Guilt of breaking up a family

[ThirtyOneGoingonFifteen]

I am on the verge of leaving my husband. I've tried and tried but I no longer love him. He hasn't done anything wrong and desperately wants to make things work, I just don't have romantic feelings for him anymore.

So if I do leave, how do I handle the guilt over hurting him so much, taking his son away from him and taking a loving father away from his son? Anyone been through a similar situation?

I grew up in an unhappy family, followed by an unhappy single parent family, followed by an unhappy step family. My DCs began life in an unhappy family, followed by a happy single parent family, and now are part of two happy step families. EVERYONE IS FINALLY HAPPY

So, ItsMargotBeauregarde, I'm with you...I'm promoting happy families too.

31 I will come back to you with answers, but got to go now.

"endurance, sublimation, sacrafice, selflessness, resignation...... it just sounds so joyless, martyred and pointless." also not a great role model for DCs...possibly particularly DDs?

No, I'm not involved with someone else. I just appreciate that he's a very very good person who could easily find someone who loves him very much. I know it's not fair to keep him hanging if I don't feel that way about him.

I don't agree, Spectactular. The OP doesn't love her husband any more, but neither does she want him to spend his life alone. She aslo feels guilty (which is why she started the thread!). It would also hopefully show her OH what she already thinks, that they would both be better off with somebody else, as illustrated so nicely by memysonandI and fourkids.
I know exactly how she feels. (not involved with anybody either!)

31
You asked me if I had regrets- well, sometimes yes and sometimes no.

Like you say - MY DH is a very good man, who loves me. My 2 DCS have done well academically and I don;t know what the outcome of that would have been if we had split up. But your DC is younger- if I had left mine for my ex, they would have been 7 and 5, then just doing their GCSEs and A levels- we had a couple of goes at it , but I couldn't take the risk of splitting my family.

No one can tell you what to do- you need to decide for yourself; what IS it that is missing? If, as one friend keeps telling me, my DH just doesn't float my boat, then nothing will ever change that.

You can't stay with a man out of pity or becuae you feelresponsible for his happiness- ultimately I think you do have to be selfish because if you aren't, the situation won't go away.

I am still thinking of leaving; my DH has now issued a kind of ultimatum after many years of not being close ( no sex etc) and says he wants to be free if I can't care more for him. We are giving itonelast shot. If we DO split I may well have regrets as I am 20 years+ older than you and it won't be that easy to find someone else - and I don't want to spend my next 30 years alone.

31, I don't have answers for you and reading your musings make me sad because I can hear how torn you are. It's never easy to make a decision to stay or go and I think if I were you I would set myself a time scale that has to pass before you pull the line. This will also give you the time to re-assess your life now and sketch out a future as you want it to be. (Hope that makes sense.)

I think your son is very young but will still thrive and be happy again, if you can arrange to live close to his Dad (same village or so they can still see each other a lot and his Dad can still help you day to day if you were ill or had appointments.

You say you wish for your Dh to find happiness. well, he seems pretty happy with you, so it will hurt him, you know. But at what point does his happiness matter more than yours? Hmm, I can't answer that but staying together for the sake of your son and him growing up in a loveless marriage (where resentment lies in the air) will not exactly be better for him, you know. Children are very, very perceptive and I think he'd rather see you happy apart but still getting on well, rather than growing up in a cold home.

One thing I'd like you to think about is: How will you feel when your DH brings home a few rebound girls and then a new partner who may or may not get on with you (and your son), what if things get nasty and how will you feel knowing another woman is hugging and spending fun time with your baby boy?

Personally it would tear my heart up. I wish you the strength to listen to your heart and make the choice that is right for you all.

JJsandcat, that is prety wise advice i think about thinking about how the OP will feel about another woman being in hr DS's life.

For me that has never been an issue, because I am happy that my DCs are happy in their 'other family', BUT one of the reasons I stayed so long was that I couldn't bear the thought of being without my precious DCs evey other weekend, and the thought of Christmases that weren't big family occasions etc.

howtotellmum, feeling sad for your dilemma

but wanted to reassure you that all the women that I know who are older than me and have seperated have gone on to have great relationships. Remember that it is very common for couple to split when all the DCs (the glue?) have left home, so there are lots of men also looking for love! And the advantage they have is that the whole step-parenting thing is much easier for them because the children have grown, so even when there are issues (jealousy or resentment etc) they tend not to be day-to-day, constant problems.

