Parasailing01 Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 I have been married for 12 years with 2 children. I love my husband but have found myself not in love with him anymore. Do I stay for the kids? We are going to therapy now and working some things out. He is a good guy, great with the kids and helping out around the house but I am finding I am not in love with him anymore? I am at a stage in my life where I can't move forward and leave but I am scared to stay? look forward to your comments.
lexhappy Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 How long have you been feeling this way? I have found that there will be periods in marriage where you don't feel that spark. If you stay and work through it, it usually returns if you both love each other.
Fouts Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 If YOU are more important to yourself than your kids, then leave. If not, make the marriage work.
reboot Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 I don't believe real love ever just "goes away" on its own. It has to be driven out of us by physical abuse, infidelity, etc. I do believe that love sometimes hides from us after awhile. Then we have to go and look for it. It often doesn't hide very well and I bet you can find it. Real love can be forever. In love comes and goes. After 12 years, it takes some work to bring back the butterflies in your stomach. Why not try?
JamesM Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 I have been married 20 years and can say that the feelings of love never stay consistent. Sometimes I love my wife to pieces and others I simply feel like she is a friend. Yet I know that as time goes on, I will feel that love again. Without a doubt, I know that I would stay...based on what you have told us so far. For you....a few questions.... How long have you felt this way? Why do YOU think you feel this way? Why are you going to therapy and what things are you working out? Have either of you cheated? Is the first marriage for both of you? How old are you both? Do you have feelings for someone else? Do the two of you ever date or get out alone? Do you feel he loves you and is willing to treat you special as he did when you dated?
DadofTwoGirls Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 aaah Reboot...the butterfly line brings back memories...who hasn't thought about that feeling you once felt for your SO during a long term marriage...sucks that so many want it again that they bail out even with kids.
rewe4reel Posted May 14, 2010 Posted May 14, 2010 I have been married for 12 years with 2 children. I love my husband but have found myself not in love with him anymore. Do I stay for the kids? We are going to therapy now and working some things out. He is a good guy, great with the kids and helping out around the house but I am finding I am not in love with him anymore? I am at a stage in my life where I can't move forward and leave but I am scared to stay? look forward to your comments. You're obviously either having an affair already or thinking about it. "I love him but I'm not in love with him." So just divorce him and get with your affair partner already. Make yourself happy. You deserve it.
Author Parasailing01 Posted May 14, 2010 Author Posted May 14, 2010 Thanks so much to those of you who have replied. Let me get started by saying that I am Not more important than my kids, my kids are the most important people in my life. However, I do feel that as their mom I need to be happy and they need to live in an enviroment where they see 2 parents who are happy and in love with one another. I have had a rocky relationship for the past 3 years, if you read my other threads that will give you an idea of what has been going on. I would like to answer some of your questions.... My husband and I are in our late 30's with 2 children, both under the age of 8. Almost 10 years ago I got into a really bad car accident, almost lost my life. It has been a rocky road since than. Let me give you a little backgroud before the car accident. My husband has controlling behaviors, financially, once sexually, overall it got to the point where I had to find myself, I could not take the controlling behaviors. I have now hit a point in my life where I feel the same as I did after my car accident, I am reevaluating life. I am happy in all aspects of my life except with my husband, I have been seeing a therapist by myself and we are going as a couple. I have realized that I could deal with the money things and pretty much what comes my way BUT my husband is extremely cold with no emotion and of course I am totally opposite. Ok enough about my husband and his faults. I have many and am not happy about some of the things I have done. I did have an A with another W, yes another W. I was in a situation where another W hit on me and I moved forward with it. So, an A is wrong, I have never been with another W and I have been attracted to M all my life. This happened and this other W is awesome, she is so compassionate, loving, you name it she is just that. We broke it off and I miss her so much, I am now having trouble getting close to my husband. I can't tell my husband for fear of things getting nasty and he could take the kids, I would never want that. I have screwed up and gotten myself into a big mess and am trying to get out of it. Since my car accident there has been something missing, I need that emotional bond, someone who really cares for me and loves me and I have changed as a person and he has not. Before anyone posts anything harsh or nasty, I do realize that what I did was wrong, please don't tell me again. Please let me know your thoughts and insight, I thank you.
