Wife no longer interested since kids - advice

[Swimmingtosurvive]

Really would appreciate another perspective in this situation from somebody who may have been in a similar boat.

Me and wife have been together for 19 years, married for 12 and now have two kids (8 and 5). Since kids have been born our relationship has nose dived. We have maybe 1 date night a year but even that is stopping. We haven't been intimate since second child was born. It just feels like there's nothing left.

I feel like I've tried to make an effort. Quite a few times I've tried to arrange for us to go out or have a date night at home, but it's been refused. I try to go out of my way to be there and help her. Yet it isn't reciprocal.

I'm fully aware that the situation will be down to both of us and that I will have made mistakes that contribute to this. I have tried to speak to my wife about it. She has just said that since having the kids she has no interest in spending time with me but that I've done nothing wrong. The kids are here focus.

My worry is that if we don't look after our relationship, it is ultimately going to affect the kids and when they leave home we'll be left with nothing. That hurt really badly and I've been having some counselling since. She would not agree to couples therapy when I suggested it.

Would really appreciate some advice. Maybe there's something I've missed or someone has had similar feelings to me/wife. Any thing will help.

@Sceptical123
The OP has answered all the points you raise in your post. You need to read all of the OP's replies and you'll see this and see the whole picture.

What? She doesn't want to get back in the workforce. She wants to be bankrolled by the OP, do sod all at home, doesn't want a husband, not even a friendship but expects him to work full time, do a large bulk of the household chores and be a walking debit card while she farts about at the gym and going for lunch. She has told him she doesn't love him and doesn't want a relationship with him. What wisdom do you have to impart in relation to that? What is he supposed to do? I'd feel the same if the genders were reversed. It's no way to live.

@Sceptical123 You need to read the thread properly. He's answered all of that multiple times.

If you read the thread you’d have seen @MothralovesGojira already pointed this out

@Sceptical123 Yes I'd just got in from work and was catching up over lunch. I didn't see that until I'd posted. I'm sorry you had to read it twice 🤷🏻‍♀️

Good grief you do a lot in addition to working full time. What is your wife doing while you're doing all of those things? The children are in school all day too so she has masses of time!

Gym and friends and art classes. She's in for a shock going forward.

No. It happens a LOT on sexless marriage threads despite the sex of the poster.

I wouldn't want sex with someone who is engineering the end of their union, which he is, he's got one foot out of the door, he's not interested in salvaging this

This is so fucking gaslighty i dont know where to start. OP and his wife havent had a physical relationship for five years Thats five years PRIOR to him making this decision. Unless his wife is a fucking time traveller. Stupid post.

Yep, agree there.

At least, we havent had the whole ‘she should put up with it for the harmony of the marriage’ you often get.

Tbf if they do end up doing 50/50, I think the OP is also going to get a real shock.

Things will suddenly be much harder for him for loads of different reasons.

It's truly astonishing to me that some posters are willing to twist the facts to such an extent to suit their own narrative.

The wife is the one who openly admitted that she has no interest in her spouse after 5 years without any intimacy or even basic friendship.

The wife is the one who has refused to go to Couples therapy and has said that she isn't willing to work on the relationship.

The wife is the one who contributes very little to the household as far as I can see but is happy to let her husband fund her cushy lifestyle.

And yet the OP is blamed for not being interested in salvaging the relationship? There is nothing left to salvage, frankly!

Exactly, some of the posts on here are delusional warped and very bitter sounding as well as anti men.

@LakeSnake it sounds to me as if he's doing it already, just under the same roof. The sooner they are both out of this shit fest the better. This is not a healthy relationship for the children to witness. Plenty of single parents work and bring up children. He'll be just fine. As will she once she's got herself a job as that is what she is going to have to do. Big changes for both of them but surely better than the current status quo.

TheFormidableMrsC
Gym and friends and art classes. She's in for a shock going forward.

Tbf if they do end up doing 50/50, I think the OP is also going to get a real shock.

Things will suddenly be much harder for him for loads of different reasons.

//

I'm sure it'll be a massive change and yes, very difficult at times.

Bit as so many posters rush to tell women in a similar boat, he will get through it. And his self respect will return. And he can model healthy decision making to his kids.

A choice being shit in the short term is still better than staying as he is

@Medschoolmum i agree that saying that the OP isn’t interested in salvaging the marriage is crap.

