Did you stay and regret it?

[Username1233]

For context, I have been with my partner for almost 13 years. We got together when I was 16, we have 2 DC, a house together, and quite frankly a wonderful life. He is an amazing dad, he is a caring and attentive partner. He’s made silly mistakes in the past, but never been unfaithful, never not put the kids first. He cleans, he cooks, he gets super involved in school activities, he’s like a unicorn.
I feel so guilty for writing this, because I have no reason to feel the way I do, but deep deep down I don’t think I love him in that way anymore. He really wants to get married, but I have no desire to do that with him. The physical attraction has gone, and intimacy has been all but non existent for almost a year. But he’s my best friend, we enjoy the same activities, he’s so much fun to go out with, and I love him so much (perhaps just not in love with him).

He doesn’t want us to separate, but I feel unbelievably selfish feeling the way I do, and potentially stopping him from finding someone who’s willing to give him the love he deserves.
We’re both still young, we both have an opportunity to potentially find someone else, but of course I realise the grass isn’t greener on the other side.
If you had stayed, because except from the whole “being IN love” everything else worked, did you have any regrets? I’m terrified of loosing my best friend, but I feel incredibly selfish staying for my own fear. Of course we have spoken about the kids to, something else which breaks my heart, because again, it seems incredibly selfish to break what appears to be a perfect family unit because something is missing.
Part of me thinks if you have to ask the question, you already have the answer. But another part of me thinks I need to grow up and just get on with it.
Please no harsh comments, I truly feel awful as it is.

@Username1233 - thanks for answering. So you and he have been on much the same timeline.

This is very tricky. All being well, you have another 50 or 60 years ahead of you, perhaps more. I do think 16 is very young to choose a life partner. My parents met and married very young (they were 18 and 20 when they got married). This was the early 1960s and it was more common then to settle down young (although even for then they were on the young side).

They warned DSis and me against doing the same thing and they did ultimately divorce after 32 years. DSis and I did take this to heart and, for me, it ruled out settling down with my first love as we were 16 and 17 when we got together. It does work for some people to settle down so young but i think most of us aren’t well-suited to being with the person we met in our mid-teens.

However, you felt settled enough to decide to have children with your DP. So you must have been thinking long-term then.

I just wanted to add that I do think there's some mileage in thinking of our life in eras, rather than as one long continuity. Maybe he was the right boy for your passionate teenage years; maybe he could be the right partner to pull oars with as you navigate this exhausting period of little kids, school, juggling careers and home and aging parents. That doesn't mean he has to be the right one you in your 50s, or the right one to retire with, or the person you want to grow old with. Having started your family young, by the time your kids are ready for more independence you will still be of an age many women nowadays are beginning theirs. That leaves a lot of room for soul-searching and life-changing.

Humans live for getting on 100 years nowadays, if they're careful and lucky. The model of committing to one person for ever is a bit outmoded in this context. We have to choose each other again and again at every life stage.

What is "your decision"?
At least suggest sex therapy before leaving him outright, surely?!

I think you need to try everything you can to salvage what sounds like a good relationship. I would do as suggested above, GP for hormone level check and marriage/sex counselling to see if there is any chance to get this back on track intimacy and sex wise.

My friend had the above, didn't want to do the counselling or have sex ever again. They divorced, because he was a lovely chap he met and married someone else and ultimately they had more money, nicer house, more holidays and the children pushed for the secondary school closest to their Dad which basically sealed it. The children lived with their Dad, their Mum is still single and she saw them every other weekend which only meant she was providing a taxi service and food. She deeply regrets not trying everything she could first.

You have to imagine yourself at least 1 year down the line. Where are the children spending Christmas? Are they having 2 separate birthday parties or are you doing a combined one? Just because he is lovely now doesn't mean he won't become cold once the dust has settled. You see it on here a million times over. He might co-parent completely differently when not living under the same roof as you.

Very good and sensible advice.

You have to make the choice OP. You could get out there and meet an amazing guy who sets your world on fire. But even if you do it is likely to end in tears. Even if you meet someone super sexy who gives you all the amazing sex and excitement and romance you are lacking, where do you go from there? How long will it last? Are you going to move in with him? What if he doesn’t want that? What if he’s just using you for sex? What if you do move into together and you find that he’s not what you thought? Maybe he is exciting and sexy, but maybe he’s also lazy and slobby and dirty and selfish. Maybe he’s boring. Living with someone requires much more than sex and romance. Refinement and intelligence and good manners seem so dull when you’re young, but when you live with someone they matter a lot.

I don’t want to get too heavy, but the philosopher Bertrand Russell once said that the Romantic movement had done our culture enormous harm. The Romantics (a generation of British, French and German philosophers and poets in the late 18th century) celebrated passion and violence and doomed love and all that sort of thing. They praised chaotic, passionate, destructive emotions. Sounds great when you are 15 and reading Wuthering Heights. It also makes great films and plays and poems. But when it’s applied to real life it causes misery. Don’t confuse passion and lust with deep and lasting love.

