I don't love my husband anymore.

[blurbie]

Hi, I am looking for people who might be in a similar situation. I am feeling lost and guilty and don't know where to turn. I've been married for 2.5 years and I really do not love my husband romantically anymore. I am no longer attracted to him and it is tearing me up inside because I don't want to hurt him. (Side note: We are both in our mid-20s and have no children.) I have been going to therapy for a year to deal with this, but it is only making me realize how unhappy I am. It's nothing really that he's done... he doesn't beat me or cheat on me... it's more that we are not a good match for one another. We are both good people, just not good together. We have been sleeping in separate rooms for a month and I feel so free now -- like a weight has been lifted. We've also been going to marriage counseling for awhile but it is not getting us any closer to a true reconciliation.

I am just feeling lately like I'm trapped in this marriage, and I'm sure he feels the same way. We are still sort of young and deserve to be happy. But I am dealing with feelings of failure, etc. Having a divorce under my belt before I turn 30 is going to be painful and embarrassing.

I am not yet thinking of other men, but I do hope there is someone out there with whom I can share true love. There has to be something more than this.

Please help if you are familiar with this type of situation. Is there hope for me? I feel so lost. The thought of packing up our home and putting away the wedding pictures is terrible, yet I know I am not with someone who makes me truly happy.

[tryagaintoday]

have you talk with him yet?

[scatterd]

Being married takes work its normal for the new to wear off you both need to try new things together.Do you have nights that you both go out?My husband and I have had many ups and downs.Try something new in the bedroom let him know that you miss the way it was.Dont give up yet.You can fall in love again.

[Gunny376]

Love?

 

Love is fluid and it changes. Its relative ~ the love of an item isn't the same as the love of a pet, just as the love of a pet isn't the same as the love of another.

 

As we age? Our definition and thus our expectations of love change. We change. Our perceptions of ourselves and of others change ~ as does our perspective of live.

 

To hold on to juvenile expectations of what love is and is suppose to be is futile.

 

There are many defitions of what love is ~ and it varies from person to person ~ relationship to relationship.

 

The most damaging thing to any rommantic relationship is complacey. You've got to change things up from time to time, and add spice to the day to day.

 

Variety is the spice of life.

 

People get so wrapped up in the daily grind that they forget why they got together in the first place.

 

Your one biggest chance at success in a relationship is with your first one.

 

The one that brought you to the dance.

 

After that? Most become 'jaded' and can never completely trust another as they did thier first. They're always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

I would recommend you read "Light His Fire" and he read "Light Her Fire" and that you both refocus on what your marriage is all about, and what each other is all about, along with redefining what you life is all about?

 

For me? Its about keeping it simple Stupid.

 

I was so wrapped up into my carrer as a Marine that it cost me a wife, children and family.

 

Now I try to keep it simple, un-complicated, low stress and no stress.

 

I no longer live to work ~ but work to live.

[Gunny376]

An most excellent article to read would be in National Geographic Magazine Feb 2006 about Love.

[floridapad]

2.5 years?? Yeah that's right about when all the checmicals, hormones begin to wear off. It feels like you are falling out of love. I would research the heck out of the first two years in a relationship and the role our brains chemicals play on our perception of what love is supposed to be like. It's not a perpetual high. Also after 2.5 years as the chemicals wear off you begin to see things that weren't there before (annoying things). Learn to accept them. True Love that lasts forever is a choice that needs to be made everyday through out the marriage. Once you practice it long enough it becomes part of you and then you got a marriage for a life time. Trust me on this. No two people are compatible in all regards. Do a lot of reading on this and relationships in general for your self. My fear is if you don't learn about it now you will bring the same perception of love and relationships into your next marriage (which I hope does not happen), should your current marriage fail. Read educate and learn. Today.

[Gunny376]

2.5 years?? Yeah that's right about when all the checmicals, hormones begin to wear off. It feels like you are falling out of love. I would research the heck out of the first two years in a relationship and the role our brains chemicals play on our perception of what love is supposed to be like. It's not a perpetual high. Also after 2.5 years as the chemicals wear off you begin to see things that weren't there before (annoying things). Learn to accept them. True Love that lasts forever is a choice that needs to be made everyday through out the marriage. Once you practice it long enough it becomes part of you and then you got a marriage for a life time. Trust me on this. No two people are compatible in all regards. Do a lot of reading on this and relationships in general for your self. My fear is if you don't learn about it now you will bring the same perception of love and relationships into your next marriage (which I hope does not happen), should your current marriage fail. Read educate and learn. Today.

 

Your right about that! I wanted to highlight the entire paragraph!

 

Learn damnit!

 

LEARN!

[blurbie]

Thanks for the responses. Yes we have been to MC together and he has heard how I feel. It is more than just the chemicals wearing off. We were together for a long time before getting married, and I think we both just got married because it was comfortable.

