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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Can you come back from not wanting them to touch you?

79 replies

justkeepbreathin · 07/08/2024 15:23

I have asked my husband for a separation and I'm agonising over it. He is begging for me to stay and to work on it for the kids etc. I've told him repeatedly how unhappy I am for many years, of course there have been good times and I do enjoy us as a family but it feels like there isn't a relationship between us really, not a genuine one. We've had so many years of muddling through, I see people in relationships/marriages that do have a romantic side and a part of me aches.

The thing is he is promising to work on all of it, the intimacy etc I just don't want to. I don't want to have sex with him. You can't come back from that, can you? I don't want to kiss or hug him, it doesn't feel right to me at all. It's not going to get better over time, he's 44 and I know that's still young in grand scheme of things but I'm 28 and feel I'm kissing goodbye to a sex life for the next 4 decades, or forcing myself through it. I don't want to pick a sex life, and romance over my kids stability but when you add in the tension between me and their dad, the arguments, the toxicity it doesn't feel like it's as simple as just me being selfish?

Can it get better? Can you come back from this?

OP posts:

FattyMcFattyArse · 27/08/2025 16:00

justkeepbreathin · 07/08/2024 19:54

This is where I get totally stuck. How do I do what's right for me and what's right for the kids when they both are different things.

What's right for you is to leave this relationship.

What's right for your kids is to have two happy parents who love them.

They aren't diametrically opposed goals.

I say this having stayed in a bad relationship for too many years and now I am out the other side and can look back with perspective. I'm happy. My ex is (well, sort of) happy. But most importantly, my kids are happy.

I deeply regret the best years of my life I wasted in a relationship that was toxic. As much as you think you can hide this from children at the time, you really can't.

Leave. Be free and be happy.

FattyMcFattyArse · 27/08/2025 16:04

And this is why I should have RTFT before I commented! 🙄

Wonderful to (now) read your update, OP.

The grass really is greener on the other side, and I'm so happy to hear you have discovered this for yourself. Your life sounds like mine and I would encourage any person to get out and LIVE!

Sadworld23 · 27/08/2025 16:11

vellerine · 07/08/2024 19:04

Name changed

After the birth of my last and final DC, I didn’t have sex for two years.
I couldn’t even stand the thought of it and I would feel disgusted if DH even tried to hug me. I always felt it was just a ruse to try and get sex.

I was extremely tired and we argued a lot. Looking back now it’s obvious why (kids, slight depression, no sex etc) but at the time I thought it was because I hated him. That was the reason why we weren’t getting on. DH never put pressure on me to have sex ever, but the civilities between us went out the window. We were almost trying to one up one another. It wasn’t healthy. We weren’t laughing and joking either, mainly because I couldn’t stand to be around him so any attempt at humour just fell flat with me.

This absolutely wasnt done in front of the kids. It was just a background simmering tension.

What did I do? Well for some reason I decided to have sex. It wasn’t loving or passionate that first time but there was a slight thaw between us. Over the next two years the sex got better and our relationship did too. Until it was back to ‘normal’. That was 10 years ago.

So you can make it back but honestly, it took a long time to recover. That was 4 years of difficulty we had. But just wanted to share it can be done

I've heard it called, fake it til you make it.

User2025meow · 27/08/2025 17:33

Good for you OP!! Lovely update. It wasn’t necessarily anyone’s fault- men are generally programmed to try to mate with attractive younger women and women are generally programmed to look for security from a man for when they bring up children and become more dependent for a period of time. But a large age gap like that can eventually catch up with you.

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