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?

In my earlier post I mentioned the consequences it had on me when I left in similar circumstances, but I didn’t say about the effect on everyone else.

My daughters were devastated and lost the nice house, holidays etc that they had before, and it’s definitely impacted their view of relationships.

I told myself I was being kind to my husband by leaving, and he has found someone else, but it’s not what he wanted. Also, he’s of course had a big financial hit too.

So I would really really think hard before making any decisions and go to marriage counselling if you can… the grass is definitely not always greener.

I think it’s normal for people to have conflicting feelings throughout a relationship. To have things about their DP that make them cringe or to feel smothered or ambivalent about commitment. That doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings of love and desire for the relationship as a whole.
The thing with the “script’ is people will focus on the fact that those feelings of discontent were always there, and forget that they also had feelings of love and desire. Rewriting history to serve the new agenda.
Not suggesting to know what OPs feelings are. I would just be careful not to break up a family in the heat of the moment as it could be that this new crush is skewing perception of history.

I think marrying someone you know genuinely loves you but you feel nauseous about was the despicable thing to do. You committed an act of emotional fraud. That doesn’t mean you should stay but why in earth did you do that?

I’m not sure lots of people are okay with their spouse not returning their feelings? The OP hasn’t said her DH is ‘obsessed’ with her either. I’m not sure why the OP not feeling the same would make him more ‘obsessed’ either! Some strange ideas here…

OP you have two small children. Of course it's hard and most parents lose themselves in the early stages. Children do get older and a bit more independent. That allowes for a bit more freedom to do hobbies and more time to maintain friendships.
Many marriages struggle with intensity of having little ones yet they come out on another side and find themselves again when kids get older. Different stages of life have different priorities. I would wait with big decisions until things become a little easier.
You can have many flings but a good loving husband is much harder to find, not to mention creating some sense of family unit and harmony in blended familes can be very difficult to achieve.

I also can't help the impression that you're someone who has this fantasy in your head yet in real life you just go along with things. You need to start being realistic and proactive. Good marriage requires effort and communication. It's not just going to happen to you like in a fairytale.

People are inferring and projecting all over the thread - because it’s MN and the OP has mentioned finding someone else attractive. I have a sense the responses would be quite different had she omitted that information.

There have been lots of responses from people who have indeed left their partner because they didn’t love them. This can happen. It is not always re writing history.

I have a sense the responses would be quite different had she omitted that information

Agree. It’s one tiny bit of the whole and so many posts have focused on that exclusively.

But the fact that she has developed feelings for someone else is entirely relevant. Had she omitted that, the advice given would be based on a misconception arising from not having all the facts, and wouldn’t reflect the true circumstances.

OP has been married to her DH for seven years. I think it’s very telling that she hasn’t considered actually leaving him until she developed a crush on this other man. It’s highlighted the fact that she isn’t free to do anything about it. It’s also clear from her description of those feelings that it’s a crush. She appears to know nothing about him and has never flirted or voiced her feelings so has no idea if he would return them or whether they would even be compatible.

The ‘first flush’ feelings inevitably disappear and I think OP might want to revisit her early relationship with her DH and recall what the attraction was before deciding emphatically that she didn’t feel the same about him as she does this other man now. It’s a very flimsy premise on which to blow up a marriage and l fear that if she goes ahead in her present frame of mind, she will live to regret it

Other posters have been in a similar situation to the OP and have said that being attracted to someone else made them realise the feelings they never had for their partner. This was a catalyst for the relationship to end but not the cause - which were the absence of feelings/passion/love.

I am responding to what the OP has wrote. It is entirely possible that she never was attracted to her DH. The attraction to the other man is likely a red herring here.

I think it’s a bit outrageous how many posters are telling the OP how she feels, telling her that she did fancy her DH, she must love him. It’s a strange form of gaslighting. Utterly bizarre.

Not a lone voice at all. The poster has not condoned cheating. They have said if truthfully you do not love your husband and never have done, don't perpetuate the wrong by making the rest of his or your life a lie. I don't think there is any suggestion of leaving the husband without a great deal of thought.

There are quite a few batshit responses on this thread to be honest suggesting the OP stay with DH no matter what. Quite worrying really!

I don’t think anyone is gaslighting the OP. Developing a crush on someone new can skew the feelings you’ve had for a long term partner. I think, like myself, all those posters are trying to do is to encourage OP to explore her feelings more before making a decision that will blow up her own life, and the lives of three other people. And l think her attraction to the other man is far from a red herring if it’s brought her to the conclusion that she should leave her husband and break up her family.

