Is there such thing as a happy marriage?

jetplane

This type of marriage may be the norm for some people and they are quite happy with their roles. Me and my husband have different hobbies, we spend time apart, infact we are pretty much opposites but we make time to be together and have the same common values and goals.

I think the questions to ask are;

Was it always this way? You say that for the last 7 years you have felt you have been going in circles and needed to talk. What was different 7 years ago before you needed to talk?

Maybe it wasn't different and this is why your OH can't see the problem. Maybe that's when you became unhappy, and actually you always had to cajole your OH, deal with his telephone calls etc.

Are you more ambitious than him and does he see your plans as criticism? Have you actually always been the driving force and has the resentment built up?

Was your OH really ever a shoulder to cry on, a friend, a better lover etc or did you imagine that he would be and project these qualities on to him?

Sometimes in the early years of a relationship we ignore things we don't want to see and hope they will change but as previous posters have said you can't change others, you can only change how you react to others.

The very traits that attract us to friends and lovers in the beginning can be the same traits that we start to dislike long term. eg; someone who is laid back might be cool when you first meet them but several years later, its not cool its apathy and it drives you nuts :rotfl:

However I do understand your frustration with his unwillingness to move forward because all relationships change, they can't stand still. And I'm certainly not implying that it is your fault, marriages are hard work, why don't you take up the suggestion of a date night?

These don't have to be going out, its about agreeing a time and a place where you will make the effort for each other. No distractions and no excuses, if you had a date with someone else you wouldn't cancel it to watch TV or surf the net so it's just affording each other the same respect.

Wrap up and go for a walk, turn off the TV and play a board game, watch a DVD, have a nice meal. It doesn't really matter, it doesn't have to be evening, but whatever you do avoid all talk of relationship, house, money etc otherwise your OH may think that this is just a set up for 'a talking to'.

If your OH is unwilling then only you can decide whether this is normal and you are content to live this way because it's your own responsibilty to make yourself happy and then see what follows.

I would like my husband to be everything, make me laugh, stimulating conversation, attentive lover, cook, clean, great dad, be supportive, read my mind, oh lord the list is endless. But he can't and some of my wants I sometimes have to get elswhere from other friends or family - not the sex, oh no :eek:.

FBaby

I personally think things don't look too good...for two main reasons...you're not attracted to your partner any longer, and from experience, once you reach that stage, it is much harder to get back there, and second because of his saying that his happy and so should you... this is a very selfish uncaring response. Surely if he trully cared for you, your unhappiness would make him unhappy too, or if not unhappy, at least trully concerned.

It sounds like you got yourself in a very downwards vicious circle, probably because of your opposite style of communicating, ie. your need to express your feelings and expect him to do the same is at opposite end to his feeling overwhelmed and pressured by it.

My partner and I are in that same opposite communicating poles. It makes it hard. I so wish he could express his emotions better, but he does know how to/want to. When we start a 'serious' communication, it is usually with me telling him how I feel about something and because I get no response, asking him how he feels which inevitably results in him telling him that he doesn't know, has nothing to say, and finally that he feels under pressure before he runs away.... Like your husband, it does prompt mine partner to make efforts afterwards, but the difference is that these efforts last longer, and even if tension can errupt again, overall, I can say that in only 3 years, things have changed a lot.

Someone said that people don't change. I disagree very much. I think people do change, but indeed, they must feel in control of these changes. They must want to change, if only purely because they know it makes the person they love happier. Relationships demand constant efforts. To do so, you have to know what efforts you need to make, and you need to feel that it makes a difference, that these efforts are not taken for granted.

OP, I don't believe your husband is trully happy, how can he be when there is clear tension in your relationship? I think he is in denial, maybe because he doesn't really know what to do to make things better. He might feel that whatever he does, it makes no difference because you are still not happy or satisfied. He probably feels unvalued and his way to cope with it is to turn into himself and convince that things are fine.

I don't know what the answer to this is. I know that many couples separate when they reach that stage. I am sure it is not hopeless though. The one advice I would give is when you do have a 'talk', do so when you are not angry or at the tip of frustration. Many of my OH and I 'conversations' go wrong from the start because he says he can't deal with my tone of voice. I am surprise when he says that make I make a genuine effort to talk calmly, but even with these efforts, when the conversation is a result of built-up frustrations, what I have to say does come out accusatory. I now know that this is just not the time to talk. I therefore try to get rid of the pressure by other means, and make sure I talk to him when I am in a more loving mood.

I would agree that where things are, you trying to communicate with him isn't going to be the way. Instead, I would just focus on what you would do IF things between you were right. Do try to make time together, even if you're the one making that effort, try to regain some of the intimacy you once share, and it is during these moments you can try to talk things through.

jetplane

FBaby wrote: »

I
Someone said that people don't change. I disagree very much. I think people do change, but indeed, they must feel in control of these changes. They must want to change, if only purely because they know it makes the person they love happier.

No one has said that people don't change, of course they do? Sorry I disagree very much that anyone should change purely to make someone they love happier, how will that work? Who decides what needs to change? Who decides who needs to change? And what if the change that makes one person you love happier upsets someone else you love? That's not change it's manipulation and modifying behaviour which leads to resentment. The 'feeling in control' is only so that they can be told it's their own choice.

Lifeisbutadream

OP I know EXACTLY how you feel.

I am in the middle of a separation from my husband, that we are trying to keep amicable, but it is now starting to get a bit messy.

I stopped finding him physically attractive a few years ago - he is actually a good looking bloke, but I just didnt fancy him any more.

We have probably been hanging by a thread for about 5 years.

I am having all kinds of emotional ups and downs at the moment, but I am hopeful for the future now.

I understand it from the other side as well - I know that a lot of married men have affairs when their marriages are like this, women do too, but I dont think it is as common.

