To the Core-Why do you stay?

Keeping up the pretense that you are really happy is tough. And morally wrong, IMHO. Lies are bad. They keep us and our partners trapped in misery or mediocrity. I don't think that's how it should be..

@michaeljames

Remember-you can love and be a friend to someone without being married to them. Very few people can be married successfully. There is no shame in owning that fact.

Divorce is still a difficult hassle for many of us, but there is no shame in it. In fact, I think it's an honorable choice if a marriage is not a real marriage. Not the only honorable choice but certainly an honorable choice. Living in truth is good!

I don't leave because my wife and I are still consciously working to save our marriage, because of our kids, and because it would be very expensive to break it up. In the past few years I've set dates in my mind many times that "if we aren't having sex by such and such a date, I'm outta here". I've realized after some time and counseling and reflective thought that that really isn't the right approach and that I have to take things day by day and evaluate whether things are getting better or worse. Are we talking more? Are we sharing more? Am I enjoying spending time with her? Things are getting better or at least not regressing. Things aren't that bad at this point where leaving looks better than staying. We still work at counseling. We both agree that we still love each other but that careers, kids, life, etc. got in the way and pushed us apart. That being written, we've also said we can't do this forever. Our marriage has been sexless for about ten years and devoid of any sex at all for the past 3+. I've told her I can't do this much longer without some compromises. We are working at rebuilding our emotional connection. For those of you working on trying to connect with your spouse and are still fighting for your marriage that believe there is hope, I highly recommend "Hold Me Tight" by Dr. Sue Johnson. Through this process I've grown a lot as a person, as a man, and as a father. I know more about myself and what I want in life and I know why I react in the ways that I do when things happen sometimes. I know how we got into the situation we are currently in. I also know that long-term I am unwilling to settle for a sexless marriage. I also know more about my wife. What I need to reach her and meet some of her emotional needs. However, she ultimately has to be willing to meet me halfway on sexual intimacy. That's not a one way relationship that is going to work. At this point, she says she wants this also and we are working together and separately to try to get there. Unlike many people here, we did, at one point in time, have a pretty good sexual relationship. That gives me a little hope that we might get that back.

That being written, I do realize that there will come a time if things don't improve enough, we are both going to have to make a very difficult decision. If we do end our marriage, it will be costly financially as I own a business. It will break up our family (my youngest of three kids is 10). It will cause complications in our lives. However, I have absolute confidence that if we choose that road, I will do so with an eye toward the future and lessons learned from the past. It will certainly be difficult, both emotionally and physically. However, I won't consider my marriage a failure, but rather a collection of lessons learned and experiences that I will take with me as I venture into the next chapter of my life. I will find someone else. I have no worries on that end. It's a big world with a lot of fish in the sea and I believe I have a lot to offer to someone and I believe there is a woman out there who values both emotional and sexual intimacy as much as I do who has a libido to match mine (and looks great in yoga pants) . I believe my kids will ultimately be fine. Research tends to show that kids are very resilient if both parents are able to get along with each other. Yes, it will suck splitting holidays, vacations and birthdays. It will be especially hard not to see their smiling faces every day. However, it won't change how much I love them or will support them in anything they want to do with their lives.

So, for now I continue to try to build a bridge back toward my wife. It's hard. It's frustrating feeling like sometimes she isn't reciprocating. It's agonizing feeling like we are wasting so much time not being physically intimate and close to each other while we are both still healthy. Honestly, my 20 year old younger self would probably be appalled how often my almost 50 year old self spanks the monkey to keep my libido in check, but it keeps me from doing something stupid and having a fling which would truly make things irrepairable in my marriage. I am going to try like hell to fix this marriage and the intimacy therein. If I can't get to a level of emotional and sexual intimacy that is satisfactory and sustainable to both my wife and I, I'll know that I gave it 100% and tried the best I could.

