I'm scared my marriage is ending and it's my fault

[Molly06]

I am not sure where to start except to say I have not felt this sad in a long long time.

my husband and I have been married 12 years, we were engaged after 7 months and married 6 months after that. We had trouble falling pregnant and went through 5 rounds of IVF. We fell pregnant with twins and then at 32 weeks found out that one of our twins had died. They were both born 4 days later.

as a result of this I suffered extreme anxiety and depression and went into hospital for 7 weeks for it. My husband was my rock.

2 years later we fell naturally pregnant but had complications and I was put in hospital on complete bed rest from 26 weeks and my child was born at 32 weeks.

We moved towns and built a lovely home together and while I have missed close friends I have loved our life together.

My husband has always spoilt me, told me how much he loves me and been a wonderful support but I lost my sex drive. We are lucky to have sex once a month and often that's just because I feel bad.

Not only have I lost my sex drive but I just don't kiss him for no reason , we do cuddle on the lounge every night which I love and we went away in November last year without the kids and had a great week and sex drive had returned. It's not that I want sex with anyone else I just don't seem to want any.

monday night he said that he is tired trying to live in this platonic relationship. We talked about it last night and he said that he isn't about to walk out and that the marriage isn't over but he looks resigned as if it is over and he said he doesn't know what to do to fix it.

i suggested some kind of counseling but he can't see how that can help my sex drive.

i am so so sad, I don't want to be with anyone else and I can't imagine my life without him in it and I am so scared what it might do to our kids especially my daughter who has started suffering anxiety.

i don't feel I can talk to any friends or family about it and I can't talk to him about it ( well I have) but he doesn't have answers. He is the one I go to when I have problems and now he and I are the problem.

i just don't know what to do.

sorry for the very long post 😢

[Molly06]

Hi,

I know that I do not feel giddy in love with him anymore but I do love him and don't want to be with anyone else.

I have talked to him about counseling and gp has said she wants to talk to him and I have told him this.

He seems open to it but hasn't done anything else.

Isn't it normal to go from in love to loving??

Thank you

[IJG]

Hi Molly06

I think you can go from in love to loving. This happened to me. Was married for 20 years but the last (I can't even remember how many years) I was there just for the kids.

It is not your fault as this is a relationship between two people and everyone has to do their part. People become complacent and stop trying or doing what they used to do to attract the other person.

There is a saying, don't stop dating your wife and never stop flirting with your husband.

Kids do make things harder but we do have to give them our time as we brought them into this world.

Not wanting to have sex everyday should not be an issue. Having sex doesn't mean you love the person any more or less. To me, holding hands, cuddling, looking into each other's eyes and feeling it in your heart is true love. If you don't feel that then you've lost that loving feeling and going to see a therapist together to work things out will either show you and him what needs to be done, what has been lost so you can fix it or it will show you that you are not in love anymore and you have drifted apart. It happens to so many people. You're not the first or the last that this will happen to unfortunately.

If you want to save your marriage work on it but you can't be the only one trying. Your husband needs to as well otherwise it will never work. I'm saying this from my own experience.

Good luck. I hope you can fix your marriage and don't put pressure on yourself about having sex. Sex is just a bonus. The real feeling comes from the heart. You should melt when he touches your face and vice versa. That's true love.

[White_Rose]

Hello Molly

How are you going? Haven't read anything from you for a couple of days so a little concerned you may be feeling miserable and alone. We are here to walk with you a little. Can you drop us a line and tell us how you are going?

Mary

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Molly06,

Thanks for posting; I can see that so much has happened since your first original post. I hope that things are looking up for you a little more but I just wanted to check in and see how you were going.

One thing that you mentioned in your post was that showing affection to your husband would give them the green light for sex. Please know this doesn't necessarily have to be true. Lots of couples struggle with intimacy issues which is not just sex, but includes cuddling, kissing or even holding hands. After a while without intimacy people can find it hard to 'bounce back' for either fear of rejection (from your husband) or fear of moving too fast.

Bouncing back as a couple is hard but requires lots of communication and mutual understanding.

One thing that I learned was that it's important for both of you to be able to communicate; its not just about sex, but being comfortable with the smaller things too. Being able to give your husband a kiss, and being mutually understanding with this being 'okay for now' but also with no expectations to 'give or need more'.

A lot of this can be done with the help of a psychologist which I know you are seeing, but other techniques and suggestions can be found in books.

I hope that this helps -

[ci]

Molly06

Hi I felt like I needed to reply with some positivity when I read you comment is it normal to go from love to loving.

