Wanting to leave my perfect husband

[Nixiha]

Am I a complete monster?

I (31) have been with husband (32) for 12 years and we have been married for 7 years.
We have two great kids aged 4 and 1 and we also have two dogs, one we've raised from a puppy and one that we rescued.

My husband is such an amazing person, he's a fantastic husband who fully supports me, he absolutely adores me, wants to have sex all the time, is a great dad, tells me me loves me every day, tells me that I'm beautiful, makes me laugh and works so hard to support our family.

My heart wants to leave though. It's been clear to me for years that I love him dearly, but as a friend. I knew this when I married him. I felt nauseous the night before, a knot in my stomach and clammy hands on the day and I could barely look him in the eye during the ceremony because he was looking at me with such love and devotion in his eyes. I squashed all of this away because we work so effortlessly together as a team, I knew he'd be a wonderful father, I loved his family and he's still my best friend and I never want to hurt him.

Now married for 7 years with our great kids, life should be a dream but my heart is slowly breaking into pieces. It's dawning on me that no matter how blissfully happy he seems with me, I've sucked the soul out of my husband over the years. The young man I met had big passions, he loved rock climbing, hill walking, abseiling, skiing, kayaking, playing rugby and loads more. He would walk into a pub and immediately befriend every stranger, he was so sociable and friendly.
These days he does nothing. He gave up everything one by one and now he has no passions or hobbies or friends that he sees often. He works in forestry which he loves, but it's such a physical job he is so tired at the weekends he probably wouldn't have the energy to go climbing now. I'm so worried that he's become a shadow of himself by being with me.

In the meantime, I've recently started developing feelings for someone else and the guilt has hit me hard. I can't sleep, I'm binge eating even though food is making me nauseous and I'm crying constantly. The flip my heart does when I see the other guy is how I should have felt on my wedding day. I have never flirted and would never do anything to betray my husband but it's getting to the point where imagining the other man with someone else is devastating to me, but imagining my husband with someone else doesn't make me sad. I just want to see him get the love and happiness that he deserves.

I'm so scared, my head is screaming at me not to hurt him and not to rip our family apart, financially ruining myself in doing so but my heart and conscience are pulling me towards it.

What is wrong with me? Why do I have the most loving and devoted husband in the world yet want to leave him?

Leave life is far to short to be miserable and yes people will say your a fool but it’s your life and you have the right to live it as you want ask yourself this in 100 years no one will remember you we are here for a speck of time.

You should leave, you've ruined some of his life so don't ruin any more of it.

You should never have married him and definitely should not have had children.

Make sure people know it's all you.

Christ on a bike, this is awful. You need to think carefully about why you allowed it to get this far. You knew. I’ve been with someone I loved (but not enough) and although I probably should have ended it sooner, the idea that I could’ve walked down the isle and had kids with him is total madness. Did you think you’d change your mind? What was going through you mr head??

But she hasn’t done anything yet?

She is realising that her marriage is over because she has feelings for someone else. She hasn’t actually done anything as far as I can see, nor is she planning to.

It’s like people are angry at her for ‘allowing herself to develop feelings for someone else’ I doubt she is enjoying feeling like this. The man might not even be aware, it could be an innocent postman she is talking about.

She probably doesn’t remember ever feeling this way towards her husband but she must have if she married him. I don’t know how anyone could marry, have children and stay in a relationship with someone they have no feelings for.

I can’t believe that to be true.

But the way the OP describes how she felt about her DH even before they are married distinguishes this case from other marriages that have just got stale etc

This is just part of the script though that the OP is conveniently using to justify her behaviour, it’s more than likely completely untrue, she has managed to be married to him for 7 years produced 2 children and has a sex life with him despite being nauseous and not being able to look him in the eye 🙄 yet for 7 years she has managed to convince him otherwise, so either she is an academy award winning actress, or he is an oblivious fool who can’t read the signs that his wife isn’t and was never attracted to him, both scenarios are highly unlikely.

You’re not the first woman to settle and hope the passion will grow, and you won’t be the last. Sadly it never does change. I’d leave, you’re not happy and deep down he probably knows you feel like you do.

Plenty of women marry men because they feel they should want to, or because they're nice guys and people will judge and think they're crazy for walking away. I don't find OPs narrative hard to believe, plenty are miserable in their marriage but have children because it's the next step. Men do it too. Just because some use it as a hurtful rationale to try and excuse cheating, it's wild not to acknowledge for some it's just reality.

