Urgent - Living a lie?

[carebear83]

Hi. This is my first time posting here - I have come here because I am going completely crazy and am too scared to talk to anybody in my life about any of this.

 

A little over a year ago, I got married. I have been with my husband since we were both 16 and we were engaged for around 2 years. He is a truly wonderful person, kind and caring, who truly loves me, but the truth is that for the last few years I have been extremely bored in our relationship and am now wondering if I have made a huge mistake.

 

Whilst he is a lovely, kind, intelligent guy who will make an incredible father one day, we have very few shared interests and have completely different personality types. I am very extroverted whilst he is very introverted. The difference is becoming increasingly more apparent the older we get - I feel like I always need to drag him out to socialise, whilst he would prefer to be home studying. Consequently, I go out a lot on my own with various groups of friends. He never gets jealous.

 

We do spend a fair bit of time just the two of us, but it's usually just watching TV or hanging out at home. We get along well, but there is no spark whatsoever. It's like we are brother and sister. We have sex about once a fortnight and I simply don't enjoy it. I've tried to make myself get into it, but I just have no interest whatsoever.

 

The thing that worries me most is that over the last few years I have had multiple intesne attractions to other men. I have never acted on any of these attractions, but my mind is constantly filled with fantasies. It is consuming me. I am the type of woman who has always gotten along well with men and have several male friends - many of who my husband knows. He has no problem with me having male friends and similarly I have no problem with him having female friends - we have been together for such a long time (12 years), that it would be incomprehensible for neither of us to befriend the opposite sex.

 

What worries me though, are the crushes I keep having. I am not talking about fleeting, meaningless crushes. I am talking about deep, all-consuming attractions. I assume that this is normal to some degree, but it seems to happen over and over again which makes me worry that there is something crucial missing in my relationship. If my husband truly was the right man for me, would I be continuing to have these persistent attractions to other men? Or is this what normally happens when somebody meets their life partner so young and has had no other sexual experience?

 

I imagine breaking up with my husband and it all feels way too hard. We are deeply involved with each others families, we share a multitude of friends, we own a house together and we had an enormous elaborate wedding. From the outside, people think we are the perfect couple. Deep down, i am worried that I am no longer 'in love' with him. I love him, yes, but I do not look forward to spending time with him. I do not think of him during the day when I am at work. He is just 'there'. I realise I sound like a completely ungrateful bitch, so please don't point that out. I am too scared to confide in anybody as I feel that would be a betrayal of my husband and I could not live with the guilt.

 

Can anybody help? I am terrified of taking the plunge and leaving him - not only would it destroy him and our families, I'm worried I would regret it enormously and find out very quickly that the grass is not greener. On the flip side, I am SO BORED and unfulfilled - I feel like I am living a lie. I dream constantly of other men. I feel no real happiness when I hang out with my husband, more just a sense of familiarity and comfort.

 

After being together for the entire of our adult lives, the thought of not beig together is the most wildly terrifying (albeit somewhat exciting) thing that I can ever imagine. If I am truly honest with myself, I had doubts years ago, well before we got married. But I assumed this was normal - after all, what relationship is perfect? Am I hoping for the unattainable?

 

I don't even know what I am asking, but I am hoping that somebody can somehow make sense of this ramble and help me shed some light. I am in a constant state of anxiety and have started to rely on sleeping pills and valium to sleep at night because I am so conflicted I just cant relax. Having to hide my feelings from everyone is equally horrible - I am such a bubbly outgoing person normally and keeping up the facade is literally killing me.

 

Please help.

[wwcrash]

Oh sweetie, take a deep breath first of all. I'm writing this as someone who has ruined a marriage by having affairs, and let me say DON'T CHEAT. Have you thought about separation? Staying in an unfulfilled marriage, though it is comfortable, is not fair to you or him. My advice is to take action: either leave him (and your family WILL still love you, I promise), or tell him that y'all MUST go to counseling beginning immediately. Please don't bring children into this relationship until it is more stable.

 

Any change you make will be a surreal experience, but cheating should not be an option. I cannot stress this enough. Take things one day at a time, and know that the sun will rise again tomorrow.

Good luck!

[carebear83]

Thanks for your reply. I don't want to cheat, and I don't think I ever would. I'm just saying I am constantly tempted and can't work out if having these sort of doubts and feelings is normal.

[heartshaped]

I think it's normal when you marry your first love/first real boyfriend. You never experienced your youth so to speak. The two of you spent all of your adult lives together. It isn't a bad thing, but I find in couples like the two of you at some point one or both partners do begin to wonder if the grass is indeed greener. I think it's normal. You haven't really dated other people to be able to say no, the grass isn't greener so your mind is constantly playing this game of what if.

 

I think if you were in love with your husband though you wouldn't be thinking this way. Falling in and out of love is something all marriages go through. Falling back in love is the trick.

 

I'd talk to your husband about your feelings, seek marriage counseling, and try to fall back in love with your husband. Don't be his roommate or his sister, be his wife. Just because the two of you are different doesn't mean things can't work. You married him for a reason and once you were in love with him- you can be again.

