Nagging feeling that husband doesn't love me

[Aussiechic]

I know this may sound like such a strange problem to have . Outwardly I have a really good life . A happy home , grown children who are all healthy and a husband who treats me really well.

The issue is that even from the very beginning of our marriage I've felt something was missing . We never seem to have had that 'connect ' that I have had in previous relationships and even in a relationship that I had during a two year separation . I don't remember ever feeling an intimate ( as in emotionally intimate connection with my husband and he has always had difficulty in opening up to me . There have been issues with porn ( something we agreed would not be part of the marriage being hidden . We sought counselling and some stuff was raised about him using it as a substitute for intimacy because it was safe but it never really got far In Being resolved although he claims to not

Longer use it . My issues with it were that he would sneak around with this secret life hiding things and seemed to have some major ogling problem out in public with any attractive woman in sight . Additionally , due to his inability or unwillingness to express himself he had never once in 17 years complimented me . Hearing that he was attracted to me was important to me yet despite letting him know this he refused it . I absolutely feel and have always felt very deep down that he doesn't really

Love me . This thought bags at me a lot.

Anyway the marriage continued for several

Years after the counselling a bad the intimacy issues continued around him never feeling comfortable in discussing anything relating to any feelings what so ever . We eventually separated . I felt extremely unloved.

Despite all of this we were always great 'mates ' and even after separating we control need to be great friends .

I sought counselling for myself , which I don't feel was very successful .

I dated someone else and was rally happy but distance made the relationship difficult

Eventually I believed that giving the marriage another go was for the best .

I'm now thinking I made a mistake , most likely making the choice based on low self esteem

And fear that what I have is a million

Times better than what other women have .

I'm deeply Ashamed to think I'm turning into a woman who's staying in a marriage where she is unhappy simply because I'm afraid I'll be alone .

My husband shows he Cares in so

Many ways through littlies acts of service and he is undoubtedly a good man but this relationship is totally emotionally unfulfilling for me .

Yet I look at the chances of a woman my age ( late 40s ) finding love and it seems like a pipe dreams .

So realistically I know that I need to make this decision from a position of either staying in a comfortable but emotionally unfullfilling marriage or being alone and likely remaining emotionally unfulliffled anyway

Either seems like a bad choice . How do I make a decision like this .

Additionally I'm really struggling with imaging my husband finding his much younger dream woman ( like the ones he stares at whilst I'm alone and sad thinking I've made such a mistake )

I feel like such a fool. Please help anyone who has some words of wisdom . I have absolutely no one around me who I can voice this too because everyone just tells me how lucky I am to be in such a wonderful marriage and I feel so guilty for feeling this way.

[gebaird]

Your feelings are your feelings. Acknowledge and accept them, regardless of how you or others think you SHOULD feel. In truth, the only one who knows what it's really like to be married to this man is you.

 

My advice to anyone in a marriage crisis is simple: fix it or end it. Fixing it may take years, and that can be okay as long as there is forward progress. Fixing it looks like making a plan and working on it together. It may involve individual and/or couples counseling, and it may or may not work -- but it's an active effort.

 

When you feel like you've tried everything and nothing has worked (that point could be now or next week or five years from now), end it. Being alone isn't fun, but it's better than being with someone you don't love and who doesn't love you back. At least when you're single and feeling unloved, the reasons are clear. When you're married and feeling unloved, with no possibility of ever feeling loved again, that's pretty much the definition of hell.

 

Don't settle for a crappy relationship just because your misery is comfortable and familiar. Fight it every way you know how, and don't stop fighting until you've created a life you can live with.

[lukeb]

You did say that from the very beginning you never felt an intimate connection with your husband, it would seem that from your account that he has come to terms with that, and that the marriage is what it is. I don't believe the issues were that he would sneak around and ogle at other women or consume porn. The feelings that you think he doesn't love you probably has more to do with the fact that you never loved him. In any case this is the only thing you can know for sure how you feel about him, not how he feels about you. You have no way of getting into his head.

 

It may be worth to go see another therapist. There is a danger of getting into an unhealthy pattern of thinking and that the way things are but how you perceive them to be are skewed. It is important to get an accurate picture of your situation.

[Aussiechic]

. Fight it every way you know how, and don't stop fighting until you've created a life you can live with.

 

Thankyou Gebaird, I think that finally I'm feeling in a place where I'm ready to do exactly that and I know that what you say here is right. It's a crappy feeling , that feeling of being alone in a couple . Also the part about ownership of feelings that you mentions . That's something that I really connect with . I think I have spent way too much time disowning my feelings and worried that it was wrong to feel the way I do.

[Aussiechic]

I don't believe the issues were that he would sneak around and ogle at other women or consume porn.

 

Thanks for your response Luke, do you mean you don't think pirn and ogling women caused issues in my marriage or that it is the main cause of our problems ? Because absolutely it did not cause issues it was a contributing factor to the further breakdown of what relationship we did have . It also simply made it easier for me to actually see the dissatisfaction and disconnect that was happening I think . To put it bluntly , it became clearer to me that I was being excluded from my husbands sexual life when I found he spent literally thousands of hours on porn and it became clearer to me that possibly I was not of much interest or consequence to my husband when i would repeatedly find myself talking to the side of his head whilst he was busy staring some woman up and down.

So yes I do feel that if contributed and was simply a symptom of the intimacy issues that already existed

[Aussiechic]

 

It may be worth to go see another therapist. There is a danger of getting into an unhealthy pattern of thinking and that the way things are but how you perceive them to be are skewed. It is important to get an accurate picture of your situation.

 

 

I think this is valuable advice and I am considering doing so. I am very conscious of my patterns of thinking and understand that I can never know what is truly going on in someone else's head . Perhaps at the end of the day it will be a matter of me deciding whether I am ok with a marriage to man who refuses to show any emotional intimacy to me

[torigal]

My bf does the exact same.. makes me feel so worthless .. i should run for the hills too... Gee men are pigs sometimes.. hun dont waste another day on this douche bag .. if u stay with him u definitely won't find new love ..enjoy your own company and when the time is right love will find you x