31 I understand exactly how you feel and am in the same situation really. Maybe I'm not quite as far down the line as you, but not far off. I've tried counselling on my own, and together, along with anything else I can think of but it doesn't change the fact that if the feelings aren't there they just aren't there.

I vote for happy parents every time. Our house is not as happy as it should be, and it's mainly me that's unhappy. DH is happy enough (have asked him several times) but the crux is that we want different things out of life. I have stayed so far because of my ds but that's no reason to stay.
I come from a single parent family and think my mother definitely did the right thing by leaving. My step dad stayed until the youngest was 18, even though they didn't get on at all, and all 3 of his kids wish they'd split years before.

I think the timing is key, as others have said, and giving yourself a deadline is probably a good idea. I think that's what I will do.

i take the point made here about happy families, regardless of who they are composed of. However, I maintain that most children would choose to keep their parents together, even if those parents are stressed and unhappy. I'm not saying it's rational.

I think JJ has some good points too. Right now you might have a good shot of feeling you and your partner can work out custody issues, etc. Everything can look very different though once other partners (and potentially more children) are involved. Money, time, perceived loyalties - these all can become huge issues.

Again, not saying it can't work out. Just lots to consider.

Re: working on marriage. There are obviously (at least) two schools of thought, those that think love can be nurtured between two mostly-decent people, no matter what, and those that think love can just dry up and can't be revived.

If you want to leave, its your choice. Nobody can make it for you or ease your guilt.

Marriage is hard work and you should ensure you have dont everything you can to make it work for the sake of your child. Children from divorce rarely like having their parents separated unless there was violence.

If you have felt this way for a while, perhaps bringing a child into the situation was not the best thing to do. Your decision does not just affect you but your DH and your child.

I feel for your DH in this situation, he is going to lose his child and his wife. Regardless of living close, seeing your child once a week or every other weekend is just not the same. If the situation was reversed, would you be happy with that little contact?

it's all so grey...SOMETIMES love can be nurtured between two mostly-decent people, no matter what, and SOMETIMES love can just dry up and can't be revived.

i have described what can sometimes happen in a failing marriage as a series of peaks and troughs: the good bits are the peaks and the bad patches are the troughs. sometimes you work at it and you get a peak, but it then slides back into a trough. sometimes each peak gets to be a little lower than the last one and each trough gets to be a little deeper, so although you are maintaining something and it does have good/acceptable patches it is gradually getting worse and worse overall, until it comes to the point where even the peaks are only as high as the troughs used to be. It isn't that you didn't give it your best shot, that you didn't try to love your DP, it DID just dry up to the point that it couldn't be revived. No-one failed in this situation, they just got to the point where they'd done their best and were no longer winning

I'm not advocating that anyone doesn't do their absolute best to keep their family together. I'm just saying that if you get to the point when you know you've done your best and you know you can't save the marriage, you should get support not a slating.

fourkids: then you are a very generous and strong woman if you can appreciate the other family.

I totally agree with Christmas, Birthdays, etc. if one doesn't get on with the new partner or the friendship with ex H turns sour all these occasions will be spoilt.

I've skipped a few posts but read Muffinbaker's post and though I'm a woman and a mum her words make sense:"If you want to leave, why are you taking your child? It isn't his choice for his family to break up and it isn't his dad's choice either."

Then you could stay close by and see them as much as possible but because you're the one who chooses to go I don't think it's fair you take the DS and tell your DH to leave and set up shop on his own. Gender should play no role in this issue and he could scale down his work and you could go back. You could at least talk it through, see if there's a good compromise to be found.

Oh, this is so hard. I really feel for you.

hmm..actually I think i AM generous and strong! But that's NOT why i appreciate my DCs' other family - My world revolves around my children and what makes them happy makes me happy

I appreciate the fact that they go to a lovely school where they are happy.
Even though I don't much like my ex-in-laws, i appreciate that they make my DCs happy.
I appreciate it when my DCs' dad and his DP make them happy. That doesn't mean i wouldn't rather it was ME tucking them into bed and kissing them goodnight etc, but then I'd rather not have to send them to school every day either!

just dipping in again..
some interesting posts..

