I am in a marriage in which I am not attracted to my husband. Although I have stuck it out for 7 years, I have hit my breaking point. I have talked to a counselor, friends, and family, and they agree it is best to leave. Although my husband is aware that I am not attracted to him, he is unaware that I am looking at leaving. I want to be prepared for the big day, as we have two children, and I want this to be as smooth as possible for them. My biggest concern right now--we cannot afford to keep our truck and camper, so how do I go about getting rid of those payments? Also, we have no equity in our house, so how do I go about selling it?

Hmm. Your asking the wrong questions. If YOU are leaving him and he has done nothing wrong. He has worked with you on all this and you simply leave him, you will probably lose everything. If he is not a danger to your kids and can prvide for them he may even get them. But he will not pay you alimony. You will probably not be able to sell the house because he will have it. And you are just a cruel human being for trying to do so. So the man's ugly? That don't mean leave him and get rid of everything he owns. Just because you aren't attracted to him, you want to get rid of his behicle, his house and take his kids away? What about him? Your talking about making this as smooth as possible for your kids! What about when they see daddy drunk in some fleabag motel because mommy thinks he's fat or whatever. I agree with you leaving him because if you are not attracted to him it simply won't work. But leave the man some kind of dignity.

"hi, my name is bob. i'm an alcoholic. my wife wouldn't sleep with me for five years, then she left me. she took my kids. my house. my truck. now all i go left is scruffy **hugs a stuffed dog to his chest** watch scruffy roll over."

I'm really trying to not be mean, but honestly! If you are leaving him, don't expect to take anything with you unless he gives it, and if he does, he deserves a lot worse than what I am saying to you.

If you are leaving, the best and ONLY way to make this go smoothly is to tell your husband then children.

Honestly, dealing with your truck and camper should be the least of your concerns. :(

Have you considered therapy first... for yourself not really for him? 7 years and babies make this situation a lot more "heartbreaking" than other cases, especially cause he has done nothing to deserve this. At least nothing that you have said! Good luck!

Just help me understand, what HE has done to bring you to this point?

Wow, you "stuck it out for 7 years" and have two kids I assume under 6. Do you know what causes children? If you did not love him, why in the world did you have TWO children with him? There is something deeper going on here than you are letting on. What is the real problem? How old are you? I sort of get the impression you are 27-28 and are feeling that you got cheated?

I have the feeling you were not that involved in the marriage to begin with - your words "stuck it out for 7 years." Why marry the guy in the first place?
You are worried about what you get out of this? You should get what is your rightful half, nothing more.

You say you have talked to a counselor - did you AND your husband go together as a couple? Most judges will require marital counseling in the process of separation. Some judges will not issue a divorce until at least a year of legal separation, during which no property may be disposed of.

You need to be honest with your husband. Which is something you are not right now. Talk to a divorce attorney. It is not as simple as YOU disposing of the property and vehicles. Are those items in both your names?

I did marry my husband and have children with him because he was a good man and I thought that I could get over the fact that I was not attracted to him. However, it is VERY difficult to be intimate with someone when those feelings of intimacy are not there. My intent is not to take everything away from him (even if it sounded that way). In fact, it is just the opposite: Neither one of us can make the house payments without the other, so I want to be sure we can sell the house and not get stuck with two payments. I want to make sure that he is able to afford to keep the truck and camper. I am leaving everything to him (ie. furniture, etc.) and starting over. Finally, I will not take his kids away--he is their father. I have talked with a counselor. Her advise was to tell him the truth ASAP. However, I felt it was awful to bring this up before the holidays. Not sure if that is the right thing to do, but is there ever going to be a good time?! I know I am going to be the bad guy here, but I just want everyone to know that I am tired of hurting my husband. He deserves someone who can give him what he needs in return--I am not that person!! I myself am pushing 40--I deserve to be happy (not content) as well! [/QUOTE]

Yes, be honest with him. NOW. Waiting till over the holidays seems like pity. He will resent that fact. Sit down and have the most honest discussion you have ever had with him. If you two can settle matters between you, that does work for the better, when it comes to attorneys. Maybe you two can put the house up for sale and the vehicles too, take care of the debt, and go forward.

He does deserve this much and more. You want to be happy. Do the right thing for both of you and for your children. When you two talk to your children about this, hope you have a united front and what is going to happen. Perhaps a marriage counselor can help in that area. He will get child support or he should get child support. He better ask for it - his attorney certainly will.

You have your mind made up so I feel bad for you and your husband. Are you really so shallow that you would leave over physical appearance? Or is it that you are faulting him for the financial situations that the both of you are in? Jeesh I think you are a real nasty and self centered person... "cant have it all so I'm going to bail out and get rid of all responsibility..." Your counselor doesn't give a crap about your life sweety so who gives a crap about their opinion... they evidently agreed with you because it seems as if you have already made up your mind... you pay them so they are naturally going to try to help you find piece with your decision.

