[gonecrazy]

i married my husband 5 years ago and knew at the time i didnt really love him. it sounds silly but he found me at a time when i wasnt really sure what i was about to do next, if that makes sense? we have of course had our ups and downs but mainly i dont feel attracted to him.

i recently meet up with an old boyfriend who i was on and off with for years and i still felt the same way about him and always wondered why we never seriously got together. actually one of us was always travelling!

i dont have any kids and dont want any with my husband. ive now told him im not sure i love him anymore which he is finding difficult to understand.
i think deep down i know what i should do but its never that easy is it.

not really sure what the question is but just really need to hear unbiased advice! even if there is not advice just words of wisdom would do!

thanks!

[LanaBear]

If you did divorce him and things didn't work out with the old boyfriend, where would you find yourself? What was your thinking before the ex came back into the picture? Is it now that he's in the picture, you are allowing these thoughts to stew up, when they weren't there before?

Remember, the grass is hardly ever greener on the other side.

[gonecrazy]

totally agree its always greener!

i am not thinking anything will happen with the ex boyfriend he has a girlfriend and is moving away.and nothing happened when we did catch up. to be honest all this has been on my mind for a long time and that was probably just an extra trigger.

it would just be so much easier if my husband wasnt trying to be so nice!

[CHANDLERS WISH]

Sounds like you were down and out and someone came along and comforted you, was there for you and so you fell into a relationship, but then, married because, well "I'll settle", it will be alright, I'll learn to love him more..

Didn't work.

If your not attracted to someone, both are going to live a loveless life. Your ex, just reminded you of how you "can" feel and obviously what your not feeling now.

You need to actually take yourself firstly back to the beginning in memory and really ensure mentally "nup, I wasn't in love with him", or naturally see, that you were, just marriage sometimes can become very mundain, boring, non-adventful, feel like a Mother, and a house keeper tending to everything. If that is what you establish, then you actually do have hope, to see what you can do together to turn it back around.

But, if not, it's inevitable that you will walk.

My thoughts on Divorce (separated for nearly 3 years), is to make sure, 100% that you've tried everything first so when you walk you walk with your head held high knowing that there was nothing more you could have done.

CW

[LanaBear]

Ah - I see, I thought you were thinking about leaving your husband for the ex boyfriend.

You are right, catching up with his was an extra trigger to get you thinking about where you want to be.

Neither him nor you deserve to be in a marriage where both are not giving there all. Dig deep and find out if this is really what you want. It will hurt both him and you, but both parties need to be loved and cherished in a relationship.

[Guest]

This:

i married my husband 5 years ago and knew at the time i didnt really love him.

. . .

i think deep down i know what i should do but its never that easy is it.

. . .

tells me you know exactly what you need to do. you should do it.

[Hopeless Dork]

i married my husband 5 years ago and knew at the time i didnt really love him.

ive now told him im not sure i love him anymore which he is finding difficult to understand.

You told your husband you are not sure if you love him ANYMORE... which would be hard for anyone to understand. How and why you lost your love, especially when they have not changed at all. But you say you KNEW you didn't love him in the beginning.... so you really haven't lost your love, you just realized you didn't want to pretend anymore.

And thats fine, you don't owe anyone a false life, and most people would not want to stay married to someone that doesn't and hasn't ever really loved them.

Have you been telling him you love him all along? I'm assuming so, if you guys got married.

This on and off again boyfriend , you blame it on the travel... but truth is, if it was what he truly wanted, or you, the traveling wouldn't have stopped your relationship. There was obviously other issues involved.

It sounds like you put yourself willingly into a loveless marriage... and involved an unsuspecting man in you're trying on marriage without loving someone phase of life.

I am not trying to pass judgement... I am saying that you really should not be surpised by how hard it is for him to understand how you don't love him anymore, especially if he really loves you and actually believed you ever loved him.

You think you and this ex had something special... what if he were to tell you, he NEVER really had feelings for you, and just won't fake it with you any more. It would feel like it came out of left field wouldn't it?

You think you know him, and hear something like that and it would confuse you, you'd have a hard time understanding... thats where your husband is right now.

Be gentle with how you handle this further, the kind of emotional damage that will be inflicted can impair every relationship he ever has after you, if you end up divorcing him.

Imagine the trust issues of feeling like even if someone agrees to marry you, they might really deep down not even really love you, but just don't have direction and are willing to marry you while they sort that out.

