Just as the title says really. Feel like DH and I are really struggling in our relationship at the moment and that this whole year so far has by far been the most difficult. We’ve been together for 8 years and have DC 6 & 3. It’s definitely not all been awful at all in the last year, we’ve had lots of lovely fun times as a family and when we’ve managed to go out as a couple (probably three nights out) we’ve had a great time too, felt very close and fun and romantic again. But alongside that we have been also just finding it hard to strike that balance in our everyday lives? In the day to day we just seem to plod on, with an undercurrent of irritability sometimes and then I feel resentful of him for the same old issues that never change. For example, he stays up late, doesn’t come to bed at the same time as me, then he complains that our sex life is an issue which it is, but I feel like it would be solved if he came up to bed with me then we could naturally be intimate rather than it being forced, he wants more spontaneity - we talk about it, reassure each other we want to do better and for things to work, usually have sex and it’s great but then lo and behold, nothing changes and we’re back to square one. Another common issue is messiness in the house and me constantly being the one who does most tidying. I’d say really these are the two main issues we have that never get properly resolved. Him staying up super late feeds into a lot of my resentment - he works some night shifts so I understand on the first recovery day from them he may not be tired at the same time as me but he never really tries to change his body clock back and he prefers to stay up late gaming and sleep in so it suits him to do so. So I see that as essentially selfish. Last night when I said goodnight he said ‘I’m just not tired!’ Sort of laughing about it in a ‘Ha look at me, what am I like!’ way and it annoyed me because what does he want me to say? Of course he isn’t tired, he’s had a beer and he’s gaming, that keeps people awake and not naturally tired! So I said ‘well of course you aren’t, you’ve had a drink and you’re gaming’ and then he got offended, he then got super annoyed with me because basically I think he wanted me to apologise and I didn’t see why I needed to? Which fair enough today I think yeah what I said was coming from a resentful place so maybe I should have owned that - but he then went on to just work himself up and said ‘what is the point there’s no chemistry with us and I’m just staying with you for the kids!’ I said ‘okay I’m going to bed, we can talk about that tomorrow’ because I was trying to be calm and not escalate but now I’m just so sad. I think that he’ll probably say he didn’t mean it and it was just heat of the moment - when we were out together a few weeks ago he was saying how much he fancied/loved me etc, I know we do have chemistry - and he’s just frustrated about the usual things - see above - but I’m frustrated too and I feel like I don’t know what to do? Should I approach the ‘talk’ we need to have from a place of apologies needed on both sides, peacemaking kind of thing or should I be more demanding that he really needs to understand how hurtful that was to hear? It feels ridiculous that he went to that level of ‘I’m only here for the kids’ from basically a slightly irritable comment of mine but does that just show how bad our communication is with each other at the moment? Or is it just one of those things, everyone gets irritable sometimes? I don’t know anymore, I don’t want to separate or the relationship to end but I just feel so tired from life in general, the kids etc that I don’t feel like I have the energy to try and fix our problems, even though I want to? I don’t want to minimise my part in this either, obviously I’m aware our sex life is lacking and I could be trying harder on that front and in general recently I’ve been finding it hard not to think negatively about him and his actions, but then just the other day I felt happy, so fond of him, it was a nice day - I just want some advice. Has anyone else been in a similar situation and has it got better or worked out? Am I overthinking everything? Do we have an essentially normal relationship that is going through a stressful patch due to general life stresses or does it sound bad?