YES! Definitely normal and it doesn't mean your marriage is over its just life.

I have been with my husband for 19 years since I was young we have 3 kids and experienced horrible times when pregnant not as much as you but enough to understand the fear of not wanting to get pregnant. And that can definitely turn off your sex drive it did for me. Also we have no family and no time out from the kids so I understand the toll that takes on a marriage. I've been in your shoes and lost the passion for my husband more than once but I'm so glad we work through it. I once spoke to a therapist about it and her reply which I found great was. This is normal life gets in the way things happen we don't spend our lives giddy and in lust like we start off we grow and evolve things move in waves and it's riding the waves together how marriage lasts.

My husband like yours didn't understand that I needed some help and support with emotional stuff like fear of more kids and more help with house stuff. Long story but I needed hysterectomy so fear of pregnancy gone and he stepped up at home. US women need more than just someone warm in bed to want sex 😅,

Don't be hard on yourself communication was a big thing for us and once we both understood each other we back to normal.

I read your husband reply to your wanting him to have the snip maybe if he understood your fear he would be more open to it. Otherwise have you considered just getting done yourself girl friend of mine made that choice after her husband refused and I know she felt free for doing it.

Sorry that was a long ramble I hope you and your husband can sort things out you sound like you care for each other dearly.

[Molly06]

Hi,

Thank you so much for your reply. It's so good to have confirmation that I'm not the only one who goes through this.

I have been doing better but have my ups and downs. Tonight is a night where I'm feeling anxious and flat but I know where it's coming from.

A while back I was playing a game on my phone that has a chat function and this guy started to flirt with me, I told my husband about it and told him how I pretty bluntly told the guy that I was married.

My husband was then encouraging me to chat to these guys. I think he was hoping it might be a way of getting me excited so that I would show him something.

I decided to respond for his sake but after a few conversations I said no more as I didn't feel right about it. We actually had a fight about it.

Anyway recently a new guy started chatting to me and it started out innocently but then he started flirting, I was enjoying the attention this time and told my husband thinking he would be happy but he was funny about it this time, in the end he said yes do it but don't take it any further, which wouldn't happen anyway as he lives on the other side of the world. Anyway we have been chatting /flirting for over a week now and I was enjoying it but today I realized this is just not right. How can I fix things with my husband if I'm thinking about another man.

Im also doing the other guy no favors as he seems to be getting too involved and I'm doing myself no favors, I'm becoming someone I despise, I want to be fantasizing about my husband not someone else.

so now I e decided I need to tell this other guy this and I feel so bad as I know it's going to hurt him, but ultimately I want my marriage to work and I can't live like this. I just feel so wrong .

Please don't judge me as I know how wrong this is, I just needed to get it off my chest and hoping some of my anxiety will go away.

thank you for listening

[ci]

Not judging you and I hope your not judging yourself.

Honestly you are just human you are missing something in your life and you will try and fill that gap it's natural. I'm glad you have been so honest about it.

My advice is to cut it off and try to send your husband messages through out the day like your relationship new and dating. Ad little bit of fun to your day. Maybe come to an agreement with your husband maybe few weeks of dating no sex just fun texts a little romance. We never get time without our kids so we like to make something simple for dinner get kids to be have plate full of nibbles and stuff big blanket and cuddle up with good movie as a date night. Would your husband be open to this it might make you feel like you get that connection back and your sex drive might just return.

[Molly06]

Hi,

its what I have been thinking of doing. Stopping it tonight and changing my profile pic to one of my pets so that I don't have anyone try it again, I do enjoy this game and I only ever started playing for the game and was shocked when this stuff started happening.

ive also thought that maybe I should start doing as you suggested and try sending my husband messages and bring some romance back

thank you for your response

[Molly06]

So I told the guy tonight that I wouldn't be chatting anymore and he totally freaked out. He was wanting to talk to my husband and was saying he thought I was into him etc. I had told him all along that I was married and loved my husband and always want to be with him , plus he lives on the other side of the world . I felt sick to the stomach that I have now hurt this person and ever thought this would be ok. I've since resigned every single game I've played and asked for my account to be deleted because I'm feeling so bad in every respect about it.

I am such a fool , why did I think I could do this even with my husbands approval . It was never going to end well.

[ci]

Don't beat yourself up over it you have things going on in your life that lead to this and he obviously has things going on in his life to make him react so badly.

Like you said he is other side of the world and there could be a lot more going on than you can know.

Try to focus on you and what you want for your life sounds selfish but sometimes we need to put ourselves first.