A
female
age
41-50,
*imberlynn
writes:It's been 10 years since I met my husband, and I've been faithful to him all this time. We've had a difficult relationship. We used to fight constantly. We've both caused each other a lot of suffering and heartbreak. We've lived through poverty and homelessness together. Somehow, there was always enough love to pull us through. We got married because we were hopelessly in love.We've been married for 6 years now, and we have a 5 year old son.Now we are living comfortably. Both of us are working, (though I make more money than he does- for a long time, I've been the primary provider for my family) and my husband is considering college to provide us with a better life. The war is over, so to speak. But something else has changed. Somewhere in there, I seem to have stopped loving my husband entirely. I don't know where these feelings (or lack thereof, rather) are coming from. I no longer have sex unless he initiates it. I've stopped saying "I love you" unless he says it first. I relish my time spent away from him. I fantasize constantly about divorce and I've even stashed away some money without him knowing about it, in preparation for my future without him. (It's the only way I can save. Any money he touches seems to disappear.)I don't know why I'm doing this to my family!!! I don't want to hurt my husband, all he's ever done is love me. I can't bear the thought of causing my son pain. My husband knows something is wrong and he keeps pressing me for answers but I just can't tell him that I've stopped loving and desiring him- it would devastate him. We've tried everything there is to try to spice up our sex life; now the only thing that gets me through it is to close my eyes and pretend I'm somewhere else. I've tried to remember all the reasons I fell in love with him in the first place, but nothing stirs up that love inside me anymore. For our anniversary, he wrote me a love letter... I couldn't even appreciate it. All I could feel while I was reading it was dread, dread for the sex I knew he expected me to give him after I read it. I used to love him SO MUCH. We've been through so much together. He's still in love with me. Where have my feelings gone? Why can't I rekindle them? This isn't even a question, really... I know we'll end in divorce sooner or later... I guess I'm just looking for advice from people who understand these feelings and have learned how to cope with them.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (27 June 2011): I do not whether you really know yourself well. tell me if you hear the news tomorrow morning that he died in accident, how would you feel? and same question goes to him as well?
just think about it.
what it means is that you both have same feelings even today, and you both are still are bonded in love, attachment and togetherness and trust. it is just that you both are taking each other granted.
do not break you head, you will not get any thing in divorce.
A
female
reader, chocoholicforever +, writes (23 June 2011):
hello I want to clarify that my daughter (who's visiting me for the summer and has taken an active interest in this forum and the threads I have participated in) is the female anon poster who wrote the below several posts to the OP. I apparently was still logged on that's why the last post has my name, but I just want to clarify that it was a different person from me, as I wrote my own post earlier in this thread
(this is not the first time this has happened, sorry if this causes confusion...I may suggest to her that she create her own account)
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A
female
reader, chocoholicforever +, writes (23 June 2011):
"Forever is a long time! If it takes forever (or even close to forever) to begin to feel differently then I believe that the proper thing to do is end the relationship. Don't keep the other person hanging on in hope that next year might be the year."
hi I'm the same female anon poster again.
I totally agree with this. You're right that some times relationships are damaged beyond repair, and you don't want to waste a lifetime only to find this out at the very end!
however, the woman who's trying to see if her feelings ever come back - she can't predict when they will come back, if ever. So maybe they should decide on a time frame that he is willing to wait so that if he can't handle it then he can move on and release her from her obligation to "make" her feelings re-appear. remember at this point, she has no feelings for him but he is the one who wants her to stay. So, she's doing this for him. And he should thus work on her time frame.
but if her feelings still don't appear after a long time and he's getting upset about that, then he can certainly end the relationship so he can move on, and if she by definition still doesn't have feelings for him then this would be a mutual benefit to end the relationship at that point. (unless other issues like fear of abandonment comes into play, since many people want to hang onto relationships for that reason even if they don't have feelings)
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (22 June 2011):
"Selfish people are not likely to give you all the time in the world you need, because that would require focusing on your needs for once instead of theirs. their mindset is "well I did my part to stop abusing you and it's been X number of months/years already, so why aren't you feeling the way I want you to feel dammit??" ... beware that this is not true love, their focus is still on what they want from you."