The grass is greener where you water it, OP.

@Username1233 - so if you’re 29 and your oldest is 8, you were presumably 20/21 when you got pregnant with your first child. You don’t have to answer but given how young you were when you had your first and the age gap between your DCs, I’m wondering whether your first was planned or whether unplanned but you leaned into early parenthood. If it is the latter, i can particularly see why you may be struggling now because (perhaps) you and your partner locked in earlier than you would have chosen, all things were equal. Nonetheless, you did decide to have a second child only a few years ago which suggests you were still feeling committed at that point.

As PPs have said, this guy sounds like a keeper and you could really regret leaving him just because you fancy a change. I know of one couple who had met relatively young (though not as young as you). They seemed to have a good marriage. When the children were primary school age, the wife decided she wasn’t feeling it any more. She ended the marriage. The husband was heartbroken. About 3 years later, he met someone else and has subsequently remarried, happily and successfully. Last i heard, the wife was single and bitterly regretting her decision.

Why don't you find him attractive, OP? Did you find him attractive initially, in the early stages of your relationship?

I found it really hard to articulate why I felt uncertain about my ex. If anyone had asked me what had happened, I often didn't know what to say. He was a great guy - kind, attentive, generous, thoughtful. But he also lied a lot, created chaotic situations that he needed to be rescued from, and had zero drive/ambition. I realise now that he held me back, despite his good qualities and the amazing time we'd had together. Things changed, I felt taken for granted and like nothing I raised was ever really addressed.

I didn't stay obviously. I wonder if you need some time to explore what it is that you need, that you're not getting from him? Is it just an atteaction thing, or is there anything else?

Personally, as you have kids, I think it's worth trying to save the relationship. Maybe try some couples counselling and see if that helps. But if you decide to end things, just please be aware that the dating pool is utterly dire and you are unlikely to find another unicorn. Most men are quite problematic, unfortunately.

Hope whatever decision you make is the right one for you.

If you madly fancied him before, can you speak to him about what you need to fancy him again? It sounds like you want him to be more proactive and take charge more. This is honestly a very common complaint and a few of my friends have voiced this - feeling like they earn the money and have to organise everything while their husbands are a little useless. I know yours does a lot in the home which is a credit to him, but maybe those are not tasks you find attractive and he would be better off working more hours and outsourcing work in the home?

I do agree with posters that relationships change. I've been with my partner 14 years and I still fancy him but not in the same way as when we were just dating. I don't think its realistic to expect that. That said there were some people I didn't fancy even when I was dating them and I could feel resentment building so it is important to be with someone you are attracted to and you feel proud to be with too.

OP from someone who is single after a few bad relationships and is desperately longing for a kind, reliable, and loving man to have a family with I wouldn't leave.

I’m wondering if you’ve thought about how you will feel when you miss out on half of your kids childhoods your husband gets a new girlfriend, gets married and your kids have another family that they may actually prefer to you. What about when you meet someone, you have to keep everything away from your kids until you’re really really sure it’s serious and you are in love and committed.. then your kids hate him and are horribly unsettled and you have to end the relationship.

Not saying any of these will happen but they are all risks you take.

If you once loved him. You still find him fun. You think he’s a good person. Then I would buy Gottmans books and do the exercises (seven principles of making marriage work and the dates book). I would read independently. Follow the exercises together and give it one last shot.

If you can afford it a Gottman trained counsellor.

my ex husband left because he put his feelings about struggling with family life above me and our children (he basically didn’t want to parent full time anymore and after twenty years together and 3 young children wanted to do what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it) so he didn’t leave due to falling out of love with me specifically - he fell out of love with our family

ironically I am also the main breadwinner by a large margin and that did lead to feelings of resentment and dissatisfaction in his “manliness” and ability to provide on my part - and looking back in hindsight I would never choose a life partner who didn’t have the same earning potential/ambitions as me again. But I still wouldn’t have chosen to divide my family over it - for me marriage and having children with someone is a huge life long commitment and responsibility- one you dont quit on unless there is abuse or infidelity

I wonder if you would still have the same feelings about him if the roles were reversed and he was the main earner…..

If a relationship without the particular kind of intimacy and connection that comes from having a happy sexual connection works for both you and your partner, then that's great. No one could criticise the way in which you've both found happiness, since it works for you both.

But it clearly doesn't work for the OP, hence her post here. Ditto her relationship sounding 'wonderful' to you. The key fact is that it doesn't feel wonderful to her. She's wrestling with something that is evidently hugely significant for her (and by extension, her partner) that just isn't an issue for you and your partner.

It never changed for me OP. My relationship dragged on from where you are now for another 10 years and it was 10 years wasted.

