.

Unfortunately for you, you might only realise this when it’s too late and he’s moved on.

Spell it out in concrete terms if you can - what do you want? Out of life for yourself? Out of a relationship? So - assume you separate - what are you going to do with yourself - how will that help? What did you want out of a relationship when you first got involved with your partner? Why do you dismiss the idea of depression? What else is going on in your life - health, work, parents, siblings, close friends? Is someone you know having a better life/relationship than you - is they something or someone that’s making you think about your own situation? Is there anything interesting to talk about in relation to you growing up - sibling or parent die, divorce, childhood illness? I think you need to get to the bottom of what is making you feel this way. In the long term, relationships change - later on, they are rarely what they were at the beginning and while you can have an affectionate attachment to some aspects of your early relationship perhaps what you can’t see or appreciate now is that there can be other, different, very rewarding aspects that appear later in your relationship if, I suppose, you can grow your relationship in the right way: I speak as someone who has been in a relationship since we were 12 and are now 61- every year they are new things we learn about how to make the relationship work - relationships are complicated, hard to understand, full of contradictions and they are forever changing and they need work to make them work - if you believe in the benefits of being in a relationship and I think we both do. Don’t jack your relationship in unless you really understand what the problem is and have a fairly clear idea about how splitting up is going to allow you to feel more fulfilled or give you the chance you think you want. If couples counselling isn’t working for you can’t you bring up the idea of having some talking therapy just for yourself? You have 2 young kids - it’s not easy on top of working. You say you don’t argue much if at all - my personal view is that might not be as healthy a sign as you think or would like to think. I know we need - what can I best call it - healthy honest - neither of us are never not going to say what is on our mind - honest conversations are part of our everyday relationship but “being totally honesty” with each other is not a weapon to attack or hurt the other person, it’s not to release some pent up anxiety we we can’t contain - it’s the stuff that your partner needs to hear, to be aware of so that they are perfectly clear about how you feel about something - about something that’s missing, lacking, not how you would ideally like it to be or something that’s irritating - it didn’t matter how hard those conversations are and tbh these days there’s nothing much that’s that difficult to raise and talk about - but that’s where we are - I don’t believe we could be where we are now without the disagreements, fall outs, arguments and brutal honesty so that’s the one thing that struck out for me - if you’re not being totally open and honest with each other how can you really know each other and if you don’t know each other how can you meet each others deepest needs? If you don’t know yourself - how can you also meet your own needs?

@Donotjudgeme I really sympathise with you and wanted to share my experience. I got with my STBXH when i was 20, we'd been together 21 years and married for almost 13 years when we separated last April.

We have a 10 year old DD. I'd lost all romantic feelings towards him, shown him no interest sexually and really didn't have any time for him anymore. We were living like brother and sister. He told me that he felt unwanted and rejected.
Our situation was different in that we were arguing a lot (he now says it was because of the way he was made to feel), I craved excitement and attention.

A couple of months after we separated I met someone else and I was dizzy with excitement and was on cloud nine. We had almost 6 months of fun, I had fallen in love and thought this is how it's supposed to feel. Then he ended it abruptly and left me devastated a week after I had to sell our family home. The heartless bastard.

Anyway, my H has been an absolute rock to me since the break up and I honestly don't know what I'd do without him. I hadn't processed our separation and it's hit me hard now. I'm wondering if I've made a huge mistake. I'm suffering very badly with depression and anxiety (which I've never had in my life before) and I truly would never have gone with the separation had I known this is how things would end up.

My H has just bought a new house and is seeing someone. I used to wish that he'd find someone else. The reality of him moving on is absolutely awful and I'm struggling to see a future at the moment.

I hope that you can work out what is best for you 💐. Our DD is older so understands more but did have a bit of a difficult time at school after we split. Seems generally happy now though as we are still managing to do things like meals out as a family.

I don't think I find him attractive but I used to. I was never head over heels with my husband and met him when I was 21.

I think (unless it's a typo) that this is key. Why did you end up establishing a long term relationship with someone you weren't really in love with? It was never going to end well.

I've been with my DH for 2.5 decades and have two teens. Our sex life isn't great right now and he's an unreasonable sh*t a lot of the time, but the glue for us, and I think for a lot of long relationships, is that we were once madly in love, and that never goes away - it fades of course, but into love and tenderness rather than sexual excitement (although that is salvageable too).

I think you are unfortunately just not meant to be and both of you deserve more compatible partners.

I left a pretty good marriage OP after 16 years and other than the challenges of getting back on feet with routines, financiers etc for the first year, it's worked pretty well.

The kids now have two stable happy homes to go to and we're both happier with new partners. Everyone is much happier overall as one of the reasons I called it was I didn't think it was a good example to give our kids as we'd grown apart like you describe.

Completely agree. I couldn’t stick dh when dc were small. Could you try and just stop worrying about it for a bit? Could you focus on yourself? Anything you fancy doing? Or not doing? Like reading for hours in the bath? I think the stress of not feeling loving is affecting you almost as much as the actual not loving.
Drop the rope. Let go. Think about other things. There’s time and you are being honest with him. It’s all ok @Donotjudgeme

Viva sums up my thoughts perfectly.

@Donotjudgeme
Have you tried counselling for yourself? That would be a good idea. Try and take the pressure off making a decision. Go gently.

When your children are older you will realise what bloody hard work it was when they were small, and you will wonder how anyone survives it. Honestly.

Think carefully before chucking it in. The grass isn't always ĺgreenerĺ.
Life isn't all cosy meals excitement fun dates sex unfortunately it's sodding hard work. We're led to believe we should have it all and it puts huge strain on people

I’m not telling you what to think but your marriage doesn’t sound loveless, just passionless and that is a very different thing. Getting together, wedding, putting a home together, planning babies, bringing them home is all a time of huge anticipation and emotion. It’s stressful but exciting and full of possibility. The next stage is hard and you might feel that there is nothing to look forward to. Small children suck the energy and life out of you. Add in a busy job and there isn’t much time left for you to be the person you want to be.
Imagine your husband in love with someone else. Imagine waking up with your kids, knowing he’s on a weekend away and is enjoying space and time with someone else. Maybe even having children with her, or bringing up her children whilst seeing yours once a week. I’ve left relationships that lacked passion and I’ve seen friends do it. Sometimes it’s been for the best but sometimes it could have been saved by riding out the storm and seeing the person through different eyes. You sound depressed and in need of some space. I’d work on that and just allow yourself to be loved by him whilst you find your way. Maybe that will be apart but I think you are maybe adding this to all your other worries and stress at the moment. So hard for you- you both sound lovely.