I really have decided to get a divorce and I am looking for support from people who are going through the same thing. I think we are young enough that we can find more compatible partners. I have been battling this with him for awhile and nothing has changed. The worst thing would be to bring a child into this situation, and then have us wake up in 10 years and realize we should have divorced back in our mid-20s.

Though divorce will be very difficult, really it is the only option for me right now. I am sorry to all those out there who have been dumped but I can't stay in this marriage that feels so unnatural.

I do understand that marriage takes work, but I also know that some marriages are doomed from the start. I was just young and stupid and didn't think things through.

[Gunny376]

I understand your feelings.

 

When its time to go?

 

Its time to go!

 

Just be righteous with him and with yourself.

 

But take this time to define yourself and your life and what you really want and need out of life.

 

Define what your looking for and in life?

 

Now is the time to define yourself, your life and what you want and need out of life?

 

Now is the time to figure out who and what your about?

[Dexter Morgan]

Hi, I am looking for people who might be in a similar situation. I am feeling lost and guilty and don't know where to turn. I've been married for 2.5 years and I really do not love my husband romantically anymore. I am no longer attracted to him and it is tearing me up inside because I don't want to hurt him.

 

Stop....nothing more needed. You need to get a divorce and quit wasting his time. If you have no kids, try for an annullment, do not try to lay claim to some silly 2.5 years of entitlement to any retirement accounts. Just each leave with what you came into it with, maybe splitting any small regular savings accounts/checking you have accumulated since marriage, and leave the marriage.

 

You don't love him, not attracted to him, so no reason to stay.

 

Just do it, don't waste any more of his time.

[blurbie]

Thanks again for the replies. I had another MC session with my H last night and told him that I wanted to separate. I have extreme feelings of guilt, of course, so bad that I want to just call the whole thing off when I see the hurt in my H's eyes. But in my gut I just don't feel right with the marriage. This is so complicated... letting go of the person who has become my best friend. We both made big mistakes in the marriage, but ultimately this is a compatibility issue.

 

If anyone out there has gone through something like this, I could really use the support. Separation is hard for both sides and I am not an evil person. I am trying to let him go so he and I can both find people we would be comfortable having children with.

 

Even though I am the one leaving, I am still devastated about the situation.

[TaraMaiden]

First of all, stop thinking or believing that MC is about keeping people together.

It Isn't.

It's about getting people to come to the same page, and discuss things on a level playing field, even if it means separating and divorcing.That way you both know where you stand.

I divorced my ex- after 24 years. we had kids, and I suppose part of the reasons we stayed together was for them, but we became lazy, complacent and the relationship was one supported by habit, rather than heart.

We should have split ages ago, when we both realised it was going nowhere.

 

Focus also, on getting to the very heart then, of why, if this is what you want, you are so 'devastated about the situation'.

 

is it for him?

is it because you feel a failure?

 

Why, if this is bringing about the end of something going nowhere, is it so devastating?

 

you don't need to answer this question here.

But it may help you come to terms with yourself, and reach a point of peace, if you find the heart of the question... therein lies your answer.

And work on that.....

[runrocket]

Blurbie,

 

Trust me. I understand the guilt of failure. I hate seeing the pain in my husbands eyes when I can't tell him that I love him anymore.

 

I also remember my youth. When you meet someone and you're blinded by passion and discovery. You revel in your newfound independence but your afraid of it at the same time. You go into marriage thinking you'll always have somewhere there for you. You can't imagine not feeling this way about this person but you haven't really dug deep enough to know that it will last.

 

Take time to reflect. Take time to look at what you thought you had when you married and what you really had in the man. You'll see the signs and the clues that you missed in the beginning. Try to learn from these mistakes. Go to counseling on your own and determine what is important for you in your next mate. You have to know what you are looking for to know what you have when you've found it.

 

Best of luck. I know this is not an easy decision.

[LocalColor]

Blurbie - I could have written VERBATIM what you've posted here. I'm in much of the same boat. We've lived together for 9 years, married for 4 and no children. I care immensely for my husband, I love him, I'm quite attached — but I'm really feeling that I cannot continue to with him as "wife."

 

We've been in counseling as well, and that has helped give us tools to deal with the myriad conflicts in our relationship — but it's not a cure all by any means. We fight now more than ever.

[blurbie]

Blurbie,

Take time to reflect. Take time to look at what you thought you had when you married and what you really had in the man. You'll see the signs and the clues that you missed in the beginning. Try to learn from these mistakes. Go to counseling on your own and determine what is important for you in your next mate. You have to know what you are looking for to know what you have when you've found it.