Thre is some truth to this. On the other hand, if a person starts behaving much better and continues this for a long period of time with no results then he will get discouraged. It's not fair to say "take as long as you need even if it is forever." Forever is a long time! If it takes forever (or even close to forever) to begin to feel differently then I believe that the proper thing to do is end the relationship. Don't keep the other person hanging on in hope that next year might be the year. I speak from experience when I say that the years can add up quickly. That doesn't mean I am selfish or that my love is a fraud. It just means that sometimes relationships are damaged beyond repair. Both sides need to have reasonable expectations and both sides need to give a little to get a little. If one partner wrongs another and the wronged partner needs two decades to heal despite an honest change in behavior from the offending partner... well, I'd call that a loss and move on long before then.
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A
female
reader, kimberlynn +, writes (22 June 2011):
kimberlynn is verified as being by the original poster of the question"hi I'm the same female poster here again. I'm glad you've decided to be truthful to him. i want to add a few words of caution..."Thank you so much!! I can tell you know exactly what you're talking about. I will definitely take your advice!
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (22 June 2011): "One of the female posters wrote that if he loved me he wouldn't expect me to just "get over it" and he'd allow me to take all the time I needed, even if it was forever. I really needed to hear that."
hi I'm the same female poster here again. I'm glad you've decided to be truthful to him. i want to add a few words of caution:
be prepared that when you go through this process of finally being truthful and open, you may find out that your husband doesn't actually love you and won't actually allow you all the time you need, as someone who truly loved you would.
his past track record of hurting you so much and for so long, then expecting that recent love letters and flowers should 'naturally' bring forth a wellspring of goodwill and romance from you, indicates he could be a selfish person at heart.
Selfish people are not likely to give you all the time in the world you need, because that would require focusing on your needs for once instead of theirs. their mindset is "well I did my part to stop abusing you and it's been X number of months/years already, so why aren't you feeling the way I want you to feel dammit??" ... beware that this is not true love, their focus is still on what they want from you.
If your husband is this type of person , then be prepared that once you're honest with him he may go through motions saying he's sorry and that he'll give you all the time in the world you need to see if your feelings ever come back, but in reality if your feelings aren't rekindling fast enough for his liking he may well look for it elsewhere like cheating while supposedly saying he's giving you time. I hope that your husband would not stoop that low (hard to say, not knowing what hurts he's caused you in the past). I hope that if your feelings aren't rekindling fast enough for his liking that he would at least be honest with you and talk about divorce. that's why you must be truthful and honest to him now, and tell him that, among other things.
(I'm just wary about men who hurt their partners for a long time, then when they sense their partners withdrawing now they start being nice and expect their partners to welcome them back with open arms -- to me this indicates a selfish personality and people who are selfish can continue to do incredibly and amazingly hurtful things to their partners)
but don't let this possibility stop you from being honest with him about your true feelings. If you're honest with him and this is what happens, this is what needs to happen. You need to know who you're really dealing with, that's why you need to be honest with him and get everything out in the open. you're already halfway prepared to divorce anyway, so you've got nothing to lose.
if you're afraid of being honest because he may get abusive or something like that, do it in a public place. or write him a letter and be somewhere else when he gets it. good luck!!
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A
female
reader, kimberlynn +, writes (21 June 2011):
kimberlynn is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks everyone for your very helpful adviceYou've all made it clear that an honest and open talk with my husband has to happen immediately and I completely agree... now I just have to figure out how to say it all to him; I'll probably write it down.We've had a number of "talks" before... it doesn't usually get us anywhere. The last time we talked, I told him that I didn't feel the same about him anymore. He wanted to know what he did wrong. I told him that it wasn't anything he did, it was just the way I felt. I even went so far as to say, "I just don't think I love you the way a wife is supposed to love her husband." He sort of skirted the issue. I don't know how to explain it really, but he has this "way" of talking me out of leaving him at the very last moment. He's gotten really good at that.If I write everything down and give it to him, at least it won't come as such a surprise to him when I file for divorce. One of the female posters wrote that if he loved me he wouldn't expect me to just "get over it" and he'd allow me to take all the time I needed, even if it was forever. I really needed to hear that. Many of you could tell that there was much more to the story that I haven't put down-- yes, there is MUCH, much more... I could fill a textbook. I said we've caused "each other" a lot of suffering. Actually, it seems like I'M the one who's been doing all the suffering- any hurt I've caused him was just the name-calling I'd do every time he broke my heart. I'm still going back and forth in my head with this whole divorce thing. I think every relationship goes through this. Most of me is convinced that it's the right thing to do... but there's that part of me still in denial. (It's THAT part of me that still has sex with my husband.) A friend from work told me about her divorce- she said she was actually STILL in denial even as she filed, but once she was out, she felt this wave of relief and she's never been happier.
