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?

I really hope the grass isn't greener on the other side.

You knew before you got married that he wasn't the one and that's absolutely despicable of you.

What a horrible knife in the heart it will be for him but you do need to end it so that whilst he's still young he can meet someone else who isn't fake.

What I do suggest is that you forget about the other man whilst you are sorting out the mess of ending your marriage and wait until the dust has settled before even thinking about getting with someone else.

Don't add cheating to your list of failings.

It just sounds like her working up "the script" and retconning her relationship which is a bit of a cliché.

If she's unhappy and wants to split, that's fine, but don't gild it.

And if this is the sort of thing she wants to tell her husband, she shouldn't effectively rewrite history for him. He doesn't need that.

You seem on track to want to follow the classic “script” - your head has been turned and now you’re already rewriting history.

Leave or don’t leave but don’t pretend you are doing it for his benefit.

You want someone else and are now willing to break your husband’s heart to have this other person after being happy to ‘make do’ for years.

Leaving may or may not be the right thing to do - maybe he will meet a supermodel who adores him and live happily ever after - but you aren’t doing it for him.

Also, ask yourself how you will feel only having your children 50% of the time and seeing them playing happy families with their father and his new partner. I can’t imagine a man like the one you describe will be alone for long. Or are you also expecting to take the children and reduce him to an EOW father?

Finally, does the man you have a crush on (and that’s what it sounds like to me - a teenage crush) have any interest in you or are you going to leave and find yourself on your own? You’ve been with your DH since you were 19. I don’t think you realise how hard dating as a single parent in your 30s can be (or in fact being a single parent even with an involved co-parent in the background).

I mean… you have no idea if she’s re writing anything.

What’s the situation with the other man? Is he interested in you too? What if you get together and it doesn’t work out or he turns out to be a knob? Would you have done the right thing then?

Take this from someone who was in a similar position, the grass isn’t always greener and you’ll likely regret leaving. Sometimes you really do need to appreciate what you have even if you can’t see it right now

Your husband is a different person because he's older, he's a father, he has responsibilities that he presumably didn't have when you met. You haven't sucked the life out of him, he grew up.

I agree with this.

If you don't love him and never have then it's fairer all round to leave, don't leave solely because of an imagined future with a guy you fancy though. If he's a nice, decent guy whereby you get on well with his family I can see why you found it tricky to walk away even though you had doubts to be fair, it's not easy.

I read the whole first bit of your spiel thinking there was another man involved here. And lo and behold there it was, after all the self justification / delusion.
So very predictable.

I don't, but that's partly why it's getting the reaction it is.

From her perspective, it may be true, but it's not how he's understood the marriage, and it's a pretty cruel rug-pull when you're told something like that.

If she does dump him and take the children's father out of a large part of their lives, replacing him with an unknown factor, I wonder where she'll turn if she then gets fed up of him too?
This poor man who seems to love his family too much will be faced with not only the loss of his family life he will also be faced with having to start all over again while she'll be sitting pretty, presumably with a house and financial support.
The OP needs to grow up, life isn't a fairy tale, it's far more real than that!

You do love him because you care about hurting him. Stop blaming yourself for the way he lives his life. Having wobbles the night before you marry is not unusual.
Atm you have a crush on someone else, that’s all. A good marriage includes friendship. You sound as if you’re a bit bored and think he must be bored.
You’d be mad to leave him.

Because she is being very naive in thinking she should have some Hollywood, head over heels crush on her husband of several years.

He sounds a great man and she will live to regret doing anything to jeopardize the marriage. The new guy could be a complete arsehole.

OP I'm just going to bump your second post here.

Do get help because being stuck in a rut insn't fun. We've all been there and we've all made decisions we regret. I hope whatever you decide it will be done with a great deal of consideration for all your family an understand how and why you have come to this point. I still bank on 7 year itch though 😃

No, it probably isn’t how he’s understood it.

Which is why separation would be better for him.

She can’t change her historical feelings for him, but she can draw a line under a relationship that is not seen the same way by both people.

So, you leave. Where do you go? How do you provide for your children, or do you plan to leave them with your husband.

You've developed a crush on someone. You don’t have to end your marriage because of it. You won’t be setting him free, so don’t pretend you’re being altruistic. You’ll devastate him, for what?

Young children are tiring, work is tiring. It’s not surprising he’s not gadding about like a teenager, especially with a physical job, two children and dogs. You aren’t sucking the life out of him, but you are trying to justify your thoughts by making it sound as though you’re doing it to help him.

Poor bloke.

I'm sure the stomach flip would be gone after the first few dates with another man.
The reality of trying to time dates between work, your time with the kids as a single mum, affording things alone and spending every other evening and day alone wouldn't be the excitement and lust that you think you are missing.

Notwithstanding what unfaithful spouses (usually men, I have to say) claim, don’t ’just happen’. You make them sound involuntary and beyond the control of the cheating spouse. They really aren’t. My guess is very few people in a long marriage have never been attracted to someone else. It’s what you do (or often don’t do) that matters.

Great first chapter. After ideas for chapter 2?

Plot twist. He's been having an affair for years and is secretly gay.

Where you're at right now, it looks like a binary choice - this man or that man.

But it's not. Try this - what would you do if your Fairy Godmother appeared and said, "I can grant your wish to leave this marriage, but I guarantee you will never see the Exciting Man ever again."

What would you do?

You have got a crush on someone else and it sounds like that has made you feel a combination of guilty and bored in your marriage. It is a flimsy reason to break up your family.

This. Her head being turned is a symptom of the problem in the marriage, not THE problem. OP is clear she never loved him romantically. No amount of counselling will change this.

A crazy amount of inferring and projecting going on in the thread.

People get married for all sorts of reasons and many women will have married somebody they might describe as their best friend. Does this man you're contemplating have any idea of your feelings or has shown any sign that he reciprocates your feelings?

I have known many people who got married young who think they have missed out on some fun filled sexually adventurous time being single in their twenties. They think that somehow they can have that in their thirties with a couple of kids in tow. I can tell you that the dating pool is far smaller than it would have been in your twenties with no dependants. Read some of the horror stories on here about online dating where half the men seem to be married or sending pictures of their genitalia. Those women would be delighted to have somebody like your husband.

You'll probably have to sell the house if you own one. Depending on how much you earn, you might never get back on the housing ladder. I can't tell if you work now but you'll probably end up working full-time. My husband used to work overseas a few times a year when the children were little and looking after the children without back up was pretty tough even though it was just temporary.

I got married at 29 to somebody I do consider my best friend. No, it wasn't really a lot of fun going out with lots of men in my twenties. I wanted to get married and have a family. Some of the men were absolutely awful. I broke my heart over a couple of them. I am just very grateful that I met my husband.

I think you're sleep walking into disaster. Don't dress this up as being for your husband's benefit either. He seems perfectly happy with the marriage. I don't think he or your children will consider themselves lucky to have their family broken up and their financial future ruined because you think there is some "big love" out there for you. There probably isn't.

’It’ll be alright’

I mean, it won’t. Divorce, shared custody, splitting of finances, moving house, dating with 2 young children.
Let’s be honest the other guy is not going to be a keeper.

You can do it, and you’ll survive but it won’t be ‘alright’ for a long time.

Practise gratitude for the wonderful life you’re living and your family before you go and mess it all up for a fantasy.

Honestly, you’d never forgive yourself once the dust settles.