 

 

Wow, this really hit home with me. There were so many signs, such as how I hyperventilated at the rehearsal dinner and also cried every night the week before the wedding. Everyone dismissed them as regular wedding jitters, but it was a gut feeling. My MC recently told me that people don't follow their gut when they enter these things, they follow their heart... and as that old cheesy song goes "sometimes love just ain't enough."

 

I still feel a strong need to protect my husband, and when I see him hurting, it kills me. This is because we have so much history together and of course I don't want to see him in pain. Why would I ever want to see him that way and know I am the cause? But in the long run, our separation will be for the best and I know he'll see that.

 

SO, SO good to hear from people in this situation too. I feel so confused and I'm sure you guys do too.

[blurbie]

Blurbie - I could have written VERBATIM what you've posted here. I'm in much of the same boat. We've lived together for 9 years, married for 4 and no children. I care immensely for my husband, I love him, I'm quite attached — but I'm really feeling that I cannot continue to with him as "wife."

 

We've been in counseling as well, and that has helped give us tools to deal with the myriad conflicts in our relationship — but it's not a cure all by any means. We fight now more than ever.

 

 

 

Local Color, do you know what you're doing to do? Are you going to separate?

[gardenfreak]

hi, blurbie. I'm in the same boat, only my marriage has been for 9 years. we only knew each other for a year before we got married. i'm much older than you are (in my 40s). no kids.

 

i don't love my husband any more. i'm actually seeing a divorce lawyer tomorrow. we can't even talk to each other any more. i'm sick and miserable and can't eat. i want to be happy. i want him to be happy. but we're not good for each other. don't ask me how the marriage went on for so long. it's been bad for 4 years. we did marriage counseling 2 years ago. i suggested we try again, but he wouldn't do it.

 

i wish i could offer you some words of comfort, but i need them myself! i guess you just have to be brave and strong and have hope no matter what. keep me posted on what happens.

[Lizzie60]

I think you've made a mistake and now you realize it..

Ðivorce.. now.. nothing wrong with a divorce before 30.. looots of people have divorced before 30... it,s common.

 

therapy is a waste of money... why not just admit that you both made a terrible mistake.. and move on... simple... it's a lot easier now that you don't have kids.. trust me..

 

Marriage is only a piece of paper.. I don't see any difference between a married couple and one who simply moved in together.. then realize that it's not working anymore.. same thing..

[LocalColor]

Unfortunately, I haven't decided what I want to do. We're temporarily separated for a few weeks. I know it's tearing my husband apart, and I hate it. It's not fair to him, really. On one hand he says I deserve the opportunity to figure out what I want, on the other I get flambeed for wanting everything on my terms.

 

He wants badly more chances to prove to me that he can be a husband and an active part of this relationship. He said to me recently something like "We've never tried to be a couple!" ... Speak for yourself. I feel like I've given him so many chances over time and been let down. He was withdrawn, indifferent and distant for years. He finally admitted that he had a long-running porn addiction (tho in true form it was everyone else's fault but his). To compound all of this misery, I lost my moral high-ground earlier this year by making the very overt screw-up of getting in to an EA The EA revelation was however where he finally agreed to MC, after stonewalling for a LOOOOONG time. Apparently my misery wasn't actionable, his is (and no, I'm not making excuses for my bad behavior, other than to say I am human and have needs.)

 

I'm really trying to delve in and understand what my motivations for staying are — I think a large part is his dependency on me. One time I walked out on a fight, he called me and threatened to hurt himself if I didn't come home. I've been in enough therapy to know better than to let that be a factor in what I do with my life, but it demonstrates the intensity of what I'm contending with. Dependency and attachment do not make for a happy marriage, no matter which way you slice it.

 

It seems like all of this sad story is just two people who wanted badly to connect but can't. He says I'm his life love, but rarely have I been given that gentle regard. I've tried as hard as I could to show him the ways I love him, playing everything from mother to lover, but he says he never feels loved. I'm tired of trying to fill a leaky tub to my own detriment. It's sad to hear that I've never loved him in the way he needs. It's sad to realize I've made a life with somebody who doesn't fulfill my needs. I've told him a few times now that I'm really starting to believe we should have just been best friends — we're terrible lovers. I think we made a mistake. We never gave ourselves time to reflect — we played house for years and then got married.

 

At this point every time I start proceeding down the road of attempting to reconnect with dear husband, I go screaming back to the crossroads of indecision. He's working hard to try and trust me again in light of the EA, and has entered therapy to deal with his emotional issues — but I guess I just can't trust him, and I'm not sure I can undo all the hurts.

[contax]

People who stay together are happier 5 years later. People who divorce are just the same 5 years later. You have to find happiness within - a Husband or wife doesn't make you happy. Nothing external does.

Divorce him if you want though. It's not fair to him. You don't like him as much as he likes you so it won't work anyway. Sorry If this is harsh at all, I wish you love.

