Is this a mid life crisis or realisation that I’ve messed up?

[Alexahelp]

Just turned 40 (not fussed bout this as a bday!) married with two early school age kids. Been with lovely DH bit over 10 yrs. He is solvent, dependable, kind, we coparent really well. We both work, we could both afford to live alone, I do all the house admin and direct the main life decisions which he goes along with. This has always been the case (and a source of frustration) - I also asked him out and started the relationship in the first place. We got on and just never split up.

He is very different to many of my previous boyfriends in my 20s. Most of these were unreliable but fun relationships with men who were popular with girls, but I didn’t struggle really for dates - but the last one I was extremely hurt by and retreated into myself. I know my ‘safe’ and a bit more passive DH was an active decision to prioritise stability after that relationship. I chose him for a reason and perhaps suppressed some of the differences I saw in us.

Since kids have been more independent, I have deeply enjoyed reconnecting with my social side which gives me a huge natural buzz. DH doesn’t want to make new friends and struggles to enjoy new social situations. I feel like we are doing our lives separately. I want to socialise as a family as well as alone and he wants to relax at home.

I have also met a couple of men recently I have developed strong attractions for. I haven’t acted on these but I know they have been reciprocated. These men have both been the exact personality I got on with before - but now simply a bit older and so ready for more stability. I cannot stop thinking that I jumped into a situation with DH that I thought was the right thing to do, but compromised my natural personality in the process. Now I’m out the baby years, it’s all coming home to roost and I have potentially messed up for all of us - but I feel trapped in the need to compromise with him, or do things for myself entirely without him. I don’t think that’s what a relationship should bring.

What would you do? I care a lot about him but 40-50 years to go is a long time to compromise.

You say that you are doing more socialising separately, but it's leading to you feeling detached from your DH. I do a lot of stuff separately to my partner, but one of the things we both really enjoy is reporting back after we've been off doing something. Talking about how it went, who was there etc. Does he take an interest in the stuff you do even if he doesn't want to join in? Do you make time to catch up with each other?

Honestly find a new hobby /interests

but now simply a bit older and so ready for more stability

Yeah, this is bollox

This dh provides a decent stable caring family life and prefers home to going out.
You are bored love the drama and want to flirt and feel needed by someone looking for a ego boost and quick shag..
Go for it..when it all turns to shit comd back and let us know.
Social and non social couples respectfully can work and live together.
He probably has his own attractions as well.
Go eat your cake.

You do realise that these reciprocating men are only interested in you because you are in a LTR?
If you were to leave your husband and put your children through the trauma of a family split, neither of them would be interested in any more commitment than a FWB. I guess that you are at the beginning of peri-menopause and your hormones are raging in a bid for a last hurrah, as they do. Give yourself a talking to and either take up running again or find another outlet for all that energy.

The grass is greener where you water it right ☺️

Sounds like you need to find hobbies/interests that you can focus on in spare time. And not pin everything you are feeling on men.
I do feel sorry for your husband .

I came here to say exactly that! Men like that rarely grow more stable, OP. They just get lazier and look for someone to make a home for them — till something ‘better’ comes along.

Hmm, not sure what to add really. Maybe just that when you’re imagining a different future, don’t assume that your ‘safe’, kind DH will placidly go along with whatever you would like for coparenting arrangements. He’s a person too and may well feel betrayed and upset. You say you coparent well now but if you split up it may not be the smooth ride you’re perhaps imagining.

Or they are ready to marry somebody 10-15 years younger and discover "joy" of fatherhood in their late 40s/early 50s.

This absolutely nails it!

OP, I would invest your energy in improving your relationship with your husband. People always suggest splitting up so lightly. I know a few people who have and the reality is very different from what they imagined when they split up.

You're creating distance and separation in your marriage rather than enjoying togetherness. You're looking for the dopamine hit and ego boost of attention from bad boy type men. You're trying to recapture your youth by playing with fire.

Classic mid life crisis. You're bored, there's other men giving you attention on your separate social occasions. You want attention and external validation. It's possible a surge of hormones could be contributing.

What you want will wreck your marriage and trash your family. If you have an affair, you're taking away your partner's right to consent to sex and exposing them to someone else's flora. You'd be creating a situation that would cause them and the kids involved a lot of emotional distress.

A poster above mentioned the grass is greener where it's watered and you see yourself that's true in your marriage. You're having a enjoyable social life without your husband and your emotional interest is there now, not in your husband and family. You've withdrawn the water and the grass, your marriage, is drying up.

Perfect response

This! They haven't really changed OP.

Don’t look to other men before you sort out your own relationship.

Don’t make a pig’s ear of your life and your dcs’ lives for the sake of your fancying a couple of blokes. God.

I suspect that you would have got a very different response if you had not mentioned anything about bad boys and just lead with how he never pulls his weight in life admin.

You would be a FOOL to throw a hand grenade into your marriage over this. I have seen it so many times, it's always a disaster.

I was on the dating apps when I was 38, it was a fucking nightmare. Men turning up who'd used fake photo's, men asking too many questions about my kids, men who were quite frankly frightening if you didn't do or say what they wanted. Thankfully I did meet my now DH, who is a gem.