Holding-On Posted May 14, 2010 Posted May 14, 2010 I am trying to piece together your situation here (without reading your other posts - sorry no time!). So you got together with your husband when you were in your early twenties and married in your mid twenties? Was he always controlling? If so how did he make you feel when you were younger? Did his controlling ways make you feel safe and now you have grown as an adult and as someone who has had to re-evalute the importance of life? Many people who go through traumatic events have some PTSD. Did you ever get any medical help for this trauma (I think there are therapies you can do that would help, I'm not talking medication). So it seems like there is a great deal going on in your life and you have not been in a stable place mentally and are not necessarily making good decisions at this time. Right? Wrong? I would recommend the book "Waking the Tiger" (it talks about the mind/body/pyschological connections of trauma) and "Too Good to Leave Too Bad to Stay" which is about whether to leave or not. Also you might read "The Dance of Anger" and "Love is Never Enough" which talk about standing up for yourself, cognitive behaviour and changing negative dynamics between people. I think you can demonstrate a better dynamic between your husband and yourself so that you are good co-parents and roommates whether you are ever intimate or not. If your husband is not actively negatively impacting you and he is helping to provide a stable household, I would say STAY and WORK in IC on YOURSELF. When you are in a healthy place and will make good choices in friends, housing, who to trust with your children and so forth, then would seem a better time to leave. Right now your husband may be a non-responsive control freak but you seem to paint him as invested in the well being of his children.
Krytie TV Posted May 14, 2010 Posted May 14, 2010 Sounds more to me like you are trying to find the perfect way to end this relationship so that it benefits you. You cheated, but cant tell him because of how it would affect you. Based on the material here, I would say just do what's best for you. I just get the sense that your H could have the best character and we wouldn't really know the truth. If you're miserable, just go and let him worry about his part.
She's_NotInLove_w/Me Posted May 14, 2010 Posted May 14, 2010 Anything your husband says or does will not be good enough as you are still in the ether of your OW... The lens with which you view your marriage, it is clouded. The bottom line here is you can accomplish what you want to accomplish. You know the right thing to do is to reveal the affair, explain everything to your husband, and begin to try to work it out and make things right again. If after time, and therapy, and effort, it does not work, at least you can say you tried. If you want to be with the OW instead, then I am sure you will find a way to justify that and make it seem as the right thing to do. Good Luck!
Author Parasailing01 Posted May 15, 2010 Author Posted May 15, 2010 Thank you all again for your responses, each one of you is helping me through this by your feeback, I appreciate it! Yes, I am focusing on my relationship and only my relationship in order to see if my marriage will work, we will see. Once I have a clear uderstanding and I look forward to making a decision one way or another, I will feel much better knowing that I have done the right thing and have tried. I tend to jump ahead and worry about too many different things at once. I will focus on my marriage and try my best. I have ordered some of those books (thank you!), I look forward to reading them. I did wrong and it is amazing at how much it hurts, I have learned a lesson and these lessons make us stronger. I will be stronger and hopefully have a clear head soon, I need to get out of this grey area, it's awful. Thanks again for everyone's help. Let me ask you this.... Would you even tell your husband about the affair even if it meant that your husband may try to take full custody should a divorce happen? I can't do that or let that happen.