[carebear83]

Thanks guys. I will take this all on board. I guess I'm just not feeling very motivated to try at the moment - it's kind of like I can't be bothered right now. It sounds awful but I would love if he had to go on a business trip for a month or something, just so I could have some time to think on my own.

 

About 5 minutes ago he came and sat down on the couch and I was overcome with irrational irritation. I didn't express it at all, but I think I'm feeling this way because I am feeling all these things that he has absolutely no idea about. I have tried to talk to him before but it always ends up in an argument where he says I need to work on my own happiness and stop blaming him for the discontentment I sometimes feel for my life.

 

Like, how does one really have this type of conversation? "I find you boring and I am not sexually attracted to you." It's not his fault - he is who he is. Urrrggghhhh this is such a horrible mess

 

Sorry - I am just ranting.

[Grumpybutfun]

"I have tried to talk to him before but it always ends up in an argument where he says I need to work on my own happiness and stop blaming him for the discontentment I sometimes feel for my life."Carebear

 

He is absolutely right. Whatever is lacking, is lacking in you. When you look to another person for your happiness, you will never find it. You are taking him for granted, and you have Grass Is Always Greener Syndrome. The issue isn't about him ,but about what you feel you have missed. You say you were married a year ago but have been bored and unhappy for a few years so I guess I do not understand why anyone would get married with the information you had at your fingertips. Your irritation with him and boredom stems from feeling like you missed something by getting married to your first romantic relationship. However relevant that may be, it is simply too late to do over the situation so you have to make a decision based on where you are now rather than where you wish you were.

Where you are now is a person who is unfulfilled and is taking it out on the person who you are projecting blame at. You have decisions to make about how you are going to handle this conflict. Was marriage a decision you made hastily and without reflection on what it means? Honestly, any decision you make while in this state of high drama is going to be a bad one because you aren't mature enough to understand the implications of what you are proposing. End your marriage, have an affair, marry someone else, party until the lights go out, and you will still be the same person who is unhappy and bored. A change of scenery will not change your need for drama.

Your husband deserves better than a woman who lives her life with one foot out the door.

Luck,

Grumps

[carebear83]

Wow, harsh.

 

Yeah, to be honest, I did question whether marriage was the best decision. The proposal came as a complete surprise, but we had been together for so long, I said yes without even thinking. Would I have perosnally chosen to get engaged when we did? No. But i was not the one who asked. Saying no would have been awful and dramatic and I did not want to hurt my partner to that degree when I could not fully understand the doubt I was feeling, or whether or not that doubt was normal.

 

I've never been with anyone else before so i have nothing to compare the relationship to - I assume there is a level of doubt in all long term relationships - I just dont know to what degree it is normal. Obviously what I am worrying about now is that this has gone beyond the realm of what is normal and I don't want to live my life this way.

 

I won't hesitate to admit that for the first 5 years of our relationship I was head over heels and never looked or thought of other men AT ALL. This is certainly not the case now. I really wish it wasn't this way - i HATE feeling this way. I hate myself every single day for feeling this way, which is why i have decided that i NEED to figure it all out - before we have kids and before it's too late.

 

It's not really a matter of cutting the crushes out of my life, becuase as soon as I cut one out, I know I would develop another. I am so lost and confused.

[Jim305]

You said you were 'head over heals' before. First question: has anything about HIM changed since the period during which you were still excited about him? If so, then second question: HOW has he changed? If he's changed course in a way you definitely don't like, then, as another responder wrote, you need to have a serious talk with him or write a letter to him about his new behavior and how it affects you and what can be done about it. If he hasn't changed at all, then third question: what is it that I want now that I didn't want before? If you can figure that out, then question four: is my husband willing and/or able to give me whatever that thing is and, if not, what will I do then?

 

I think it's normal to fantasize about other people, even when your relationship is pretty good, but it's probably a bit beyond normal to do it as much and as intensely as you are. Yes, I think the strength of your feelings could be due to the fact that you've had no experience with other guys - this may really be now making you wonder: is this it, is this as good as it gets, what else is out there, what would it have felt like to have chosen a different path with a different guy? It's understandable that you could be so conflicted, thinking about other guys, another life, but still not want to leave your husband.

 

I agree to that having an affair or brief encounters is a really bad idea. And you might be a little more at risk of that than you might think. After all, strong, sustained temptation can only be resisted so long.

 

I was a bit perplexed when I read: "I guess I'm just not feeling very motivated to try at the moment - it's kind of like I can't be bothered right now." You mean you're going through all this emotional angst and conflict but you can't be bothered to try to fix it? Well, that one's on you, baby. Marriage is hard work. So is life. If you're unhappy, you're the only one who can make yourself happier. But you can't control your husband, and he certainly can affect your level of happiness. That things have gone south may be partly, or even mostly, due to his actions. Still, if you can't be bothered to fix this, then who's going to?