Like many kids who grew up in the 80s, I had parents that divorced. I must have been about five years old when they split up, and ever since then I have been craving stability.
I was an only child, shuttled between each parent, and when I was eight, I went to live with my father and his new partner. It was a difficult time – in the end, I didn’t see my mum for four years because I moved with my dad to America. I went to a lot of different schools – we moved around as my dad was a teacher. I associated the divorce as the thing that had set all this change in motion. If they’d stayed together I would have had a normal life. I made friends, but it was hard and I was drawn to people who didn’t have parents that were divorced.
I blamed myself for their separation, and promised myself I wouldn’t make the same mistakes. As a teenager, I moved out and lived with a boyfriend who was 10 years older than me. For years, I was pretty wild and took lots of drugs.
I met my husband at a friend’s birthday party. I was 30 years old. He was five years older than me and worked in an advertising agency as a creative. He was very non-communicative – I didn’t realise this at the time, and just thought he was mysterious and enigmatic. We had a good sex life though, and there was definitely a connection. He moved into my flat quite quickly. I was working in PR and we both worked and played hard. It was the noughties and we went to a lot of pubs. I think those years were fuelled mainly by alcohol.
We slept off hangovers and I didn’t notice so much that he rarely spoke. I guess the cracks in our relationship started to show properly when we’d been together 10 years. I ignored any doubts I had and David proposed to me on holiday in Greece. We quickly got married but I remember my mum asking if I was really happy, but I didn’t want to hear it. I just felt like she was deflecting attention away from her own failed relationships (she has been married four times).
The fact that David rarely talked, and was so quiet, started to make me incredibly paranoid though. I thought he was angry with me. I love talking, am the complete opposite, and I realised I was holding myself in and not talking, just so he wouldn’t sulk which is what he did – often for days on end. He was often depressed, too. When I tried to talk to him properly, he would walk into another room, so I’d end up chasing him around the house like a lap dog.
I have felt embarrassed – how had I ended up with this completely non communicative person? I’ve had crushes on men at work – especially if they were chatty – just because I was missing that communication at home.
He rarely gives me compliments. In the beginning, he’d often say I was pretty but this all dried up. He has sometimes pointed out women that he thought were attractive on TV and it made me feel like he was unhappy with me.
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We started trying for a baby when I was 41. I always really wanted to have kids and didn’t consider whether we’d make good parents together – the clock was ticking.
I’d already noticed a few other things that I chose to ignore at this point – we didn’t have sex very often, sometimes only once every three months. But I put it down to us both being in stressful jobs and feeling tired all the time. A couple of times I suspected that maybe he was seeing someone else, as he wasn’t interested in sex and was always complaining that he was tired. We had to have fertility treatment in the end – obviously, I was older, but I now think it was partly because we weren’t sleeping together enough.
Once we started the fertility treatment we became more connected again. It was as if we had this shared objective. I think we believed that it would bring us together. Or I did anyway. I should have realised the whole thing was doomed.
Now we are lucky enough to have two beautiful sons. They’re 11 and seven, and bring both of us great happiness. However, David and I don’t have any romantic connection. I can’t remember the last time we had sex, but it was possibly more than six years ago. I channel as much energy into them as I can, but I feel lonely.
Along with a lot of good times, children have caused resentment between us, as the domestic load dramatically changed.
When I brought each baby home I made them the centre of everything (like many mothers do). I found David incredibly irritating. He was trying to help, he always tries to help, but he didn’t do as much of the legwork as me. I was the one getting up in the night; the one heading out the door to baby groups. He just seemed to get more and more quiet and distant.
I suspect he is neurodiverse because when we go out, he won’t speak to anyone and is socially awkward. I am a massive people pleaser so this is a source of embarrassment for me. I wanted other people to like us but he never made any effort to talk to people. I became more and more tired and resentful.
Now the boys are older, things have got slightly better but I often think about splitting up. I know beyond a doubt that if we didn’t have children we wouldn’t be together. I fantasise about meeting someone else – a few months ago I met someone at a work event, and I was tempted to start a new relationship. He was much more outgoing than David – he really wore his heart on his sleeve.
However, after texting back and forth (we still message, now and then) I realised that the guy was a mess. He had several failed relationships behind him and was a heavy drinker. I think I was drawn to him because I felt lonely and unattractive.
David and I sleep in the same bed but we don’t touch. We have probably cuddled once in the last six months. I find myself churning over the same thoughts – how I want to escape, want to be with someone new, want to feel that passion but then I think about my own childhood and how traumatised I was by my parents splitting up. I want to provide stability for the boys until they’re older – at least until they leave for university or to get jobs.
Is my husband thinking the same? Would he ever leave? I don’t think so, but only because of money. He could not afford to rent somewhere the kids could stay too. We have talked about it when things have got more difficult and he acknowledges that we don’t have intimacy or connection, but thinks it’s better for the children if we are together.
He bottles up his feelings – recently we had an argument and he suddenly exploded. He, too, is a child of divorce – his parents split up when he was 18, and as they fought and argued a lot, he thinks our relationship is relatively good in comparison.
It’s true that David and I generally don’t argue – we are like two friends living together. Although, what haunts me is that in truth we’re not even friends – friends would at least chat regularly and we don’t. In fact the older I’ve got (I’m now in my fifties) I have searched for companionship elsewhere, and so will go out with girlfriends instead of David. This has been better for my mental health as it means I talk to other women – often they are unhappy in their marriages too and we bond over that.
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“What do you really get from this marriage?” a friend asked me recently. I found it hard to answer why we were still together aside from the fact that the children would be upset if we separated. What is in it for me? I sometimes watch other married couples and feel jealous of the fun they have together. I have one friend who really gets on with her husband and each time I see them, they’re holding hands.
I sometimes wake up at night and feel desperate, like time is running out. “You don’t want to get to 60 and then be looking for love,” this same friend told me. She’s right. I am aware that I’m getting older and it will be hard to find a new partner. I am not even sure I want one and sometimes think it would surely be better to be on my own now. Men my age carry so much baggage.
I have about another 12 or so years until my boys are independent and then perhaps we will separate. For now we are staying together for the boys. My worry is that they are seeing a relationship that is lukewarm. That they don’t realise what is possible – that they will compromise when it comes to their own marriages. I don’t want them to think like that. At the same time I know that they’ll struggle if we split up. It feels impossible to make the decision right now. So for now I am putting it off for another time.
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