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Leaving a long term relationship
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I need advice and I have nobody to talk to. I hope someone here can help me.
I have been in a relationship with a lovely man for ten years. He is wonderful in so many ways and has been so good to me. He's a kind, generous person and he loves me so much.
But I'm just not sure I love him enough. Now is the point at which I have to make a decision. We are getting to marriage/babies age, and I have to decide whether or not to leave him.
But every time I try to imagine leaving him, I just feel sick. The thought of doing that to him. He has been so wonderful to me, he has bought us a house, he has looked after me and taken care of me and worked so hard to try to provide a future for us. And he has done nothing wrong, nothing. I just don't really love him in the right way.
How can I possibly do to this to him? How can I leave him alone in the house he bought for us, when he loves me so much?
:crying:
I have been in a relationship with a lovely man for ten years. He is wonderful in so many ways and has been so good to me. He's a kind, generous person and he loves me so much.
But I'm just not sure I love him enough. Now is the point at which I have to make a decision. We are getting to marriage/babies age, and I have to decide whether or not to leave him.
But every time I try to imagine leaving him, I just feel sick. The thought of doing that to him. He has been so wonderful to me, he has bought us a house, he has looked after me and taken care of me and worked so hard to try to provide a future for us. And he has done nothing wrong, nothing. I just don't really love him in the right way.
How can I possibly do to this to him? How can I leave him alone in the house he bought for us, when he loves me so much?
:crying:
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Comments
Its a tricky one, because most relationships do lose their initial sparkle of excitement and honeymoonish, but you are left with a deeper more settled bond. If you are looking for the honeymoon phase type of love, then you will be looking for a new relationshiip again every few years for the rest of your life. Love is not just a feeling. Its a verb too, and its a commitment, and a lifelong relationship WILL have ups and downs and times where the love is sparkly and fresh, and it will have times when youre pissed off with each other and it will be hard work. Youre still two seperate people trying to get along.
Saying that, if deep down you just know that you dont love him properly, then it is more cruel to stay and pretend than it is to be honest (sensitively) and realise that your train just came to the end of its track x
I did love him at one point, though never desperately, head over heels. I never thought we would be together for ten years, or that we would end up married - we just sort of never split up, and moved in together, and then before I knew it things were serious. I do love him, but in a very siblingy kind of way. I don't fancy him at all. We haven't had sex in years because I just don't want to. That can't be a good sign.
There is someone else. Someone else who I have known for years, and fell desperately in love with a few years ago. But he didn't feel the same, so I had to try and get over it. We stayed friends and then, a couple of years ago, he revealed that he had fallen in love with me, years after I first fell for him. Had he wanted me at the start, when I first met him, it would have been easy. I could have left my partner when we were both 25, only been together a few years, living in a rented house. Now he has bought us a house, we've been together ten years, we're getting towards having children age. It's so much harder to leave.
I do love the other man. If I was starting from scratch, with no obligations, no commitments, I would choose him. But I have made commitments. I have made promises. I promised my partner we would be together and have children together and he made sacrifices for me. When I was unemployed and struggling, he helped me financially. How can I now, after all that, abandon him for someone else? It's just too awful to contemplate. I want to do it, but I don't see how I can. I can't be that person. I'll have to live my entire life less happy than I could otherwise have been, because I can't repay his love and support in this terrible way
f you feel like this you should do something about it. Leaving is an option, but should probably be a long way down the list - you probably need to talk to them - perhaps using a service like Relate.
On the other hand, your description sounds more like parent/child than life partners, perhaps some counselling to help you work out what your feelings actually are.
That's part of what makes it hard to think about leaving. We have spent ten years building a life together - a nice home, my family really like him, etc. But I can't help feeling that I'm trying to convince myself that all of that is enough. That being reasonably happy, with a nice house and a pleasant life, will be enough in the long run. And my fear is that I'll look back and regret not leaving him, or that we'll have kids and I'll end up leaving him then, which would be even worse. I'm afraid that I'm going to lose my chance of real happiness because I can't bring myself to leave.
You probably should have left five years ago.
You leave now, you are going to hurt him, but he's probably known things aren't "right" for a while.
If you stay, but leave things as they are you're going to increasingly resent that, which will make you bitter, eventually one of you will leave the other and you'll both be left thinking if it had happened now then you would have had a possibility of building a relationship with someone else.
The other option is to try to fix it. Relate. Sex (releases relationship building hormones - in animals at least). Maybe get him to slap you a bit.
It will end anyway because you just cant live like that and its an affair waiting to happen. Its not going to be a nice conversation, but you cannot lie to your own heart. Hes done nothing wrong, so obviously you need to be sensitive and gentle, and youll probabbly feel guilty and terible and change your mind on and off but its not fair on either of you to carry on, because he deserves to find happiness with a partner that loves him back, and you deserve happiness too
This is what I meant. I'd still suggest seeing if you can fix it first.
There's often a strong sense of failure linked to trouble in a relationship, but rest assured, it's a triumph to admit when you're not happy and a really brave move to act on those feelings - whether its to end things or to shake them up to be something you're both happier with. Suzy is a great example of someone who have braved this - she's very wise and strong.
