Just leave?

LegacyUser

I'm in my 40's as is my husband. We have two children. I don't think I love my husband any more.
5 years ago we moved into a house that needed renovating, I became friendly with the man doing the work. Nothing happened but I know that I got closer to him emotionally than I should have. He viewed me as nothing more than a client and moved on to his next job when he had finished,which of course is completely normal. I missed him more than I should have which I found difficult. I can see now it was partly loneliness and partly I had already started to drift from my husband.
Recently I bumped into this man again and he was very friendly to me. It has stirred up all these feelings again for me. He is of course totally oblivious to my feelings and I have no intention of ever acting on them. It makes me question my marriage. How can I feel this strongly for someone I haven't seen or spoken to in years. I felt more connected to this stranger than I do to my husband of 15years. I love my children and don't want to hurt them, and I love my husband enough not to want to hurt him either, I'm just not sure I love him enough to stay married?

Eimee90

Hi OP, first of all I wouldn't do anything rash, your run in with this other man is life's way of telling you that something has gone admiss between you and your husband. I think you need to ask yourself firstly what has changed and can it be fixed.

silverbolt

If youre starting to drift from your husband then instead of looking at leaving or getting lustful for someone else - why not try to reconnect?

leggo

Yeah, without any further information, it sounds like what you're actually feeling is the detachment from your husband and you're projecting that onto this guy. Perhaps because he was the guy that was in your home, renovating it and making it into the home you wanted with you, whereas maybe (I get the feeling) your husband wasn't?

I always say that true love is mutual. Of course, yeah, you can get situations where someone is more in love with someone, and unrequited love and whatnot. But the love we feel and celebrate in its purest form includes getting that love back from someone and all the positive feelings that come with that. The rest is usually a combination of lust, need for emotional connection or infatuation. From what it sounds like here, you 'love' this guy, but he sees you as a client he had a few pleasant interaction with. So really there's nothing there. So it's not really 'love', is it?

So try forget about this guy for now. He's just a symbol of a bigger problem. Can you tell us more about what might possibly be causing you to disconnect from, and fall out of love with, your husband, and perhaps we'll be able to help you there?

LegacyUser

I understand that I don't really love the man who renovated my home, that he is just a symptom of a bigger problem. I don't love him because I don't really know him.

My husband is not a bad man, he works 10 -12 hrs a day in a stressful job.
When our children were very young he would be gone to work before they were up and back just before bedtime. We live in an area where at that time I had no support, no family or close friends, everyone I knew worked. I was lonely and struggling. My husbands attitude was his work was his problem, my problems were my own.

As I said my husband is not a bad person, he is not great emotionally, he can't look directly at me and tell me he loves me, (he can tell me if he can't see me if we are in the dark, on the phone etc)
he struggles to tell me that he finds me attractive, I know he does both love me and find me attractive but if I was going out and asked him if what I was wearing is ok he has no idea what to say. He will say ya it's grand, but he would say that no matter what I was wearing.
I hadn't really taken any notice of this before we had the children, but suddenly I could see he wasn't the man I thought I had married.
We have spoken about this many times. I've been to counselling, we gone to marriage counselling and after that my husband went to counselling on his own. He now says he sees what he did was wrong and is sorry. He feels that I am still angry with him, I don't think I am, I think I have just realised he's not the person I thought he was. Counselling has helped him see some things but he still struggles with intimacy.

silverbolt

Anonzx wrote: »

I understand that I don't really love the man who renovated my home, that he is just a symptom of a bigger problem. I don't love him because I don't really know him.

My husband is not a bad man, he works 10 -12 hrs a day in a stressful job.
When our children were very young he would be gone to work before they were up and back just before bedtime. We live in an area where at that time I had no support, no family or close friends, everyone I knew worked. I was lonely and struggling. My husbands attitude was his work was his problem, my problems were my own.

As I said my husband is not a bad person, he is not great emotionally, he can't look directly at me and tell me he loves me, (he can tell me if he can't see me if we are in the dark, on the phone etc)
he struggles to tell me that he finds me attractive, I know he does both love me and find me attractive but if I was going out and asked him if what I was wearing is ok he has no idea what to say. He will say ya it's grand, but he would say that no matter what I was wearing.
I hadn't really taken any notice of this before we had the children, but suddenly I could see he wasn't the man I thought I had married.
We have spoken about this many times. I've been to counselling, we gone to marriage counselling and after that my husband went to counselling on his own. He now says he sees what he did was wrong and is sorry. He feels that I am still angry with him, I don't think I am, I think I have just realised he's not the person I thought he was. Counselling has helped him see some things but he still struggles with intimacy.

No offence but im not sure i believe that. You have always known, you're just choosing now to admit it. You dont go through 16 years married with kids without knowing your partner - unless hes James Bond or Batman people cant keep a pretense up for that long unless its a really deep dark secret.

You lack intimacy with your husband. And being honest without drastic measures of change being taken that attitude probably isnt going to shift.

Does he talk about emotional problems with you? Not just compliments or affirmation but when hes feeling down, depressed, somethings bothering him? Or is he the shut up and put up toxic masculinity type?