topic Re: Should I leave or stay? in Relationship and family issues

Should I leave or stay?

Boymumma2026 — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:53:36 GMT

Hi.
I have been married for 15 years and together with my husband for 20, (I am 38yo). We have 2 sons together (8&10).

At the start it was great. He was my first for everything and I looked up to him. We have the same background and that helped family wise. I did everything he wanted. Sex on demand. All the cooking, cleaning, and worked full time.
5 years in I started anti depressants due to a lot of different reasons. From then my sex drive plummeted. I didn’t really tell him. I kept up my “wifely duties” whenever it was expected but as time went on I got so over it. It started a lot of arguments and caused him to get what I called “blue ball anger”. I now recoil when he touches me. Kissing him feels like I’m kissing my brother and the thought of sex disgusts me. Fast forward to about 3 years ago we to started marriage counseling. I personally don’t think it did anything. It just rehashed old wounds that we thought we had addressed.

Long story short(ened)-

I don’t feel like I am in love anymore. I have recently reconnected with an old school friend who is separated and showing intense feelings for me which I have reciprocated. I feel guilt in this but at the same time I feel like I wouldn’t have allowed this to happen if there hadnt been a growing divide in my marriage. Of course that’s not putting blame on anyone else but myself.

I want to leave my husband but the anxiety I feel about my children’s wellbeing’s, financial issues plus strict family pressures just scares me. My anxiety is so bad, even on medication and increasing it. I frequently have nausea, stomach anxiety which leads to awful diarrhea and uncontrollable crying. I am just so lost. I am unhappy in my marriage but too scared of the alternative.

I don’t know what I’m doing. I just know I’m not happy 😔 but my children’s happiness comes first and I know they want their parents together.

Re: Should I leave or stay?

Guest_50221944 — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:43:20 GMT

Hii!

I might be able to offer some advice? From a childs perspective

You mentioned your worried about your children's wellbeing, family pressure and financial issues. But remember if you were won't happy with your marriage im sure that your children would also want you to be happy.

I dont know what life is like for you, but I know if you do choose to separate, there are many resources you or your children could reach our to process and deal with heavy emotions. I'm sure guidance counselors at school could help if your children were struggling with this or they could reach out to kids helpline or access many many mental healthwebsites. Financially, if that is a problem, remember that there are many services that act a support for these situations and I'm sure could potentially help. Family pressure can be alot but remember: your needs matter too.

The decision will be very difficult to make. Obviously there are a lot of factors that needs to be weighed up.

You also said you can get extreme anxiety, uncontrollable crying and other side effects. Try to ground yourself when you find yourself spiralling, or when in a 'crying spell' sometimes splashing cold water on your face or holding an ice cube is a physical way to shock your nervous system back to normal.

I am really sorry you've had to go through this. It makes sense to feel lost and overwhelmed or feel like everything is going wrong. You are doing your best. Remember that. The fact that you are reaching out shows how much you care.

I don't know if this would help but I really hope that I could offer some support or advice. Good luck xx

Re: Should I leave or stay?

therising — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 07:10:19 GMT

Hi Boymumma2026

My heart goes out to you so much as you face so many different challenges at this time in your life, including

Making greater sense of your marriage in a way where it was great and where it all went wrong
Making sense of your feelings for this other person
Considering the wellbeing of your boys
Feeling so many conflicting emotions, while also struggling with mental health challenges and the side effects of medication

and the list goes on. Such an incredibly challenging and tormenting time for you.

Putting aside what chemistry's not there anymore between you and your husband (oxytocin, dopamine etc etc), what does love naturally mean to you? The reason for posing such a question involves better understanding why we don't naturally feel it at times. As a 55yo gal finally being pushed to have to better define it a few years back, I found what love means to me personally. All of a sudden everything made so much more sense, when it comes to why I feel deep love for some but not necessarily others and why I feel or don't feel a significant sense of love from others. I find love in evolution, in more ways than one. When it comes to the people we love the most, such as our kids, our investment in their mental, emotional, physical and even soulful evolution is great. We can be willing to sacrifice just about anything, for them to be able to evolve in many ways. Then we can question 'How do we lead others, beyond our kids, to evolve or have have we led them in the past?'. Further questioning is where a lot of revelations can start to really kick in, 'How have others led me to evolve? How do they raise my spirits, my level of consciousness and more? How have they raised me over time, to certain opportunities that have been fundamental in my growth? Have they left me where I am in a depression? Have the just waited for me to 'get over things' or left me to work things out for myself or have they actually raised me?'.

I've found a real game changer in the way of self love and personal evolution relates to the question 'How am I loving myself, leading myself to evolve?'. I've found all this questioning relating to love and evolution to be more soulful than mental and have found that it can help explain a lot which just feels soul destroying at times. I suppose the ultimate question comes down to 'Does my marriage hold the potential for various forms of evolution (including personal and mutual)?'. This is a question I've come to ask myself on occasion, in my own marriage.❤️