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A
female
reader, chocoholicforever +, writes (21 June 2011):
I think you need to admit to yourself and give yourself permission to acknowledge your lack of feelings for him, or your negative feelings.
don't be ashamed of your feelings (or lack thereof) just because he has been doing 'really sweet' things like buying you flowers and pouring his heart out in letters. if you're already in a long-held bad emotional state because of how bad the relationship used to be, these recent sweet gestures won't carry much weight when stacked up against the walls of pain and ambivalence that's been the norm for many years, and in fact can be irritating to you or just confuse you more.
your head tells you that he's being really sweet therefore you "should" be "good" to him but your heart has already hardened a long time ago in self-defense. don't prolong your inner conflict by shaming yourself for your feelings (or lack thereof) towards him. You need to be honest with yourself first, and then be honest with him. you may fear how he'll react if you're honest with him, and he may well react exactly as you fear. But you may also likely feel a huge sense of relief and liberation and thereby feel a bit better just by the act of telling the truth because that will reduce or eliminate your inner dissonance. Living with inner cognitive dissonance is highly stressful and tormenting just by itself. Even if things in your marriage get worse after you tell the truth, you will probably feel some immediate relief over the fact that you're not hiding and being a fake any more. you will have opened a new chapter in your life and marriage which is, the truth is out, now what?
and if you're at all interested in trying to rekindle your feelings for him, then you must start by acknowledging the truth to yourself and with him. If your feelings are ever to be rekindled, it won't happen overnight, it will probably take a long time. In the meantime, continuing being fake will undermine any efforts to rekindle true genuine feelings. And also in the meantime he'll just get more and more confused and then frustrated and upset and this will also undermine attempts to rekindle feelings.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (21 June 2011): "My husband knows something is wrong and he keeps pressing me for answers but I just can't tell him that I've stopped loving and desiring him- it would devastate him."You both need a counselor. Love just doesn't "die" for no reason. There is more to this story than what you put down here.If you don't get help, the marriage will end. If you do, then it might end anyway. However, give it your best shot.However, if you do get help, go in and be honest, and totally honest, open about your life, and talk about things that you "can'" talk about."he keeps pressing me for answers"I went through this with my wife, she always told me "nothing" was wrong. In the end, I nearly left, she had an affair, and still nothing was wrong.Finally, she confessed the affair, then told me about the rapes, the molestation, the incest, the....quite a list...she thought I'd leave her if I ever found out about any of it.I do this professionally as well. Today, a person in their 90's told me about their father beating and abusing them, last week a 40 year old told me about the molestation of their husband when he was a child, etc, etc, etc.People hide this stuff for many years.What are you hiding?Marriages only work with Honesty, Openness, and Willingness.That's HOW they work.Give it your all.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (21 June 2011): writing you letters and buying you flowers don't erase deep past hurts and if he in any way expects or hopes it will, he's mistaken and lazy .....I don't know what past hurts your husband used to cause you but some common examples - lets' say in the past he lied to you and broke your trust about money, or cheated on you, or with held important information from you, or was verbally nasty to you like calling you names or always criticizing you. And if this is not just once or twice but a repeated pattern. this sort of thing is what kills love. Now, years later, even if he doesn't do those things any more or has cut back on them, you no longer have feelings for him because of his past treatment of you. But now he wants your attention. So he writes you love letters and buys you flowers. This does not mean he is a "nice" person who deserves to have his feelings spared. A "nice" person would not have hurt you so much in the past. If he's sorry for what he did in the past, and I mean truly sorry not just sorry "enough" to get what he wants from you, he would own up to it, admit it, apologize for it, accept your intense negative reactions to what he did without blaming you, not expect you to "get over it" just like that but to give you as much time as you need to continue being mad at him, and not do those hurtful things ever again. He would not be just writing you letters and buying you flowers, that's superficial stuff. It's easy to write letters and buy flowers. I'm just saying - don't make your husband out to be this "nice guy" when clearly he's not otherwise you wouldn't be feeling so put off by him. of course you're not moved by his letters, inside you're thinking "yeah right, whatever.." Don't make yourself feel guilty about hurting his feelings with the TRUTH.and if he knows that obviously you're responding to his solicitations for love, and he's wanting answers, then give him the answers. He needs to hear the truth which is that he killed your love for him a long time ago and love once killed can't be bought back so easily by letters and flowers. You don't owe him your feelings or your trust. But you do owe him the truth because that has to do with your personal integrity.
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A
male
reader, freeme +, writes (20 June 2011):
 On the sex issue...