But I know the dating apps are still awful, and full of players...my 4 friends are on them. Two are 36, one is 46 and one is 52. They are all attractive ladies, fully solvent, own their own homes and have successful careers. They cannot find a good man and have been trying for ever. The men your age Op are looking for hook ups with women in their 20's.

Focus on your marriage. Have date nights. Have more sex. Try everything before you throw yourself into the alternative, which is :

upset children

only seeing your children 50% of the time

missing birthdays and Christmasses with your children

having half the wealth you have now

seeing your DH with OW, who might turn out to be a bad stepmum

trawling through endless dating sites, only to be let down by men who are sleeping with multiple women at once etc, etc

Gah. You'd be a FOOL.

Just to add, one of my 36 y/o friends recently thought she'd finally hit the jackpot. Dated him for 4 months. Arranged for him to meet her parents who were over from the States. He never turned up at the lunch and has ghosted her since. Fucking brutal. She is so upset.

Don't throw your marriage away for a quick bunk up with a bloke. It's not worth it.

Team Husband here. Just leave him and you can flirt all you want

Yes you are likely right. I’m not even talking about ‘bad boys’ either when it comes to the previous ones. These are guys who were highly desirable and married by mid 30s. Maybe I just wasn’t good enough, I don’t know. I’ve talked up my husband a lot here because I didn’t want a whinge to lead responses but he’s been similarly passive to our relationship over the last couple of years and these things do take two. I
will try and give it a kick.

I should probably have not mentioned other men as I see the issue is going off on a tangent, but I see it as a symptom. I still have a good few single friends, I know it’s shit out there.

Your feelings are valid and you and your dh may not be right for each other. Can I suggest that you try talking with him about this? Say that you are feeling unsettled and that you've noticed that there is a gulf in how you like to spend your time. That you would like to socialise together more and know that he finds it difficult but you feel it could be enjoyable for you as a family so is there any way that you can meet in the middle and compromise?

At the minute this is a wall between you and you are doing nothing to prevent it building. You are having these thoughts and considering whether or not you want to make a major life change and he knows nothing about it. You may not realise it, but it would be very easy for your head to be turned by one of these attractions. That would be an absolute shitshow for all of you. Far better for you to have an open conversation and potentially leave amicably if that is what you decide to do.

You may find that your words fall on deaf ears, or that your dh gets defensive, but at least you will know that you have done all you can in the right way. His response will give you all the information you need to decide your next move.

I haven’t RTFT (most though) but I’d recommend reading “All Fours” and also Esther Perel’s work.

Have you tried reading a couple of books?

Both non-fiction and fiction.
Madame Bovary — the classic historical example. Emma Bovary marries a safe, dependable doctor, becomes bored, romanticizes passion and status, and seeks excitement elsewhere. It is one of the foundational novels about dissatisfaction after “settling down.”

The Evolution of Desire by David Buss — non-fiction.
This is probably the closest serious academic book on mating strategy and long-term vs short-term partner selection. It discusses how attraction criteria can change across life stages and contexts.

Reading between the lines, I wonder if you feel you are objectively more physically attractive than your husband and this adds to your frustration with his passivity?

You mentioned that because you had a type. That type ended up elsewhere with other women. So you looked elsewhere and now that you've had your kids and the marriage, your type is looking more appealing again. Your type didn't make you happy before. Why would you think that's changed? They're all hooked up in relationships.

You're looking for outside validation from desirable men. You kicked up your separate social life 6 months ago and now you're attracted to other men and increasingly dissatisfied in your marriage.

It's time to have a heart to heart with your husband and think about counseling before you do something that traumatizes your family. Get clear on what you want and what you can likely expect if you stay married and if you split. If you want your marriage, you'll have to recommit and put effort into that. If you want to split, there are no guarantees you'll find what you're looking for. Your current social life might take a hit also if you become single. Your kids will be collateral damage.

Honestly, I'm seeing the start of The Script here.

I see the script too.

Op you really have no idea of what's going on with these men, these men probably will not have been behaving as kindly as you husband for the past 20 years, that is why they are predatory, some screwing up their own marriages, some maybe eternal bachelors/players and you want to enter their arena.

One man I know who was basically hot as hell could charm anyone into bed, and he knew it, he would puposefully target women who were partnered, he enjoyed splitting marriages up, he would flatter them so intensely their confidence would soar, these were usually intellegent women with money behind them or good carreers with solid dependable husbands in the background. Once they broke up and separated/divorced their dependable hubbies, he would drop them or start on his next conquest.

He loved the pain he inflicted, the families that were destroyed, the weak broken men that begged their wives to see sense, and ultimately these confident women that thought they were in control of their relationship with him, he then brought them down to their knees.

I've known he's done this many times because I've seen the fall out of crazed women screaming how dare you do this to me, he just uses agression to shut them up, and he moves on nonchalently.
There are many men maybe not as bad as this but they all have a sililar hobby, destroying happy homes, beating other men, and destroying women, pulling them down a peg or two.

Think twice before you enter this arena, it's brutal.
Your husband sounds kind.