seibert253 Posted May 15, 2010 Posted May 15, 2010 (edited) I'm not a psychologist, but I think deep down inside you are resenting your husband for the end of your A. You admit you still have feelings, (in love IMO) with your A partner. I think you've never gotten over this, never healed and moved on. Thus subconciously you are blaming your H for this. The reason why you and your H have moved apart emotionally, is because you've pushed him away, and won't let him back in. Healing begins with honesty, total honesty. You will NEVER heal from this until you are honest with your H. Let me ask you this, if you are attending MC, what good are you doing by not being honest and getting to the root cause of the issues in your M? The A is one issue, but the causes of it are another. You cannot fix one, and not the other. That's why your feeling the way you are. Here's something to digest, how is your husband supposed to fix what he doesn't know is broke? He doesn't know about your A or the issues which lead to it, how's he gonna address those? He can't. All marriages go through ups and downs. We all make decisions that later on we regret. Are your regretful about your A? I think so because you ended it, because you knew it was wrong. If you truely didn't love your H, you wouldn't have cared and probably would still be involved in your A. Look, you need to make a decision here. Do you TRUELY want to fix your marriage and rekindle the love with your H? Don't think about this hastily. Really search your soul. If you do, then the first thing you need to do is be honest with him and tell him what happened. He will be crushed and hurt beyond your immagination. But, if he truely loves you, he will forgive you and work with you to heal and repair what's been broken. If he doesn't, then he'll D you post haste. If you don't truely love your H, then you owe it to him to sent him free to find someone who will. You also owe it to yourself. As far as your children; it's better to be from a broken home, than to remain in one that's broke and unrepairable. It's a far better example to your kids to have to seperate parents that love them and show it, then for them to grow up seeing two parents who don't love each other. In that instance their bound to repeat your mistakes. No one wants that for their kids. Good Luck to you. Edited May 15, 2010 by seibert253
lexhappy Posted May 15, 2010 Posted May 15, 2010 If you are so worried about losing custody of your children, why didn't you worry about it before you had the affair? I'm not trying to be harsh, but if it were that important to you, you would have settled things in your marriage before moving on to another person. Now there may be consequences. You can't even start to work on your marriage without telling him the truth. A relationship built on lies is no relationship at all.
Jeff1962 Posted May 15, 2010 Posted May 15, 2010 I have been married for 12 years with 2 children. I love my husband but have found myself not in love with him anymore. Do I stay for the kids? We are going to therapy now and working some things out. He is a good guy, great with the kids and helping out around the house but I am finding I am not in love with him anymore? I am at a stage in my life where I can't move forward and leave but I am scared to stay? look forward to your comments. Nail down what has changed. Either you or him or situations in life and go from there is my advise. Give your relationship 40 days before you make any rash life altering decisions. Give your husband another try. Look for the things in him that you love(d) at first. Ask him to do the same. Make time for eachother. Become friends again, at least try. In relationships we all tend to loose one another because of "life happens". If it's too late, only you can decide.
quercus.robur Posted May 15, 2010 Posted May 15, 2010 I can't tell my husband for fear of things getting nasty and he could take the kids, I would never want that. If you decide "not to stay", what custody arrangements would you consider acceptable?
Krytie TV Posted May 15, 2010 Posted May 15, 2010 Thanks again for everyone's help. Let me ask you this.... Would you even tell your husband about the affair even if it meant that your husband may try to take full custody should a divorce happen? I can't do that or let that happen. You still aren't concerned about doing the right thing, but what's best for you. Do you see that as long as you end all of your "recently gleaned insight and responsibility" with this above question you are only snowing yourself and us? When you can step up and be willing to actually put others ahead of yourself, come on back to help get past your problem.
Mimolicious Posted May 18, 2010 Posted May 18, 2010 Whoa! Let's pause for a minute. You got yourself into a whole different ball game here (well minus the actual balls ) I kidd, I kidd. LOL! When you step into an A with someone from your same gender, it's a whole different planet. The way you are going to connect with another W is never going to compare to your H. So he is not even up to part for the competition . You may open up a huge kind of worms. Double jeopardy, telling your H you had an A with OW on top of that! If he is as controlling as you say, you best believe that he will use your children against you. These situations bring out the worst in people.
Qcgirl Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 And that's what we called psychological and verbal abuse in my case (even violence). And I developped a major depression in the last part of our marriage. I had to leave him and the situation for my own health, sanity and life ... and health and development of my two young boys! Your A reveals that there is something missing ... especially with the fact that it was with a W! You see a therapist, say everything you have to tell, but not in front of your H. Then things should get more clear and the solution will appear in front of your eyes ... I believe! Do you believe? Change is part of life, it can make us grow and go far ... Hope that helps, I had only a few minutes to answer.
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