If you are dreading sex with your husband, and you secretly don't want it, then when you are having it, your going to start associating the feelings of sex with bad feelings. Psych 101. It's going to make the road to enjoying your husband that much longer, if not a road with no end. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
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A
female
reader, kimberlynn +, writes (20 June 2011):
kimberlynn is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThe male writer was responding to some of the previous posters who suggested that I stay in a sexless marriage. I agree with him- refusing sex is not going to solve all my problems. I need to stop "leading my husband on," it's not fair to either of us.
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A
female
reader, kimberlynn +, writes (20 June 2011):
kimberlynn is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI'd better clear something up, when it comes to the sex issue...
My husband has never forced me into or demanded sex from me. What I really meant to say was that I that I knew he was hoping for it.
He's noticed that I've been witholding sex from him and he can sense that I've been unhappy with him so he's been doing a number of really sweet things (writing me letters, buying me flowers...) not as a means to guilt me into having sex with him but in a desperate effort to rekindle my love for him.
I've been having such a difficult time accepting my own feelings that I've been forcing *myself* into sex with him I guess in the hopes that some little spark may light a fire.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (20 June 2011): "Deciding to stop having sex while also remaining in the marriage is a mistake. "
With all due respect, male anon, I don't think you understand how much horror and terror and humiliation a woman feels when she is forced into sex with someone she doesn't like. Yes this person could be her own husband. And it's basically rape. And yes there is controversy surrounding marital rape, as many people believe that once married there can be no such thing as rape if the man doing it is the woman's husband. Legally it may be so, but psychologically the woman experiences the same thing as when it is done by someone who's not her husband (in which case legally it would be a criminal offense).
And even if the woman chooses to allow it, it's still rape if she chooses it from a negative standpoint, from feeling that there's no other option (e.g. if a woman and her family was kidnapped and she was given the choice to allow the captor to have sex with her or he would shoot her family, she would probably choose to allow him to have sex with her. Does this mean it's not rape because she was given the choice and chose to go ahead with it??)
Therefore, "deciding to stop having sex" belittles and invalidates the OP's feelings and undermines the seriousness of the issue. read her post again - she says she can't stand having sex with her husband so much that she has to close her eyes and dissociate herself from the whole experience. This woman is basically experiencing rape, experiencing horror at her body being violated because a man that she can't stand, is doing things to her body and she feels she has no say in it. (and societal attitudes telling her that she owes her husband sex because they are married, only serves to reinforce her sense of having no options)
that's why the advice given to her is to realize she DOES have a say in this. And she needs to decide to stop allowing it. Why? because experiencing one's body being violated is psychologically traumatic. Experiencing it over and over and over again, as when trapped by a marriage, is even more so. The more it continues, the worse she will get. The worse will be her symptoms (of not liking her husband any more).
And if having sex with her husband is traumatic to her, it's damaging to the marriage relationship with her husband, for sure. No way will she be able to work on her emotional relationship with her husband, and have any chance of ever falling in love with him again, if she is still being violated by him.
on the other hand, what does this say about her husband? A husband who puts his own sexual gratification needs above his wife's need for security and safety and dignity, is despicable. A husband who is oblivious to his wife's cringing in horror and shuddering in disgust at his touch, or knows it but presses on ahead anyway, is selfish to the extreme. The woman doesn't have a choice in her feelings, if she could make her distress go away she would but she can't. Her feelings of horror and disgust and humiliation occur in response to what's going on around her and happening to her. Yet the husband has the choice to press on with having sex with her or not and he chooses to anyway. He chooses to ignore or deny or invalidate her distress and violate her anyway to satisfy himself. This is abhorrent. As far as I'm concerned, this invalidates the marriage contract. That's why the advice given to the OP is to take a stand and protect herself from more trauma, by deciding to stop allowing her husband to have sex with her. The last thing the OP (and women in her situation, of which there are many) need is for society to condone what is happening to her, sanctioning the repeated violation of her body and in fact demanding that she accept it. All because the person who is violating her happens to be the person who is legally her spouse.
when a woman is forced into sex with someone she doesn't want to have sex with, this violates one of her most basic survival needs - the need all humans have for physical and psychological safety. This is why being raped is so traumatic to a woman. The husband's need for sexual gratification should take a back seat in the marriage if they are at odds with the wife's survival-safety instincts. Of course this will make for a very unhappy marriage if nothing changes. The husband will suffer a certain amount of sexual deprivation (not entirely because he can still masturbate). But if it comes down to either the husband suffers some sexual deprivation or the wife suffers psychological trauma because that's what it takes to satisfy her husband's sexual needs, I think it's hands down more cruel to impose trauma on the wife than to impose deprivation on the husband.
