How many women are just making do with their partner- is it common?

[strawpoll]

I am in a real dliemma. I always knew when I got married that my H was not the "perfect man", not that such a person exists- know that!

However, I chose to go ahead mainly out of fear of being alone, after being hurt a lot in my 20s, endlessly it seemed, and because he gave me some of what I wanted/needed. I did like him, but wasn't sure if it was love. It was a safe option, tbh.

Now, many years on and 2 grown up DCs later, I realise it was a mistake, and I should not have married for those reasons.

Mentally, he doesn't turn me on and I only feel half-alive, if that makes sense- we have a few things in common but not alot and he is a very quiet, solitary person, who doesn't need friends ( has none) or much communication _ I am the opposite- I write and communication is what makes me tick.

He is a good man and I feel very secure, but I can really take him orleave him. My conscience says I should go, but I know heloves me a lot and doesn't want this- if he felt the same, it would be over quickly.

I am weighing up the odds- I'd be a lot poorer, I wouldn't have a "friend" which is really how I see him, my DCs would have divorced parents, and I may never meet anyone else.

I know that no-one can tell me what to do, but so many of my friends say that a lot of marriages are like this and it's "normal". Is it?

Ha! fwiw a friend of mine in her 50s did leave her marriage which had run aground - their dc at Uni etc, their marriage empty - and she is having a ball.

Says there are LOADS of men in their 50s about - who on the whole have got a sufficient grip on themselves to not be thinking that 20 y-old girls would be interested in them. She says her friends say this wasn't the case when they were single in their 40s.

Just putting that in the pot

On the other hand - there is something to be said for another person just amiably being in the room, even if you don't talk that much. . .

okay, must go and do some work now. Let us know what you decide

If you're husband still loges you and doesn't want to split, then you wouldn't be "setting him free" to find someone else. You'd be dumping him. "Setting him free" implies he wanrts to go which, from what you've said, isn't the case. Let's not gloss over that with pretty phrases.

Have you considered couples therapy, such as Relate? I think that, if you basically get along, you are better off trying to fix what's already there.

I think just about every marriage/LTR has quite a few compromises to make along the way.

This is the perennial problem with 'inertia' couplings (where one person is madly in love and the other one is thinking, well s/he will do, and I don't want to be single) which are, of course, extremely common and will continue to be, trapping lots of people in these boring miserable lives, while heteromonogamy is still peddled as the purpose in life and the happy singles still repeatedly told they are freaks or failures. Tcomes a point when you have simply had enough of the other person. S/he is not evil or anything, but you just don't want to live in close proximit with him/her any more. It also becomes hard, after a while, not to resent someone who is desperate for you to 'love' him/her when you don't.

I have been following this post with interest and I think I see where you are coming from strawpoll.

I have had a conversation with my DH about similar feelings to those you express. He sounds a similar personality to your husband. He is always quite philosohpical in these discussions. Like you I do feel alone. I have been with him for 10 years the majority of which we have been married. We have two young children and my DH says that it is this that limits our abilities to properly explore our relationship as most of the time he is too tired as am I!!!! However, this is not about my situation. It sounds as if you have been together longer and have already had these conversations. I suspect these feelings are quite common and not really talked about openly by women (and men).

You are left with a dilemma as to whether to stay or go. It is a case of exploring pros and cons of your relationship. There are some things you can predict as to what will happen but others are largely unknown. Part of the analysis will depend on knowing yourself. Are you the sort of person where the grass is always greener? (I ask this as I am and always have felt unsatisfied with most things!) You may find someone new or have the opportunity to explore other relationships. You may find you end up with no one who you like/love as much as your husband. As you say in your post no one can tell you what will happen. It depends whether you are prepared to find out. The situation as it is seems unhealthy and unfulfilling, at least for 50% of the participants. Would your husband consider relationship counselling? Or perhaps exploring yourself with individual counselling may help (sorry if you have already said this).

In answer to your original post I think what you describe is normal. How you decide to deal with it is up to you. But I do relate to what you are talking about and could have posted your feelings on here. The only difference being a few chronological facts...

Good luck. I hope whatever you decide helps you feel less lonely.

Walk. sometimes life is too long for sticking with a half-assed solution.

you may be alone - but being alone could be better?

my DH's sept mum was a divorcee aged 40, married his dad, and now widowed, has found another man again @60 ...some people keep on finding other halves. you may be one of them, or you may not. You never know until you try, But not with the married bloke. that way madness lies.

I think what your middle-aged female friends says is correct strawpoll. It is normal for most marriages after 20 yrs. Note I said most not all before someone jumps on me. But normal doesn't have to be good enough if you decide it isn't. It has to be up to you, no-one else. We can offer our experiences and views, that is all.

