Breakup Letter

[Mummadeze]

I am in a limbo situation in which I live with my child’s Dad but we have grown apart physically and emotionally. Completely. No intimacy for nearly five years. I have occasionally tried to talk to him about what is going on with ‘us’ but he won’t engage. He either gets annoyed or shuts me down. We have a 14 year old DD who is going through a really hard time with her mental health and depends on both of us a lot. He is a loving, good Dad to her. We both want to live with her 100% of the time, so I don’t want to try to ask him to move out. Well, part of me does, but I would feel too guilty on him and on her and the last thing she needs at the moment is a lot of disruption so I am not going to do that. When she is older and more independent I will if we get there. However, I turn 50 next year and I am sick of being in this weird relationship which isn’t a relationship. So, I had an idea to write him a letter, telling him how I feel and that I now consider myself single, regardless of whether we live together or not. That I am not currently thinking about dating again but that if I wanted to, I could, and the same goes for him. Basically, I want to be single and tell people I am single because that would mean that I am no longer in a rubbish, demoralising relationship anymore. Nothing would really change at home but it might make me feel better internally. I hope by telling him in a letter he will hear me and acknowledge my wishes. I want to not feel so trapped. What do people think?

A letter could be a good idea , only you know if seeing it wrote down would get through to him better.
Do you do things for him ? Cook, wash his clothes etc . Do you sleep in the same bed ? If yes , then they should stop as you are still giving him a form of a relationship .
Does your daughter know and understand how things are between to ?
If the relationship is strained or you are obviously unhappy at home , surely it would be better to live separately , I'm assuming life would be happier for your dd as well .

So how is that going to work with your child? If you think you are single, are you going to tell your child you're going out on a date? What are you going to do when your husband wants to bring someone back home?

Thanks for replying. My thought was that neither of us would talk about dating or bring anyone home. If we wanted to try to meet other people, it would be done discreetly outside of the home. I strongly suspect he has already done this to be honest anyway. And I have no desire to do it myself at the moment. I am fully consumed by helping my daughter recover. Along with working full time, I have no real headspace for anything else. In answer to the questions about what I do for him, we don’t cook for each other and haven’t done for a long time. He was critical of my cooking so I knocked that on the head a long time ago. I do wash his clothes and he washes mine if we are putting on a full wash as it would be petty not to. We do sometimes sleep in the same bed because there are only two beds in the house. Sometimes our daughter still sleeps with one of us though when she is feeling particularly unwell. And often he works at night, so we don’t share that much. I wish we had another bedroom as I know we would both rather have our own room each, but we can’t afford to move at the moment. I did ask my parents what they thought about this idea however yesterday and my Dad said what’s the point as nothing will change anyway. My Mum kind of got it though and said to do it if I thought it would make me feel better. When I thought of writing this letter, it felt like such a lightbulb moment but as time has passed since I wrote this post, I have started to think what’s the point too. The trap is the trap and I have made my bed so have to lie in it.

Why not, at least then you might feel like in the future you might have another relationship. I understand you not wanting to separate and make things harder for your daughter. It’s a really difficult situation. I guess it would be hard to date anyone properly as anyone would feel odd that you were still sharing a bed with your ex and not believe it was over.