And if the marriage relationship is to improve in any way so as to get out of this hell hole, it must begin with the husband stopping his violation of his wife. The husband's sense of sexual deprivation is nothing compared to the wife's emotional trauma at being violated. Women can't work on "relationship" issues and "falling in love again" if they are still in basic survival mode because the other person (the one they are supposed to be in love with) is the one who is brutalizing them.
So the advice to the OP to stop having sex with her husband is because this is the only way the relationship can begin to be saved, if there is any chance for reconciliation at all that is. It may already be too late. But if there is any chance at all, it must start with the woman being able to feel SAFE in her marriage and in her own home, to not be violated by the very person she is "supposed" to be trusting but who is showing time and again that he can't be trusted because he still violates her body.
Alternatively, the OP should get divorced if anything to stop this trauma being imposed on her.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (19 June 2011): There's two ways to see this. First is that your husband may want you, but wanting you is not the same thing as loving you. if he loved you, he would notice that when you have sex you're hating it and then he would feel bad about putting you through it and not ask for it. he's focused on you meeting his needs, it's self-centered, and that's not love. Along these lines is that it didn't sound like he wrote you a love letter because he really loves you. he wrote you a love letter because he believes this is what will buy him sex, or is supposed to at least, that it will obligate you to do it. this is despicable.
The second way to look at it is: maybe he does love you because he knows something is wrong and is pressing you for answers but you have not been telling him the truth. Maybe he knows you hate the sex. So maybe his love letter was to try and make you fall in love with him again. Maybe he wants you to love him and is caring what you think and feel, just that you're refusing to share with him your true feelings.
You must tell him the truth, don't keep him in the dark, it's not fair. Don't blame yourself. Don't say "why do I do this to my family." it's not all on you. Your husband hurt you many times, that's why you don't love him. You don't trust him, basically. But he needs to know this. He needs to know that he played a role in this. you don't have a psychological defect or anything. you're responding normally to a hurtful marriage and if he's pressing you for answers then you should tell him.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (19 June 2011):
I rather disagree with many of these responses. Deciding to stop having sex while also remaining in the marriage is a mistake. You have already made up your mind to leave for whatever reason. (You said: "I know we'll end in divorce sooner or later") Stop leading your husband on and tell him like you told us. If you care as much as you say you do, tell him:
"I am really thinking a divorce may be inevitable, but I don't want to hurt you or our family if I can help it. Will you go to counseling with me before we throw in the towel?"
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (18 June 2011): the fact that you hate having sex with your husband so much that you have to shut your mind off to do it, and yet he 'expects' you to give it to him just cos he wrote you a love letter, means that this relationship is completely one sided. maybe it means you haven't been honest with him how you feel, or maybe you have and he doesn't care. either way, looks like your husband hasn't stopped hurting you.
it's appalling to me that a supposedly loving husband would put his physical gratification needs above the fact that his wife is squirming in distress or disgust. maybe he feels that if you say you don't want to have sex then you're continuing on your pattern of hurting him. But hey, for him to go without, is less damaging than for him to get his way and you to suffer whatever mental torture you have to that you have to shut your mind down. the more two do this, the less you'll love him and soon you will hate him. so please stop giving in to his demands that you have sex with him, no matter what nice thing he has done for you. otherwise it creates this dynamic where whenever he does anything nice for you, or compliments you, now you owe him your mental torture.
it's for your own good. if you continue to give in, you may be satisfying his immediate need but destroying the relationship even more. (and he's responsible for that too if he puts his gratification above your mental health)
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A
female
reader, cupidus  +, writes (18 June 2011):
 You reinforce your love through your chaos and misery.
Now that you are living comfortably you are no longer satisfied. It's not so much your marriage as it is your character. What you need is conflict and there is nothing wrong with that. Those who thrive on chaos make excellent advocates and activists. Maybe what you need is a Just Cause.
Maybe you won't find it currently in your comfy home but there is a lot to fight for on the other side of that door.
Find a cause and fight for your right to need one.
If you say your husband hasn't changed and still is being the lovely guy he is, than you must look from within.
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A
female
reader, SillyB +, writes (18 June 2011):
 Its because you've been hurt. Its only natural to close yourself after someone has hurt you.He seems to be irresponsible with money, which adds to the frustration when you're contributing more of the household income. Its all too easy to fall out of love given the financial burden you carry and the past hurt you've dealt with. My recommendation is to either seek counseling with him or move on. You are young and have so much life left to live - there is no point being unhappy! Life is too short.