I get it Strawpoll.

And I also agree with SGB - couple hood and esp marriage is v overrated.

I do think many marriages are like this though and find that very sad.

If you are married to someone you really spark with then that's such a bonus.

just because her husband wants to stay, doesn't mean it might not be better for him to get dumped, and then go on to meet somene that really needed him.

because now I don't imagine he is in clover.

although i agree (as a veteran of a whole year of marriage!) that mariage is nt all fun, the OP seems to have stuck with this one long enough to know where its headed.

i am also in a similar situation and i think that it is common. we have to young dc though. we have been together for 10 years and i married him because i already had one child of his. i have tried and tried to make it work (relate etc) but we dont have anything in common. he doesn't talk, ever and like you say, i am a communicator. i have putit on the line for him many times and he says things will change and they don't. this was never enough for me to feel i could leave. i did used to fantasise that Richard Gere would come along and sweep me off my feet but then i realised htat this was not going to happen and if i wanted to leave i had to do it to be true to me. not because i thought that i would meet someone better. a few years down the line and i ahve realised that i am unhappy, and although i think i would be happy with a companion after 10 yrs. that is not really what dh is: i don't really like him. and yes, lying in bed next to some one you don't want to be there is one of the lonliest things in the world. After much soul searching we are about to start a trial seperation (a comprimise as he doesn't want to seperate) also, i may ( and am hoping) see that the grass is not greener. i don't know how it will turn out but i do know that i cant live like this anymore life is too short. good luck with what you decide. x

I have been with my husband for 10 years. I know its not as long as the OP. There has been times that my husband and I could have easily walked away. We have our good times and our tough times.

I feel sorry for strawpoll DH. He is being dumped after 20 years of marriage. He has kept his side of the bargain, but his wife wants to trade him in for a more interesting model.

Sometimes when you lose something you realise how good it was.

How would this thread go, if someone was posting that after many years of marriage their husband wanted a better model?

Many cultures do not expect wild sexy marriages. There are many very happy arranged marriages where the parents have matched people on practical things like aspirations rather than lust. Life is not a Hollywood movie.

Marriage is supposed to be until death do you part. Life was never meant to be perfect.

gosh just realised i am one of those people who have been married for more than 20 years.

I have felt just as you do now - and my h must have done too - he had an affair - which we are still recovering from.

It has in so many ways made our marriage better and made us both think about what it is we want from life. He did leave for a while - and whilst i hated being alone i coped.

I wouldnt advocate an affair though as a way of spicing up your life!

I still have days when i think maybe the grass is greener elsewhere - however i dont think i would leave for another man (and all the men related problems that would bring). It would be for myself and the way our relationship is there is nothing i can think of that being married would stop me from doing.

I get support from my h to persue my interests and i hopefully support him.

However i will confess to being curious as to how my heart would flutter with a new man.

So for my i would say what you are trying to find out is perfectly normal.

Hopefully you can work out what you really want and find the 'missing' piece for you.

but i don't think lust is what's missing, unless i've misunderstood - it's more a matter of lack of a connection.

you only get one life...

i also feel sorry for the DH, but what i sworse, being divorced by someone who doesn't love you, or being married to them?

Haven't read all the thread yet but fwiw:

Is it common to make do - yes, in fact ime and imo it's the norm. Every wedding I have ever attended further enforces this view. Couples get together for all sorts of reasons and being absolutely perfect for each other is rarely the prime one.

I'm compromisiing in my relationship, much like OP my DP is an absolutely lovely man but doesn't fundamentally 'get' me. I've been through times of thinking 'I want out of this' but I've always come through those times, feeling stronger about DP and wanting to stay with him.

Two reasons for this are that a) the grass isn't greener. Every woman who I envy for having an articulate and outgoing DP tells me what a pain in the arse he is if we ever get round to discussing relationships and b) I get all the stimulation I need from books, the internet, my friends, my work and my family.

DP is great and 'ideal' for some things, but not for stimulating conversation. I'm used to it, I accept it, and we both get that outside of the relationship.

Don't know if my experience helps OP at all but yes, the situation you describe is so common as to be standard, I think.

agree - being married to someone who doesnt love you is terrible - but 20 years is a long time. There surely must have been some love over those years? Sometimes though we just remember what we want to remember.

It is good to question every now and then - but there also needs to be action - otherwise the years do just pass by.

It is a fear of mine that i will look back over my life and think - so thats it is it??

I suppose what i am trying to say is - is this just about the h or is it bigger and about the op needing something else in her life but is using her marriage as an 'excuse' iyswim.

Morris - good post - pretty much sums it up - but is it 'making do'? or as you seem to be saying - real life.