You asked for unbiased and its hard. I put myself in your husbands shoes and think... I'd not understand all this either.

If you decide to leave, please don't do it out of hope for something with your ex, do it because you don't love this man and its unfair for you to keep him from the life he could have with a woman that will love him as he deserves... and so that you can go on to love a man and be loved in a way that makes you happy.

[rcoreyus]

If you don't love him, then you should leave - better for both of you. But - when you leave, make it a clean break - don't come back if things don't work out with your former boyfriend, or expect your husband to wait for you.

[WildChild]

You told your husband you are not sure if you love him ANYMORE... which would be hard for anyone to understand. How and why you lost your love, especially when they have not changed at all. But you say you KNEW you didn't love him in the beginning.... so you really haven't lost your love, you just realized you didn't want to pretend anymore.

It sounds like you put yourself willingly into a loveless marriage... and involved an unsuspecting man in you're trying on marriage without loving someone phase of life.

You really should not be surpised by how hard it is for him to understand how you don't love him anymore, especially if he really loves you and actually believed you ever loved him.

Imagine the trust issues of feeling like even if someone agrees to marry you, they might really deep down not even really love you, but just don't have direction and are willing to marry you while they sort that out.

You asked for unbiased and its hard. I put myself in your husbands shoes and think... I'd not understand all this either.

I can't give unbiased advice on this but I can give some unvarnished truth.

HD is quite right in what she points out. I've been in this position. My first husband admitted to marrying me because he couldn't have the woman he loved. He apparently took the attitude that because I loved him, it would be OK. It wasn't.

He wasn't emotionally there, had multiple affairs, was continually falling in lust with one woman after another and there was always an under lying sense that it was my fault. In his mind I think it was. He didn't love me, yet had legally tied himself to me and then proceded to put us both through all the woe and misery of his unhappiness and resentment.

I was young and it took me a while to grasp what was really going on, that he really didn't love me but since I was his wife and loved him, he had an expectation that I would somehow support or at least tollerate his inability to deal with his "broken heart" and then with his efforts to find love. At one point he suggested I should sleep with his cousin (whom we shared a house with) since he was seeing someone else.

At best this is a cruel thing to do to someone. It is using their love, their trust, their caring, their willingness to make a lifetime commitment - for what? To fill a temporary void in your life? So you won't be alone while you figure out what you want to do? You need to figure out what you want/need on your own, without involving anyone else. The kindest thing you can do at this point is to be honest and start packing. Understand that you will have to face his reaction and own the fact that your actions and choices created this situation. At least he will know that it isn't anything that he did or didn't do. Don't expect to come out of this as freinds or feeling good about yourself. You are going to have to deal with your own damage control - don't expect him to be emtionally supporting or comforting you.

You weren't honest, he didn't make choice to see if you could come to love him. You took the opportunity to make an informed choice away from him. He married you, loving you and believing you loved him. To allow him to think that you don't love him "anymore", is to create self doubt for him and perhaps false hope that you might come to love him again. You have to come clean, so that he will know it truly wasn't him - it was you. You owe him that.

[gonecrazy]

yes i totally agree with all you are saying. i know how much i am hurting him. and to be honest he is very wealthy and coming from a background of seeing how hard my friends and family have to work i thought well it would be nice not to have to worry about money. i have an amazing house, horses, dogs but im actually realising now that its not all about the money. and i know that 99% of women (not saying you lot!) would just stay with someone for the easy life and money. im not a material person but i thought surely must be something to this! and actually theres not.

and actually the saddest thing for me will be leaving my horses and dogs they really are like children to me. one dog we have had for about 6 years and one of the horses i have had for about 5 years. oh and i cant take any of them with me because my originall home is on the other side of the world.

but dont get me wrong my husband has his bad points. for the last year he has told me daily he is going to die. then he decided he found god and wanted to force me to join because if i died he was going to worry about what would happen to me. of course now i have threatened to leave and suddenly hes not going to die and hes over the god thing.

and yes you are right if i leave i need to make it knowing nothing is going to happen with the ex boyfriend.

the hardest thing is just making the decision and getting on with it. i talk to mum and of course being mum she says come home. i talk to my friends and they are being very good not saying either way. but even i am getting sick of talking about it!

i just need to make a decision.

loving all your posts by the way!