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A
female
reader, chocoholicforever +, writes (18 June 2011):
hi there - your post is filled with so much pain, which is actually unwritten. I would bet that there is A LOT more going on than what you've written, in your marriage.
Your feelings are there for a reason. The "emotional side" of the brain gathers information, patterns of behavior and incidents and occurrences over the years, processes and stores them away, all this goes on below your subconscious. But your feelings are an indicator of what your brain is trying to tell you about what's really going on in your heart and mind but which your logical and conscious mind is trying to suppress.
Our logical minds often try to force our "emotional minds" to feel a certain way. You rationalize that you "should" love your husband because: he's a good provider, he's nice to you, you have a comfortable life, etc. Your rational brain tries to decide that you "should" love him, even though actually there are huge reasons why in reality you don't but you're maybe afraid to acknowledge them because of guilt.
You wrote: "We've both caused each other a lot of suffering and heartbreak."
This is probably why you no longer love your husband. Not knowing what this "suffering and heartbreak" you refer to is, doesn't matter. the fact is that your husband has, over the years, led you to experience a lot of emotional hurt. In the beginning you say that "love got you through" - that's because in the beginning, the hurt hasn't gone on long enough to have taken its toll, you still have plenty in reserves. But as time goes on and more hurt occurs, eventually it accumulates.
Your brain then goes into self-preservation mode or survival mode, which is to protect yourself from more hurt. Because a basic human need is to feel 'safe' - an emotional safety is part of that. If you were often feeling 'unsafe' emotionally (due to all the hurt you've suffered in your marriage) then your survival instinct will eventually kick in to protect you from further damage. For some people, this survival instinct takes the form of the realization that they have to end the relationship and leave this person.
But other people, instead of leaving a hurtful and "emotionally unsafe" relationship, instead use the rational side of their brains to try and force themselves to cope by overriding these negative aspects and suppressing them. One outcome of suppressing your negative feelings is that you simply shut down, you stop being able to feel anything. You no longer feel rage or despair or fear, but you no longer feel love and happiness either. this could be why you no longer feel love toward your husband. Instead you're numb or 'flat.'
when women start dreading physical intimacy with their husbands, this is a HUGE red flag that there is something very very bad going on in the relationship. The woman feels "unsafe". And it's even worse when the husband is oblivious to this or, worse, doesn't care and wants to override it. You say that he wrote you a love letter and all you could think about was the dread of having to have sex with him because you know he will EXPECT it.
So not only are you feeling so completely shut down towards him, but he either is oblivious to it or he just plain doesn't care and expects you to behave otherwise. This means your relationship is very very unhealthy. Certainly it's very unhealthy for you to be living this way.
Coping with these feelings - I think you already have a lot of experience in coping because you've been doing it for so long. it sounds like what you're experiencing now is reaching your breaking point where you can no longer cope. This is when many people turn in desperation to unhealthy external mechanisms like alcohol, drugs, affairs, and so on. You do not want to go there. Instead, this is the 'emotional side' of your brain telling you that enough is enough, something has to change, not to just go on coping.
Your options are to leave your marriage, or to stay but differently not to continue as things are. For example, you could be completely and brutally honest with your husband and tell him exactly what you've said here - how you do not feel love for him anymore, how you dread having to be physically intimate, how you hate that he expects it. If this is all news to him, then, you have done something in the relationship that *may* lead to a positive change for real in the form of him maybe becoming more compassionate to you. Maybe you two can talk about whether you want to try marriage counseling, if both of you are willing. Or, maybe instead it is time to talk about divorce.
but either way, I think your feelings are telling you that you've reached your limit of coping, and you need to do something different now. Either finally leaving him, or else trying to instigate a REAL and positive change in the relationship to make it such that you can honestly and truly feel better about being in this marriage not just forcing or guilting yourself into trying to be OK with it.
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reader, freeme +, writes (18 June 2011):
Have you considered counseling?
The one thing I have a hard time getting from your comments, is whether or not you really WANT to love your husband regardless of whether or not you do. I understand losing the romance, but love is so much more than romance.
My advice to anyone in a situation like yours would be to do everything you can with counseling to try and rekindle things. You need to be open and honest with him. Tell him what you told us, and if you want to, tell him you want to do something to save it.
Stop having sex. If it is miserable, then its just going to make things worse. Wait until you want to again, then have sex.
Have you asked yourself what you loved about him? What changed?
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