You need to think about whether you want to try and save what you have or move on. What made me decide was when I met someone who I was very attracted to and realised that I would never feel like that with my husband again and as I only have one life and I am not getting any younger, I decided to get out.

margaretclare

The title of the thread is 'Is there such a thing as a happy marriage?'

Yes, there is. I'm in one.

DH had 2 disastrous marriages before we got together (via the internet, a 'pen-pals' type site) and I was widowed after 35 years of - on the whole - happy marriage.

He still has the power to make my senses tingle - he did all that time ago in 1997 when we were both 62. It's still there!

He was a man who asked for very little - friendship, kindness, which he hadn't had in previous marriages, certainly not in the second (she was violent, extravagant, a whole lot). It's easy to be kind to him. He appreciates it so much, just the warmth, simple things like holding hands. We talk. We have conversations. I couldn't be in a marriage with a man with whom it was impossible to converse.

We're going out soon, going to church, so that's all I have time for just now. Haven't read the whole of this thread - may come back to it later.

jayII

I'd say my marriage is very happy, but we've had our ups and downs, that's only natural.

I've always thought of my marriage as a sea... sometimes calm and relaxing, sometimes wild with lots of waves. When it's wild you can be riding on top of a wave and on a 'high' and everything is wonderful. Or you seem to be stuck on a low, in the trough at the bottom of the wave, for what can seem like forever. Those low times are very, very hard, but in my experience was worth persevering and climbing back up, because the good and calm times are very good, plus my OH and I like (and love) each other very much.

I guess that for me, it would depend how good it was, when things were good. I wouldn't see the point of struggling through the hard times if my marriage had only ever been okay. I don't think any marriage is perfect 100% of the time, they are all hard work at times.

If you decide it's worth saving, then I'd begin by taking an interest in him and rediscovering what makes him tick. Or just by doing small, no pressure fun things together... take the children for a walk in the country or to a free museum, cook a meal together, have an indoor picnic or a 'DVD and popcorn night'. If someone can look after the kids then (even better) go for a couples walk or have a film evening. The list is endless but doing fun stuff really helps us to reconnect with each other. Once you reconnect, there's a good chance you will find him attractive again, after all you must have fancied him once upon a time.

If you feel you really have to talk things through, then plan (and agree) it in advance, say a 30 minute heart to heart every Saturday evening, once the kids are in bed. Many men seem to find talking easier when it's time-limited and they have advance warning.

For what it's worth, my OH and I are very very glad we worked through the troughs in our marriage, not least for our children's sake.

VfM4meplse

OP, your post makes me sad. I know that hindsight makes us wise, but strongly believe that before couples marry they must give serious consideration to their lives together, both shared aims and goals, and a day-to-day picture of what life will be like.

Your husband is not going to change into the person you want him to be. You need to think about what will make you happy, in doing so I'm sure the children's best interests will be at the top of the list. Realise that the journey towards this is gong to be tough, whatever you decide.

Seanymph

I find this entire 'I no longer fancy him thing' really sad.

Of course you don't! Think about what that 'fancy' is - well, you find bill board David Beckham types fanciable (or Daniel Day Lewis or whatever floats you boat) - but reality? Well, there aren't many of those 'phwoar' type people wandering about. And the chances of them looking at me (or you probably) and forgetting their everything and sweeping us off our feet. I'd say if you are holding out for someone who does that and you do it for forever you have unrealistic expectations.

You 'used' to feel like that about your partner? Why? Well, in one word it's expectation.

Expectation makes us feel sexy. Attracts us to people. Keeps the buzz. And makes us fancy them.

My OH (love him) is older than me, slightly rounder than me, and in the real world has probably never been letched at by women in the street But he can look at me and I fall over. Why? Because I know what he can do, how I can react, and how it works for us. THAT makes me fancy him. I have genuine expectation.

If you are no longer having sex with someone it isn't because you 'don't fancy' them. 'Fancying' someone isn't a magic cureall. No matter who you 'fancied' after 10 years and most of them with no sex you wouldn't 'fancy' them anymore (even if they did look like David Beckham).

But if you are having regular, fulfilling, fun, spontaneous and equitable sex which rings your bells with someone then looking at them across the crowded room will still be doing it after 20 years.

Not 'fancying' someone is not an excuse to bin something. Of course you don't fancy them if you've had sex with them, stopped having sex with them, and currently aren't having decent sex with them.

Start having sex with them and see how differently you feel in a few months.

And this isn't aimed at the OP particularly, just at everyone who talks about 'no longer fancying their OH'.

There isn't some magic rub that makes us fancy each other - you fall out of fancy with anyone eventually, unless you still have expectation.

When Julia Roberts sat next to that meal in nothing but a tie she put herself out there, she risked him saying 'for goodness sake put some clothes on woman'....... but she did it anyway. And may not have expected 'nice tie'

Sexual confidence is attractive - having sex makes people attractive to us - even when they are older, rounder, and no longer attractive to anyone else really.

These things aren't automatic. They take risk, making yourself vulnerable, and making sure that what goes on between you and your chosen partner ensure that he looks at you over the heads of the kids and you both know there's a promise there.

Absinthe_2

Your marriage doesn't sound the worst. No major problems, except the usual, and even then not bad. It sounds more like apathy (for you) which I can understand. You've been together a long time.

Try and make time for yourselves to be alone, and do something fun. Just the two of you. It will put the fun back.

VfM4meplse

Seanymph wrote: »

When Julia Roberts sat next to that meal in nothing but a tie she put herself out there, she risked him saying 'for goodness sake put some clothes on woman'....... but she did it anyway.

He wasn't going to do that - apart from the fact that she is gorgeous, her services were paid for. Refusal would have not been at all MSE .