31 I'd like to ask a personal question, feel free to ignore

how does it work out financially if you leave? will you and your h find it straightforward to fund two households?

sorry if I've missed something you've already mentioned about this

as I say I realise how personal this question is! sorry

Stuffit, well financially we'd be just about ok - we both have reasonably well paid jobs and I could stay in our current house for a while until the right time comes to maybe think about scaling down.

Just want to repeat that I'm not just assuming that it's ok for me to keep my son and throw my OH out of the house. This is something we've discussed and he would want me and my son to stay here. OH would live close by and spend as much time as possible with his son.

The question about how I'd feel about a potential new step mum being around - hmm, going to have to put some real thought into that one before I answer.

31 I think the key here is trying to keep what is best for your ds at the front of your mind should/when you split. You might not like it when someone new comes into your ds's life as a stepmum, but surely 3 loving parents are better than 2?

Wanted to post this separately...

All this talk has helped me focus why I think I started this thread in the first place. I think the main issue is this - I can see that if you can think back and remember the special times with your OH when you really felt a strong bond, then that would go a long way to helping you get back to those feelings. BUT, however hard i try, I can't remember ever feeling deeply in love with him. Which is why I'm not confident about being happy in this relationship. And THAT's one of the big sources of guilt for me - the fact that I married him and brought a child into the world when he probably wasn't the one for me. Of course I didn't do this intentionally - we got on really well and certainly had a connection because we understood each other. But I think I mistook this for love. And the fact that I never felt head over heels, well I believed that I just wasn't the kind of person to feel intensely happy so accepted it as it was. It was the old cliche of feeling lucky that he wanted me and I wasn't strong enough to question it at the time.

So I've made this huge mistake and inflicting hurt on people who don't deserve any of it. As people have said - there's no violence, he's a good man, so on the face of it i'm very lucky. And that's why it's such a big dilemma and making me feel so guilty.

31, that's kind of how I read the OP, tbh - and I'm not sure how you can side-step the guilt thing.

I don't think anyone else can 'make' you feel guilt, it's something that bubbles up from inside, and that's certainly how it sounds from what you're saying here.

Now, you can acknowledge the guilt as justified, and wait for it to subside and be 'liveable with', iyswim. Or you can attempt to confront it and deny that you have any need to feel guilty, which right now, you don't sound convinced about.

JJsandcat and muffinmaker

The child of a couple who splits up is not a consolation prize. 9 times out of ten, it will be the mother who can see him through the period of adjusment with more continuity and security.

Bit of a mafioso comment, "you leave me, you leave your child". Trite, facile and focused on 'kangaroo court justice' not the child's best interests.

ps, I can't remember who made this comment about 31's son's father "losing his son" but that isn't the case. They still have eachother. It's an adjustment that can be made. My children still have a father, and their father still has children.

Sorry for shouting.

ItsMargot well said. I was irate at some of the posts and their sanctimonious nature - obviously from people who've not been in the situation of the OP and can't empathise. How lucky they are their lives are so perfect

Thanks 31 for your reply. Your op did not do justice to the depth of thought in which you're engaged.

Scarlotti, I don't know if you mean me being sanctimonious, amongst others. But at the idea that my life is perfect. Or that I can't empathise. Or that I can't imagine what she's going through.

Really, I think maybe you are seeing prejudice in others, when the prejudice, or the "chip", is on the other side.

It is different now for lone parents, and better and easier for the children than it used to be, which is progress, God knows. But that is a macro issue. This is micro: three lives being changed and people trying to make the best of it (one hopes).

31: I think probably the key factor is: are you unhappy because you think there is a 'better' relationship out there for you/your DH somewhere? (Bearing in mind that romantic couple-relationships are not that important in the long run and it's perfetly possible to live a happy life without 'romance')Because if that's all it is, you might be making yourself miserable unecessarily. Or is it that you are fundamentally unhappy having to share a home with your H and feel obliged to have sex with him - or, if not obliged (because he is a decent enough bloke not to pressure you) uncomfortable because you're aware that he feels sexual desire for you and you feel none for him? Having to spend a lot of time in the company of someone who wants you sexually when you do not want to be sexual with that person is actually very, very corrosive. The other person will, in the end, come to disgust you (however nice, decent and non-pushy s/he is). S/he will also gradually begin to resent you and feel hurt and angry at your lack of desire and the situation will just get more and more unpleasant.