Long story short - we've been together 25 years but grown apart over the past several years with career, kids, homeschooling, etc. I had a very brief affair 15 years ago with an ex-girlfriend when our marriage was very rocky. I deeply regret it and it's the only time I've every been unfaithful. I had one foot out the door and neither one of us was really present or communicating in our marriage. Since then we've had two more kids and I really thought things were back on track, but the sexual intimacy gradually decreased from once every few weeks to almost nothing and then absolutely nothing. At this point, it's been over three years with no hint of any sexual intimacy. In the meantime I started a business and have been very successful which has taken time away from my marriage. My wife came to me three years ago and asked us to go to counseling. I wasn't really invested in the counseling for the first year, but now I feel like I am the one who is more invested than she is. We were attending sporadically over the past two years, but within the past few weeks I've told her need to start having a session once a week or at least with more frequency and come up with an actual game plan to either fix things or move on with our lives. For about the last year to two years we haven't been sleeping in the same bed. She goes to bed at 10PM every night. I tend to stay up a bit later. In the past few years, she's also gotten significantly more involved in our church including becoming a youth group leader, which I also feel is pulling her in a direction and pushing our marriage further down on the list of things to work on. Ironically I think she fancies herself as quite the Christian while going against some of the things the Bible preaches in terms of husbands and wives and intimacy. We don't fight and get along well, but we are friends without benefits at this point as we don't make love either.

Frankly, I still love my wife. If she came to me tomorrow and wanted sexually intimacy, I'm there. When I'm doing my own thing to "relieve stress", many times I am thinking of sexual experiences from our past. At one point in time we had a pretty good sex life. I won't say it was everything I wanted it to be, but it was serviceable and had some good variety and that's at a point where we weren't as emotionally connected as we could have been. I stay because I still think there is some hope to get back there. She knows I want sexual intimacy (among other things) and says she still wants it in our marriage also. She claims that so much damage has been done from a lack of emotional intimacy over the past 20 years that it is taking her time to process it. Our counselor understands she is being avoidant and has called her on it. He understands that I have a timeline and won't tolerate this indefinitely as frankly I feel it is very emotionally abusive on her part and would like to move ahead with my life, either with or without her. Until we resolve this, it feels like living in limbo which, as our counselor stated most eloquently, is excruciating. However, the big red warning flag for me continues to be the thought running through my head that if she really loved me like she claims she does, she'd make some sort of effort at sexual intimacy of some kind as she knows how much the lack thereof in our marriage bothers me. I have to balance that thought with the fact that it would be very expensive to get out of this marriage and I really don't fancy moving out at this point. My biggest concern is our three kids who all still live at home. I don't think they have any clue that things are the way they are between my wife and I know it would crush them if we decide to split. So I stay as long as I feel like we are making some sort of positive forward progress. If that stops and if we decide it isn't going to get any better, I guess we'll cross that bridge if we need to.

@michaeljames, flyingsolo... in case someone has already suggested this, I’ll be redundant... you need to have an initial consultation with a lawyer to know where you stand. It’s often free and doesn’t commit you to anything.

@michaeljames, your dynamic sounds much like mine, and if my experience is an indicator, there isn’t anything to work with; it’s not going to improve with time or effort. You may learn that by holding out longer to reduce the length of child support, you also increase the amount and duration of alimony.

Conversely, flyingsolo, your situation puts you at a huge disadvantage financially in a divorce, and you’d be wise to know the implications before declaring something that can’t be unspoken - in your case, maybe the hole can’t get any deeper and it’s a good idea to spend time trying hard to repair things. Over 25 years with a stay-at-home spouse and a successful business is a bad combination; you’d think you’d be rewarded for being a good provider, but in the court’s eyes you’ve established a precedent that needs to be maintained.

Bottom-line: take the time to have a conversation and learn the basics for the laws in your geography.

Yep, saw an attorney years ago to understand my situation and I'm basically screwed financially if it comes to a divorce. I already knew that however. I am in the financial services and consulting field, so I had a pretty good idea already of the impact it was going to have. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. Had a good conversation with my wife this morning and we are still fighting to stay together and fix things.