Would you stay with someone who...

[bitchoftheyear]

You had no sex life with (and hadn't for a long time)?
You couldn't (and had recently confessed you could never) really talk to?
Just sees their future as one hard long slog?
Has given up on your family as they are just weirdos?
Has been telling you for 5 months that we have to split up?

And yet he still says he wants to stay: he loves me; he adores the children and wants to fully help with our disabled one (and this part is absolutely true); he can live without a sex life; he is happier living as friends/co-parents than he could ever be in any other situation. This is what he says.

I've namechanged of course. If you realise who I am please don't out me. I'm going out to do a big shop if I can stop snivelling for a while. The pressure cooker I live in is about to blow!

Unless your happy to live like that then you can co-parent living seperately.

But if you don't want to be with him anymore, it doesn't really matter what he wants does it?

He can live without a sex life - can you?
He can live with someone who he can't talk to - can you?
He can cope with the fact that you feel the future is just one big slog - can you?
He still loves you - Do you still love him?

You sound very down - are you sure this isn't something else? A bit of depression maybe?

You're not a bitch for wanting out of an unfulfilling relationship BTW, you're just normal.

nope...never....and it teaches the kids what about relationships?/

and what about you??

You want a sex life - that's a good starting point!! (as long as its with him!). He says he doesn't want one - apparently not great but probably not true either - maybe he just feels suffocated/overwhelmed by responsibilities?

Fact: you can't have sex in a pressure cooker.

From personal experience: sometimes you have to reach rock bottom before you can climb out of the pit. You don't appreciate what you really have until you nearly lose it. Things came to a head and the lid blew off my pressure cooker a while ago, and now we have a sex life.

You - and your dh - need to find your own space - in whatever form works for you.

short answer no. what is the point? you can have all that and live separately and each have chance to have own life as well.

unless you have very large house with separate his and her annexes.

OK what is the biggest problem with this (I have a strong suspicion as to who you are and you have my deep sympathy as I think your life is very very hard as it is)? The one that most needs fixing? It's not quite clear from the post whether you want your H to leave, or he wants to leave but you want him to stay despite life being hard.
Living as co-parents rather than a couple is not impossible, you don;'t have to have sex or sexual feelings for each other to be able to work/live comfortably together. THough I wonder if the most important and helpful thing would be for the two of you to negotiate equal amounts of free time so you can actually go out, do enjoyable things, remind yourselves that there is more to life than slogging - one of you can care for your child with SN while the other goes out.

sounds like cake and eat it to me.

keep the family unit - and fuck other people

erm no.

pick a side

Christ, Tesco's is rough this morning.

Thanks Custy, I was hoping you'd come along with a couple of sentences to cut through the crap but on this occasion wrong end of stick.

It's me asking him to leave. I lost my sex drive a couple of years ago, we haven't had sex since July and prior to that it'd been really 'lie back and think of England' (despite over 20 great years before that). He says he can live without a sex life, that us being a family unit is more important. I don't think that's possible. I think eventually he will have to form some sort of relationship (or pay for it ).

I feel like I would be happy never to have sex again. I don't want the responsibility of another person's happiness anymore. I have a clear idea what the rest of my life is, I accept that, and I just want to get on with it.

He says no, we'll do it together and if the rest of our lives are as miserable as I think they might be at least we'll be miserable together.

SGB, thank you. That's one of the things that will be positive if he leaves - there will be some times when I can get a break. However, SGB, I am almost certainly not who you think I am. I am on the SN boards, and to my knowledge that person is getting on well with her dh.

it still applies.

sounds like a safety blanket - a default setting.

why make him miserable.

you must love him at some level.

what are you teaching your children?

why dont you go to doctors re sex drive?

OP the first 5 points on your list - is that YOU?

ie you have given up on his family, you see the future as a slog, you have been saying you want to split up?

In other words you want to split up but he won't leave?

Apologies if I have misunderstood

I've been to the doctors. There is no physical reason for it. Had a course of counselling on my own 16 months ago for it. Seems that that just enabled me to carry on 'fulfilling my wifely duties' for a few months more. I just couldn't do it anymore. DH never moans but I know sex is very important to him, as it was once to me.