Why didn't you understand that by marrying him under false pretences you were going to hurt him? The one thing you said you didn't want to do. I am not trying to make you feel rubbish, I am trying to make you think.

The other man you want to shag? Forget him.

Leave him so some lucky lady can land on her feet. You don’t deserve him.

This

Do try counselling first to ensure you are making the right decision; however it does seem like you never loved him. I feel sorry for him and your DC; but you are both young so hopefully can rebuild your life; you made a terrible mistake by marrying someone you didn’t love but double mistake by bringing children into the picture if you never loved this man.

You are naive if you think people don’t settle and marry and have children with someone they don’t love - for a multitude of reasons. You are trying to force a narrative on the OP that fits ‘The Script’, is it that hard to accept that sometimes a person just doesn’t love the person they are with? To consider their spouse more as a friend? This is so commonplace, sadly. There are threads on this very topic on here frequently.

Selfish would be to leave because she’s had her head turned and shatter her husband and children’s lives in the process.

It's normal for people to give up hobbies as they grow older and have children. It’s just priorities shifting. Every other post on here is about a deadbeat husband/father so ending up with a good man who is your best friend is a win.

If there really aren’t any other problems that you haven’t mentioned OP, you should put some effort into your marriage and try to keep your family together.

The OP has never loved her DH. The entire marriage is built on false pretences. That’s a pretty big problem to overcome!

I don’t know but considering your spouse a really good, close friend is a pretty good start for a lot of couples tbh. Starting with respect in both sides.

What the OP was describing about ‘not having butterflies’ when she got married didn’t quite surprise me. They’d been together for years at that point. The excitement was long gone.
What stays is enduring love. It’s not magical. It’s not giving you butterflies. But it’s steady and deep and secure.

We are only here once... as hard as it may be, give him the chance to find and have the love he deserves.

Leave your husband for his sake - he's only young, he has his whole life ahead of him and you've already used up a decade of time.
It would be the kindest thing to do.

If you decide to leave, please don’t pretend you’re doing it for your husband. If you leave you are doing it for your own selfish reasons.

Let someone else have your husband and make him happy 😊

They started going out when the OP was 19. I find it quite hard to believe that someone that age would willingly date a person they didn’t find attractive at all. They were together for years in their early twenties before getting married, so again plenty of opportunities to break it off if there was no love/attraction between them.

It’s more likely that life has become monotonous as it does when you have small children, and the OP has had her head turned and thinks the grass is greener.

Just leave! He deserves better!

What a sad and selfish attitude.
The OP has committed to a man she describes as ‘perfect’ and she has children with him.
At the very least she needs to seek some counseling and honestly try to face the problems and feelings she/they have.
The grass often isn’t greener, or at least for a long while. Pain, grief and devastation for the children.

OP I think a lot hinges on whether you truthfully (if you are really honest with yourself) never loved him - not just if it is convenient to think that now, and whether you feel that with work you could love him in the way he deserves. Some reflection and real truth with yourself. Because the action you need to take depends on the answers to those questions.

However, I continue to think that whilst wasting someone's time to date is a terrible mistake, wasting someone's entire life and making that life a lie is monstrous. You have done wrong but you have the opportunity now at least to limit that wrong. Either through deciding that this is a crush and you do love your husband after all and throwing your energy back into your marriage, or to set him free. But either way you need to be acting with a genuine heart.

She’s clearly not happy in this “lovely life” though.

This.

Thegrass is always greener.

You got together young. You were 20?

You didn’t go through years or shitty relationships only to finally meet someone worth spending time with, finally before it’s too late.

now with young kids, boredom and “is this it?” Is probably screaming at you every day.

but for any couple, a 4 and 1 year old life is shit. Utterly shit. No sleep, no time, no hobbies, constantly exhausted.

I think you’re having a mid life crisis and using anything to try and claim back some of your identity that’s been swallowed up by motherhood and monotony.

imagine if a man wrote what you’ve written and was about to leave for a woman at work who he fancies. He’d be ripped to shreds.

Go and do something daring for the weekend.

Go and do a parachute jump.

Go and spend the weekend in Barcelona alone.

Up your adrenaline. You’re bored so you don’t appreciate what you’ve got so you’re playing with dynamite and creating some drama closer to home so you can get the excite you think you want.

Why did you have kids? Go and get some therapy first before embarking on an affair. You’ve got a lot to unpack there. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

I did wonder if she’s doing a version of the ‘script’ here where history is being rewritten.

This reply nails it.