However, I’d also be very careful about making assumptions on what went on in the last 5 years. It’s very unlikely that the last 5 years have been with no intimacy, not wanting to spent time with him etc… much more likely to have been a gradual process. One where BOTH OF THEM made mistakes, miscommunicated etc….
I mean at some point , these people loved each other enough to plan a second child.

All the rest, incl the long list the OP gave us about he does/she doesn’t do is probably more if reflection of where he is emotionally - angry and resentful (not judging if it’s warranted or not there).
Im sure his dwife would have a very different view on what happened.

Having said that, the OP wants to move on and that’s his right.
I don’t think that to keep telling him his dwife is awful is helpful. They have two dcs together. The best outcome is to co parent them and no one will be able to do that if they are angry/wanting to score points.
Imo the OP’s attitude at the start of the thread wanting to see what might have gone wrong is much healthier (and no it doesn’t mean he should accept everything and anything.)

HaHa, I am a bit anti men

In my experience men do not leave a long marriage unless they have something already lined up.

Men do not really understand the concept of 50/50 when it comes to childcare or the home.

Men usually are very aware of why their wives have stopped having sex with them.

Once separated, men who think they can fit full time work, a new relationship and 50/50 co parenting are deluded.

I never said he wasn’t going to fine.

Im saying he’ll find difficulties he isn’t expecting.

But yes I’m sure he’ll cope esp because he is unlikely to become the RP having the dcs 80% of the time. (Not a judgement on the OP. Just the fact children are usually staying with the mother, esp if she was the main carer).

"She says that she still wants to be with me but only for the kids. Said I am a great father and husband but just that she has no interest in spending time with me. She just wants all of us to be a family together and spend time the 4 of us."

Sadly she won't do that at all unless she realises she has to invest in her relationship with you and take on board your feelings, and also be frank about why she no longer is interested in spending time with you.

She'll have to manage at least half the time alone and get a job. Can she not understand this?

I'd have one last try at the suggestion of couples counselling. Then if she's not open to it, and you simply can't make peace with the coparenting arrangement, if I were you I'd probably start discussing a separation and her return to work to support herself. She's going to need some time to get herself together I guess.

This is utter bollocks. You just hate men. The OP has already said that he has never cheated on her and never would. It's more likely she's actually got an OM as has been touched on my many throughout this thread and she is displaying a huge amount of behaviour that if a man was doing it, you'd be shouting "affair". The OP has tried hard to get his wife to talk and go to counselling. She has refused and said she doesn't love him. Yet you are painting him as the villain. It's weird.

I know two men who cope very well with 50/50 and are excellent fathers. Don't tar everybody with the same brush. I speak as somebody whose husband buggered off overnight with somebody else and has abandoned our son never to be seen again. Not everybody is like my ex-husband.

So men are shit, he has misrepresented himself, she deserves better but your advice was that he should... stay in the relationship rather than become a 'departed dad'? Despite you thinking he is clearly a shit partner and a liar? What odd advice.

Also as mentioned, your language is very stigmatising towards couples who break up and coparent.

Im saying he’ll find difficulties he isn’t expecting.

But yes I’m sure he’ll cope esp because he is unlikely to become the RP having the dcs 80% of the time. (Not a judgement on the OP. Just the fact children are usually staying with the mother, esp if she was the main carer).

@LakeSnake

Of course it will be difficult starting a new life. I know this, I've been a lone parent for a very long time. He will have a 50/50 shared care agreement I imagine, as that is standard in court these days. None of it will be easy but it will settle in time. Having peace in your life and not living in an environment where there is zero relationship is going to bring that on its own.

What do you think is going to be harder for him?

As far as I can see, he'll need to sort childcare for half the week to do the school runs and to cover after school care. And he'll need to find a way of covering his half of the school holidays when he isn't on annual leave/any sickness absence from school etc. None of that is particularly challenging. There will be costs, of course, but there will also be savings when he no longer needs to fund his wife's hobbies etc.

What else? A bit more housework maybe to cover whatever the wife is doing at the moment? Doesn't sound like that much though, and some of it will be offset by not having to do as much childcare when the kids are with their mum.

Of course, there will be challenges to being a single parent, but from an emotional point of view, he's already parenting his kids without a supportive partner at the moment, and he's already doing a lot of the practical day to day stuff with his kids in any case, so I think he'll adapt and cope, as most single parents do. I'm sure his wife will do the same, but I suspect she'll have more to adapt to than he will.

Very unlikely that she'll get 80% these days when dad has been so involved in their day to day lives. Much more likely to be 50/50.

Look no disrespect but if you pick up bottom feeders, you're going to be disappointed.