Yes, why should I make him miserable? This is the point. This is why I am saying 'leave, then you can have a private life'. I expect I would still see him on a daily basis, I would want to see him as would the children and his help with our disabled dc (don't want to identify sex) is immeasurable.

But he says no. Doesn't need a private life. He says as I am not contemplating a private life, we will still be better off together looking after the children.

And that would be the easiest option, yes. We still get on well together, we sit and watch tv and converse on everyday matters, he is a lovely, honorable man (although not perfect!). There is no fighting or shouting or slamming of doors. Meals/cups of tea/housework is shared as it always was.

But that's not right. I'll still be responsible for his actual personal happiness (or lack of it).

We've been discussing this now for so long and just going round in circles. I told him in deperation to book some counselling for us and he came back and said he hadn't booked because he knew that I thought it wouldn't work. I know he'd find counselling very difficult but if he were that desperate to keep us all together surely he would have just done it.

Yes Jasper, that's from my point of view.

Why haven't you booked the counselling for you both?
If you were that desperate to sort this why haven't you "just done it"?

Counselling can lead to an amicable separation as well as keep couples together.If both of you go into counselling together hoping for either a way to live together as a couple or a way to live apart as co-parents then that is a positive.

As an aside, if you feel you can't talk to him then counselling would help with that issue as well. And lts face it, if you can't talk openly then it is a big issue.

Your sex drive could come back as randomly as it disappeared though, if he's happy to wait, surely it's worth a try? It would be his decision and you shouldn't feel any obligation to keep him "happy" in those circumstances.
Do you still have intimacy, cuddle up in bed etc.?
It might sound ridiculous but he could get something like a fleshlight for sexual satisfaction, there's nothing wrong or shameful with realising he has sexual needs.
I know a couple who are on their 3rd pregnancy in 5 years, she goes off sex the minute she is pregnant and while breastfeeding, but she realises he still has needs so they bought a fleshlight toy for him, it's a way of him feeling realistic sex without pressuring her, he would have no intention of getting it elsewhere.
It sounds like you have a very stressful life with your DC, you need to find a way of offloading and having time for yourself.

you sound depressed and your dh seems to realise that and perhaps why he doesn't want to quit?

Book the couple counselling, if you start opening up emotionally to each other again (ie really properly talking to each other like you never have before) then you may find that you start to actually want sex with him again (and enjoy it)

I didn't book it because I felt I had already come to the magical solution - he should leave. He would like/needs/deserves a proper life with a loving sexual partner - I'm not able to be that.

But he's deluding himself that he doesn't need those things, that he can be happy without. But sooner or later, something's got to give. He shouldn't have to be living like some dried up old stick of a man.

I'm not a martyr by any means, of course there are things about him that annoy me (that I won't have to put up with if we separate and will make my life easier) and we've had tons of other issues over the 25 years we've been together a lot of which have been my issues. I'm not exactly low maintenance.

No, we can't talk at the moment, we're just saying the same old same old things and getting nowhere. And whilst I appreciate that counselling could help us towards a "good" separation, I think as soon as I mention now he will see it as something its not - that everything is going to be ok.

Away for a while now. I'm still snivelly and he'll be in for lunch soon, need to try to straighten myself up a bit. I don't know why it's hit me today. Due on over the weekend, perhaps that's it.

He's not giving up on you because he loves you. He knows you better than anyone and can probably see what we do - you're in a bad place and you need help. He doesn't want to lose faith with you and doesn't want to lose living with the family you have created. That's why he won't leave - and I understand why.

Try and pinpoint what you feel. Do you love him? Do you think you'd have sexual feelings for someone else and is that affecting your "solution"? Are you telling yourself you are doing the honourable thing letting him go, when in fact it is you that wants to go?

If you loved sex with him for 20 years and things have gone horribly wrong in the last 5, work out what happened in this period.

It sounds to me like you are actively pushing him away so you don't have to deal with the way YOU feel.
Is it really easier to let him go rather than make an effort to try and sort things out?

Have you thought about psychosexual counselling?

Getting a good sex life going again would be marvellous for your mental and physical health - why not buy a vibrator and start having orgasms again, re-explore your sexual self, make this about you and not about him.
Feeling non-sexual becomes a habit but then you project the frustration into other areas of your life, it's a bit of a vicious circle - it's honestly worth the effort to change, but only you can do it.