I think if he has done nothing in his behaviour to stop you fancying him (Like many rotten partners do) then it’s going to take an awful lot to get that feeling back.

You were 16 when you met and that is very young to meet someone who you know you will spend the rest of your life with.

You can’t force yourself to have sex with someone you have the ick for!

Good luck with whatever you decide. It’s never easy.

Yes, I agree with this. I too have dated a lot of idiots but all of them knew how to cook, clean, share chores and talk about feelings. The terrible men we read about on mumsnet are a self-selecting sample because people don’t post about good relationships.

But someone having basic levels of decency and being a nice person isn’t a reason to stay in a relationship with them! Sometimes it just isn’t working, it’s no one’s fault, the feelings have just petered out. And that is OK. You don't have to force it just because he surpasses the subterranean bar of not being a complete cunt. Not everyone who’s unhappy in a relationship is interested in finding a new one, either. OP might just want to be single.

I do think the “feminine” thing is a strange way to look at it though - personality traits are not inherently feminine or masculine, in fact they’re invented stereotypes that cause more harm than good and if anyone is not going to pass the subterranean not-a-wanker bar, it would probably be a “manly” man.

I think you should look into therapy, and to surface your feelings around his lack of ambition and money-making potential, before you call it quits. That seems to be the root of your lack of attraction and lowered libido. If you think you owe it to him to break up with him to enable him to find someone else (and tbh I get the impression you’re martyring yourself to make yourself feel better about your own desires and feelings), you owe it to him to be honest about how you perceive him and your waning attraction to him. It might hurt, but if you do it sensitively and in a therapeutic context, you’re at least giving both of you a shot at repairing things.

Personally - I think you’d be crazy to break up with him in search of passion and fire, unless you are completely satisfied with the prospect of watching him meet someone else and build a beautiful new life while you contend with the cesspit of men out there who are just not ready to commit into their fifties. I spent so long dating, trying to find a decent person who wanted to build a life together. It was not easy and at times was borderline traumatic. Wouldn’t ever choose it for myself again.

Oh OP you sound like two lovely people who have grown apart. Once the intimacy has gone I find theres no going back, no matter how much you love/care for each other. And trying to be intimate again is awful and makes the other person feel even worse as most times it doesn't work.

You've thought about this long and hard from mentioning finances, child care, the timing of separation for stage of kids schooling etc.

As breadwinner I'd advise not to get married feeling like this you have too much to lose.

Id say you need to do what you already know needs to happen and I can totally understand why you're posting on here. So you can look back after the event and say you tried everything you could think of x

I think you should remember the grass is not always greener! Look at friends and compare is your life so terrible? Do you only want to see your children 50% of the time. Try and fix this as long term relationships do have up and downs. Yes something is missing but it’s in you not him so try and mend yourself - what’s not happening that you think youd like to do with another man? Are you just bored? Can you do daye nights/get a hobby. Id try everything before throwing away a good relationship for lets be honest “Hollywood” style fairytale romance, tbh you never see a rom com doing the dishes, cleaning the toilet

It sounds like you might have met someone else already and want to leave to try it with him. Your family history means it's not a big deal for you and you think it won't be a big deal for the kids, cause you've got through it as a child. You're coming here to seek validation for the decision you've already made. People here suggest therapy, but you don't even mention it, as you've already taken the decision and informed your partner. Good luck.

But are you looking for a kind, reliable and loving man with whom you have no interest in having sex? A man who you so much don’t fancy that you turn him down, every time he tries to initiate sex?

I think this is great advice. I’ve thought about chasing the 10% before, and then I think about everything I’d be risking and it’s just not worth it to me. Have you thought about spending a bit more time apart? Covid was tough on my relationship, it definitely helped when we had some space from each other.

To answer a wide variety of questions here. Of course the thought of him being with someone else stings, but I don’t think that’s abnormal? I would desperately love things to change, if I hadn’t I would still be here months on trying to consider if I’m making the right decision or not. I really do not understand how so many of you can force yourself to have sex when you have absolutely no desire to sleep with that person. It seems awful for both parties?

@Caterpillar1 your comment seems harsh, and I perhaps expect that you have not come from a broken home yourself. The fact I have, is why I’ve been considering what the right choice is for so long. And no, there is no one else.

Is put effort into dating each other again. Making the time monthly for 121 time. And have sex. It can feel nerve wracking when it’s been so long.

even if you book a hotel, dress yourselves up. Pull out all the stops. Everything has lulls especially over a long time and the laser focus on life and just managing the day to day.

you like scooter, you are not unhappy and are clearly friends and emotionally connected. Love and romance require effort. Bring back the intimacy, gentle touches, cuddles as you walk past, little peck, make out while watching a film on the sofa.

it won’t happen unless you try to make it happen.

thats a lot of words to say that you want to go shagging about.