The suggestion of Relate counselling is a good one - and you may feel this is something you'd like to explore on your own while maybe taking a break from living together? If you did choose this option then it would be important to be honest with your partner about your intentions and let him know that you need some space to understand your current feelings. He may not agree to this and suggest that if you are making a break that it must be the end, but only by having this conversation can you figure out a way forward that you both agree on.
It may be that a fear of loneliness and endings prevents you making a really clear decision even with a break, but essentially your heart or gut or whatever it is that defines your innermost thoughts will tell you if your life is taking a new direction that feels more hopeful without him. ( I know Suzy said something similar)
Try to remember that if you do decide to end this, then while falling into the arms of a new lover may well be very appealing, consider taking time for yourself to understand what's happened and how you ended up staying in a relationship for so long that your heart wasn't in... Unfortunately it's the case that sometimes we become reliant on relationships to feel whole and base our sense of worth on whether or not we have someone romantically. To reassure you, thousands of people end relationships every day with new, more fulfilling ones around the corner... but sometimes it takes time to figure out what you need or the fun of experimenting with dating to avoid getting stuck in another rut - it differs for all of us - so I guess my point is, try to avoid putting pressure on yourself to respond to this in a certain way.
Often there's a catalyst person for the end of a relationship - someone who you fantasise being with who can offer a new fulfilling life. However, sometimes it's more the thought of being stuck in a relationship that you're not happy with that leads to these feelings rather than the new person you have the hots for. Obviously I don't know you guys and what your your attraction is based on in comparison to your current man - I guess this is just to say even if this other guy is the man of your dreams, try to avoid rushing into anything too heavy too soon - particularly if there's any chance you're just craving the intimacy that's missing from your current relationship.
Anyhow, this is by far a closed case and the best decision is the one that feels right for you. Do please feel free and welcome to continue to share your innermost worries here, because we're listening and want you to know that you don't have to muddle through this alone...
Leaving him may well devastate him. It devastated me when my wife, who I had a daughter with, said the same things and left me. It hurts that she's happier now because I wanted her to be happy with me. But I'd rather this than her staying, miserable, out of a sense of duty.
Only thing I'd say is be decisive. Don't do what my ex did and pretend you're still deciding, that there was hope, when in reality you'd decided at least a year before. That devastated me more than anything else, knowing I tried so hard and she'd really already gone. A quick cut hurts, but less.
This is a fair point, if you know in your heart it's over - then the break thing doesn't work. It's only really an option if you're feeling like only space will reveal your true feelings.
Arrrgggghhhh, it's just so awful. I think I know what I have to do, I just can't imagine actually doing it. The thought of saying it. The thought of dividing up our things. The thought of leaving him there in a half empty house - most of the clutter is mine.
Part of me is worried because I think maybe this is all based on this kind of weird belief we all have that we all deserve to be with the person we love most in the world, sort of like we've got a right to it, and we've all got a right to put our own happiness first and make ourselves as happy we can, no matter who we hurt. Loads of people say things along those lines and it;s a really common view but I just don't know if it's true. Maybe that's just bullshit and if you can be reasonably content with a nice person to whom you have made promises then you ought to stay with them, even if you would be happier with someone else. Maybe I should just be grateful for what I have, which is someone who loves me very much and will always be faithful to me and take care of me?
But the arguments from arctic roll are pretty convincing. He wouldn't want me to stay if he knew I would be happier leaving. That's part of what makes me so, so sad - he loves me so much that if he knew how I was feeling, he would want me to go :crying:
But the idea that she'd have stayed with me, miserable and unhappy, because she didn't want to hurt me is even worse.
Since you do know what it's like to be on that side of things, can you offer me any practical guidance about how to go about the mechanics of ending it - what is the best, kindest way to do it, anything I should be careful not to do, etc. Feel free not to answer if I'm being intrusive.
I just don't have any clue how to actually go about doing it - whenever I try to imagine leaving him it just seems impossible to actually go through with it. Any advice from anyone about how to actually make myself do it, and do it in the kindest, most sensitive way, would be greatly appreciated.
Unfortunately there's no painless solution - and sometimes it can feel confusing knowing you're the one that's ending it, but you're not feeling happy or relieved in the moment - you're feeling scared about about the hurt and loss that's inevitable for both of you. The feeling better tends to come much further down the line when you've realised you've taken control of your life.
The Lovers guide has a section on 'When it's over' including an article on 'Saying it's over' that you might find helpful to read. I'd also be interested to hear what others think of this - does it ring true, or would you suggest other ways to approach it?
It's really positive that you're proactively considering the process Cora - sometimes people just start to behave badly, hoping to drive their partner away, which is not only deeply upsetting, but can also redefine the relationship into something it isn't (or wasn't). As long as you show him the respect and honesty he deserves, then you'll be doing the best you can do by him.
If you think it can work with effort then explain what it is you need and listen to what he needs from you. If you don't think it can work then you need to say so. "Let's see how it goes" just gives false hope.
Trying to be kind often just makes things worse. If you can be decisive and also answer the inevitable "why?" question then you're doing the best you can by him. It will hurt, it's foolish to say it won't, but you can take comfort knowing you're doing the right thing.
Also: whatever you do, don't go jump straight into bed with the other bloke. Even if you haven't, it will just look like you've been cheating and that always gets messy...