The sexless marriage is an excellent book and may just give you some insight.

WWIFN that's exactly what he says.

Yes I do love him (but what about the 'in love' bit) and I hold him in the highest possible regard. He is the 3rd most important person in my life after the children and I will value his friendship and support all my life.
No, I cannot foresee a time when I will have sexual feelings for someone else.
Yes, I do want to "go" I suppose because I no longer want to feel responsible for his happiness, by that I mean the happiness you get from having a loving, sexual relationship.
I think much of what changed is that I have a clearer idea of how much I will be relied upon by another person in the future. And that other person has no choice but to rely on me. And I have no choice but to commit fully to that person. And I can't be doing everything!
I really have to shake myself out of this, and take an hour or so off.

Oh Malificence, thank you, you do cheer me, although I know your advice is very well meant!

Truly, I cannot have an orgasm anymore. With him, by myself, with porn, with vibrators, looking at 'saucy' pictures of us in happier times, however I try. I just don't work anymore.

We had a very open, adventurous and fulfilling sex life

And he has just pulled up in the drive. I need to go.

It is all about expectations. I think some marriages are an (often unspoken) deal where sex has gone, companionship is nice and kids are happy. But this is not enough for everyone, and also depends on age......sex drive has habit of suddenly reappearing in your forties when some dishy guy arrives on the scene and you suddenly remember what you are missing.

a friend of mine had given up on sex and thought that was fine, to be expected etc. then some hunky new guy arrived at work and made beeline for her and she was suddenly like dog on heat.

she resisted temptation, had a year of hell and is still trying to work it all out, but it was caused her mega probs in her marriage.

good luck to you....you sound very unhappy

I don't understand why you can't make the appointment for counselling? OK, if he were that desperate to keep you together, you say, then he would have, but actually his best bet is to let things carry on as they are, isn't it? If, on the other hand, you're that desperate for things to change, then why haven't you made the appointment?

Also, I don't understand why you are responsible for his happiness? Surely he's a grown up? He's responsible for his happiness, as you are responsible for yours.

If it's not a physical/hormonal problem then it is psychological.

Why are you accepting this as your only future? A life devoid of sexual pleasure? It doesn't have to be this way for the rst of your life - think of it as an illness you will overcome.

You NEED counselling - whether it's depression or past issues, something is not right.

"I just don't work anymore" is not an acceptable answer! There is a reason, you have to be willing to find it.

I understand what you mean when you say you're not low maintainance, I'm a bit like that myself and I regularly have to shake myself out of irrational feelings, it helps enormously that my husband no longer put up with my "crap" - if I am being a muppet, he will tell me ( in a loving and supportive way obviously ).

I think a better way of dealing with this is to realise you are struggling and you need help, your husband seems like a loving and decent man, let him help you and try to help yourself too.

The fact that you don't want or enjoy sex is a symptom, not the root of your problems.

Sorry, all that pathetic whinging this morning has led me into a migraine.
just crawled in from the school run and will be hitting my bed as soon as I can.
Thank you for your advice, I will be thinking about it over the weekend.

I don't understand why you will only get a break from childcare if your H leaves the house. Why can't you just leave him in charge of the DC and go out when he actually lives there?

WRT the main issue: I wonder if you are perhaps not hearing what your H is saying eg that he has no great need for sex either. Some people are just not very interested in sex (and many, many people find their interest in it waxes and wanes throughout their lives). Is it possible you are assuming that because he is a Man he will explode in a great geyser of jizz sooner or later if he does n't get sex? This is not necessarily the case.

I can see why you might want to put your foot firmly down and end the relationship if he's gazing at you moistly and going 'I'll wait forever for you to get your fanjo back' or other such guff but is that what he's saying? COuld he be saying, I'm content with the status quo, raising our DC, managing all right in each other's company and maybe having a wank now and again? If that's what he's saying, give him the right to decide for himself what he wants eg don't insist on one of you moving out just because you feel he would be better off with someone else when that's not what he thinks.
However, if you want him to move out because him living there drives you batshit in other ways, again, that's different, you shouldn't have to feel that you must 'keep up appearances'.