[tnttim]

Okay i'm on the other side of the fence her. My wife is the one who doesn't want to come back yet. I'm just trying to understand from a woman's point of view. I am very open minded. We have been marries for 9 years and have 2 young children. I caught my wife texting a guy 640 times in 1 month. I blew up at her because this wasn't the first time. I moved all of her stuff into our room and I moved into the living room about a month ago. I calmed down 3 days later and said I trust you didn't cheat on me but you can't do this anymore, it was killing insides. I know this was selfish because I've killed her insides plenty of times. She said the passion was gone and she wanted to try to get it back. That night I got drunk and came into her room and yelled and threatened her. I spent the night somewhere else. Since then I have quit drinking at home and only drink once a week, and I don't get drunk. I know she still talks to him, sometimes it bothers me really bad. We still live in our seperate quarters but she comes and talks to me almost daily. We mostly talk small talk, hardly ever about the relationship. I try not to bring the seperation resolution up, but I do drop small hints. We spend every Monday together to watch house, I defintely keep it strictly friendly. I have read some books that have helped me a lot with this. I do trust her now, I defintely love her still, and I want this to work out for the family. I also want her to be happy and I know it's not with me right now. If your husband did all of this do you think it had a better chance of working?

[Steadfast]

Why post here at all? It sounds like you had your mind made up before and now just looking for affirmation. In fact, I'll bet there is more (much more) to this than you're telling. Few...VERY few just 'fall out of love' with no other stimulus involved. If I'm right, you need to stop lying to yourself.

 

Living together and marriage are NOT the same. You're taking a vow in marriage, usually to start a life and family together. I have a girlfriend and she's a wonderful, awesome person but she's not my wife. There is a difference. How important is your word? Your self esteem? Ask yourself this before bailing because it's 'unnatural'. What you're really saying is:

 

'I know this is going to hurt him and ending my marriage is scary, but I'm going to do it because what I want is more important to me than what he wants. Please say something to make me feel better!'

 

Well, good luck with that. If you've cheated or are about to, disregard everything above and just file. Then leave him alone. He deserves better.

[tnttim]

Why post here at all? It sounds like you had your mind made up before and now just looking for affirmation. In fact, I'll bet there is more (much more) to this than you're telling. Few...VERY few just 'fall out of love' with no other stimulus involved. If I'm right, you need to stop lying to yourself.

 

Living together and marriage are NOT the same. You're taking a vow in marriage, usually to start a life and family together. I have a girlfriend and she's a wonderful, awesome person but she's not my wife. There is a difference. How important is your word? Your self esteem? Ask yourself this before bailing because it's 'unnatural'. What you're really saying is:

 

'I know this is going to hurt him and ending my marriage is scary, but I'm going to do it because what I want is more important to me than what he wants. Please say something to make me feel better!'

 

Well, good luck with that. If you've cheated or are about to, disregard everything above and just file. Then leave him alone. He deserves better.

 

wow harsh, she came here for help, I think that shows some concern. Even if it is just for herself, why attack her. I think she needs to be alone and figure things out on her own. You can't fix yourself when someone else is trying vigoursely to fix you. Then you focus on pleasing him, or saying "i'm not that way." If it is another man, then I hate to tell you, it'll will happen again. That glow with him will wear off like it always does, and she'll be left in the same situation different face. You see that's where the for better or worse comes in. You will lose your love, it's natural. You get bored with things you love all the time. Why should this be any different. You take a break from it and see if you love it again later. Choosing to divorce to be happy is an oxymoron. I have never heard of any happy divorces. She/he may act happy around other people but I bet it eats them up inside. You need to fix yourself while seperated, read some books, stop your divorce by homer macdonald is awesome. It seems to be working in my situation, but I am still writing her though. It's healthy to express my feelings, and get feedback, so thank you anyone who gives it.

[tnttim]

I think you've made a mistake and now you realize it..

Ðivorce.. now.. nothing wrong with a divorce before 30.. looots of people have divorced before 30... it,s common.

 

therapy is a waste of money... why not just admit that you both made a terrible mistake.. and move on... simple... it's a lot easier now that you don't have kids.. trust me..

 

Marriage is only a piece of paper.. I don't see any difference between a married couple and one who simply moved in together.. then realize that it's not working anymore.. same thing..

 

You are 10000% right when it comes to having kids. It is one less thing to worry about, and it is #1 thing that keeps unhappy couples together.

the difference between a married couple and people living together is the lifelong commitment you make with someone. You are saying I will buy a house, have babies, make plans, dreams, and investments with you from death do us part. You say you will be there when it's good or it's bad. You tell the person you live with "you forgot your part of the rent this month." There is only a very small finincial commitment with a live in relationship.

[LocalColor]

Tnttim, thanks for posting here. It is really great to hear someone from the other side of this situation.