It is a red herring in the sense that it may not be the cause of her considering leaving her DH, it is more that her ‘crush’ has made her analyse her own absence of feelings towards her DH. The OP is quite clear that she has never loved him and how she felt on her wedding day.

I agree she absolutely should explore her feelings and not take any quick actions she may come to regret. If she does however reach the same conclusion as she wrote here - that she doesn’t love her DH - then I think it would be wise to separate. It would be cruel to maintain the status quo / not rock the boat when the DH is essentially in the marriage under false pretences.

This sounds fictional.

Exactly......

I’m still waiting to hear about the hare and the hunter and the fisherman and the fish.

I understand everything else on this thread but that has really confused me.

The posters saying she is definitely rewriting history and that this is the script are absolutely gaslighting. They are also not encouraging she looks at her own feelings- they’re saying she doesn’t feel what she says she feels - and that’s both mad and unhelpful to the OP and her husband.

I agree.

I read on here (I think) once.. don't confuse the 20% missing from a relationship that someone else can give you with the 80% that your partner gives you. Or words to that effect. This man may (or may not) give you the spark you are missing, but is it worth all the other stuff you sacrifice? If you leave and have a few years of passion with this man, how will you feel about all you gave up for it when you are faced with the day to day drudge of life?

That said I feel really sad for your lovely husband who perhaps deserves to be loved by someone who isn't looking elsewhere and telling MN that they settled. Did you settle or are you repainting the past?

Adding to my previous post, the problem with this whole narrative is that it might not be true.

People get married. They are in love/happy/committed.

Things get dull

One of them falls for someone else and then - as we have all scene - starts following the script. In other words, starts rewriting history to minimise their guilt.

Everything i have ever learned on MN about cheating tells me that once lust has kicked in, those endorphins will make you say/believe anything in order to justify the sex. So OP saying she and DH have never really been 'right' and the feelings weren't 'really there', is the same old trope we've heard from cheating husbands since the beginning of time.

And it's usually horseshit.

The reality is that it's much easier to justify cheating if you can convince yourself (and others) that the whole marriage was a mistake in the first place.

OP. The three options I mentioned previously remain the same. Before you destroy everything for the sake of of a fuck, distance yourself from this man who is offering you nothing more than lust. Those feelings will pass and only then will you be in a position to really assess the potential (or not) of a future with your DH.

The script is known as the script for a reason.

Because the vast majority of people wanting to cheat rewrite history. They convince themselves to justify cheating. Because people are far more accepting of someone screwing over someone else if it’s in pursuit of true love. And you can’t claim the OW/OM is your true love if you were once madly in love with your spouse.

But also, it is actually more palatable than the other scenario. Which is that Op married a man she didn’t love. She married him knowing full well she didn’t marry him. She continued to deceive him, to her own benefit. She had children with him, knowing she didn’t love him. She didn’t respect him and doesn’t even love him as a friend. Because people don’t do this sort of thing to people they like and respect. Never mind love.

Now he is facing having to co parent his children, only having them (at most) half the week, divorce, heart break, financial implications all because the Op deceived him for years.

Op marrying him because she loved him and now had her head turned, seems far more plausible and palatable. Because the alternative is really fucking awful.

I’ve heard the script mentioned on MN a few times but haven’t really delved in to it and never heard of it at all until fairly recently. What is the script, is this one?

In my experience many are ok with it as long as they get to have the person.

And no she didn't use the word obsessed, but described a man who completely adores her, and use of the word 'obsessed' in that context is normal, it can mean completely in love!

I never said she was a lone voice I said a fairly lone voice, read properly before you respond.

It’s hardly any wonder why people with another viewpoint, including the OP, wouldn’t feel comfortable expressing themselves on here as the pitchforks are out in force and you are rude.

‘Fairly lone voice’ is a terrible description and makes no sense as there are obviously multiple ‘voices’ saying the same things I am. E.g. the OP knows how she feels and it’s not right to gaslight her to fit your own narrative. Perhaps you should improve your vocabulary before responding.

It’s hardly any wonder why people with another viewpoint, including the OP, wouldn’t feel comfortable expressing themselves on here as the pitchforks are out in force and you are rude.

You think I’m rude. I think you are a deluded apologist for the OP 🤷🏻‍♀️.