ReallyTired- I actually feel sorry for you as you seem to talk in cliches and not have any real understanding or experience of what I am on about!

I wonder whether you really believe these cliches, or if you are hiding behind them, as you also cannot face up to something?

It has never been my intention to hurt another human being, and that is one of the reasons I have stayed - to protect my DH and my DCs from any fallout- for 25 years actually. You paint me as being rather callous when you talk of "trading him in". If you believe marriage is for life, whatever, unless there is a huge reason to go,like violence, then say so, as it's hopeless trying to communciate the more subtle points of all of this.

For me it's very much real life. I don't feel I'm 'making do' in a bad way, or in any way really.

I do feel that I love DP and that we are happy.

But it has taken a long time, and even now sometimes I get those moments where I look at him and think 'you just don't know me at all'.

Then a week later I look at him and think 'I am so effing lucky to have this man in my life'.

I don't expect a brilliant, amazing relationship. I'll happily take one that is brilliant and amazing some of the time, and good enough for the rest.

I think the one most pertinent question to ask yourself is 'Would I be happier living on my own, possibly for ever?' There are no guarantees that you will meet someone who totally 'gets' you. Indeed, you might meet someone who 'gets' you (or suits your needs/desires) for a certain period of time, but who will then fail to 'get' you when you get older/change your needs etc.

You might be lucky and meet your 'soulmate'. But you might not. Would you be happier on your own? If not, then stay in your marriage but do your husband the courtesy of wondering if perhaps you don't 'get' him either. Maybe he loves you despite feeling that you don't get him either.

That said, if you truly believe that you would be happier on your own, then leave him. He will be upset, but perhaps, like you, will find someone who 'gets' him too, instead of settling for him.

FWIW I divorced my first husband, although we did laugh together, were friends etc, but fundamentally our outlook on life was very different and in the end there was no respect left, which in turn eventually led to no love. My 2nd husband gets me in practically every way- but even so I have occasionally looked at other men and wished he had x quality instead of y. But these times are brief and I never stop thanking my lucky stars to have found him.

Morris- yes what you say rings very true. I am well aware that I could leave this in the hope of finding someone else, who could tick certain boxes but be a complete bastard in many other ways. So it's not really about finding another man, it's more about being honest with myself and what works for me.

One thing that makes me very sad is that my DH is utterly uncritical of me, is very happy, ( as long as i am happy with him) so I feel the relationship is unbalanced.

Which, I suppose is another issue- can relationships work when 1 partner is simply not quite so keen as the other? And should that partner stay?

morris - that it exactly as it is for me too!I am happy with my life, and I love my DH but it isn't DH that makes me happy.

If you really feel there is no future for you and your husband, you need to talk to him now, or call it a day and walk away.

To hang on in there just because it's the easy/comfortable solution is just going to hurt him even more in the long run.

If the shoe was on the other foot and it was your husband who was seeing someone else, or even just talking to another woman on a level that he felt he couldn't talk to you, you would be hurt and upset and possibly even accuse him of having an affair.

I'm not having a go, I've been through the same thing, but I left my husband when after many months of talking we decided that although we loved each other we were no longer "in love" and it was just easier to bimble along day to day and we could have probably done it for the rest of our lives, and just felt empty and alone as you put it.

It may be hard, but make the break first, spend some time on your own, otherwise the first oppertunity may seem golden and you end up not only hurting your husband, but ending up in the same situation you are now.

I think reallk tired made some very valid points.

It might not be your intention to hurt your dh but, from what you have said, that sounds like the most likely outcome, if you do decide to leave. Some people see this in terms of "setting him free" - but, from what you have said, I'm not at all sure he would see it at all in those terms.

You said yourself that "I chose to go ahead mainly out of fear of being alone, after being hurt a lot in my 20s, endlessly it seemed". What makes you think things will be any different this time around? All the man of your age group are likely to have their own "baggage" - ex-wives, children, etc.

Sound to me as if you simply want people to validate your choice and to say what you are doing is fine, and that everything will be okay. Some people here (and in RL) will agree with you. And others here (and in RL) won't.

My experience from those around me is that many PEOPLE, not just women are making do with their partner.

Well, I am afraid I think you sound a bit egotistical and calculating. It´s all very much about me-me-me. Sorry if that sounds rude.

How would your OH feel if he knew how you really feel about him. Is it fair to him?

You are taking him for granted, aren´t you?

How would you feel if HE left you for a more interesting woman?
1.)Relieved and not an ounce of bitterness or regret? Then leave him and be honest with him.
2.)Not sure but you might actually miss him? Try working on the relationship. Not changing him, but try to list his positives rather than his negatives would be a good start.