If you were being a woman worth anything, you would reallize that you don't need the money... or the stress that you have with all of the bills... so what if you have to go bankrupt, but get out from under the debt some other way than by divorce... I'll bet your opinion of him would be a lot different without all the financial stuff in the picture.

Try to think about other people besides what is easiest for you. There are other ways around problems other than divorce and using the excuse that he deserves more than you want to give... that is just BS to help you make yourself feel better.

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If you have your mind made up, I think it would be really nice ifyou could wait till after the holidays! Please! Good luck!

I would love to hear the other side of this story. The only thing you left out in this whole thing is how devastated he will be and the kids adjusting to a broken home. Do you see those realities, or care. Not to jump to hard on you but I think you should just leave, and let them fend for themselves and do as they want, because you made a mistake once, so now without discussion, your making another decision based on your own feelings, for their own good. How noble and much crap, as without your husbands input, you have no right to decide how he lives and with what. Your doing him a favor? Let him decide that. Tell him ASAP what your planning, so he can decide what he wants, not what you have decided for him.

Kind of controlling too don't you think? Figure out how to let go of that, and you might be happier!

Try to make myself feel better--I feel extremely guilty about how I feel. I am not solely leaving him based on his physical appearance. There is more to physical appearance than just how you look, its how you take care of yourself as well (bet every woman would envy someone who does not brush their teeth, take showers, wash hands after going to the bathroom, pick nose). Sorry--if you find that attractive--than I am guilty of leaving over physical appearance. As far as leaving because of financial strains--I make more money than he does. I just wanted to make sure we both were financially secure and were able to keep as much of our peronsal assets--if that is selfish--than once again I am guilty. I have been honest in the fact that I have told him I am not attracted to him. My fault is that I am not being honest about leaving. I am not bailing out because of the things you mentioned--if that were the case, I would have left a long time ago. I stayed for the sake of him and the kids, as I know they would be devastated. I am not getting any younger and for once in my life--I am going to be selfish and think of myself!! Thanks for all your input though...

I still think you should wait till after the holidays, it is only two weeks away, if you waited 7 years, 2 weeks aren't going to seem that bad. I can see you are ready and your mind is made up sweet. Take care of the babies best you can!

I can understand that those things are not pleasant, but I doubt that he was different before you had the children. He probably considers other things more important based on his upbringing. Sounds like he may have grown up in a poor family or at least one in which those things were not what the value of a person was based on.

If those things are so important to you, make them fun for him. He honestly might not think of them on his own, or he may be just too lazy or thinking and believing that it doesn't matter... You may feel that you shouldn't have to oversee him in these things, but I would think that if you lay down the law that it is going to be done, that you want your kids to do it, and expect him to set a good example for them, that he will eventually do it. You have to reward him for it constantly, and it might take awhile. He didn't learn the habits quickly, and it might take a while for him to change... not just because you tell him a few times...
You might find that he will seriously try if he knows that you are at the point of leaving, but don't expect him not to slip back into the old ways unless you keep after him about it. You might have to keep reminding him and stressing how important it is to you. I know it might seem like he doesn't want to change, but I believe that he will if you go after it and perhaps even get him into counseling with you to explore how he developed his habits as well as the importance of changing them.

I see a relationship with no communication in it at all. Maybe 7 years of not bonding, and working together is enough. Maybe your right, and need to set him free. I still can't see how you married a guy who didn't bath or brush his teeth, but we all are different. Good luck to all of you.

Don't worry about anything (bills, material objects, etc) until you talk to him. This is one more thing you two will have to work out together once the process of divorce begins. You can't really predict how he'll react anyway... you might divide/sell things amicably, you might have to get a lawyer to mediate. No sense it worrying about that now.

Tell before the holidays? Only you can decide.
It will never be the "right" time to tell him you're leaving, so you have to decide for your family. Will it hurt more to hear it NOW or to hear it later and realize that there was a black cloud hanging over your head the entire time? As for that, in time he'll realize that black cloud was hanging over his marriage long before the holidays of 2007.

Though he may react harshly, do try to be kind.

First of all being a grandmother raising 2 grandbabies from a broken home I see things differently then some. My grandkids do miss their parents very badly, ( not so much the 2 yr old he doesn’t really know who they are) but listening to the oldest one who is 8 recall the tension and signs of trouble in the relationship is enough for me to say end it now. Depending on the children’s age, don’t you think they know mommy and daddy don't hug, kiss or show affection like other parents they see? This is just my 2 cents for whatever it is worth to you, I just can't understand why you even married him, I saw some not so nice things about my husband of almost 3 years, but you know what, there were probably some not so nice things I did subconsciously that he saw. We are all human and I have to wonder if this isn't just the excuse you chose to use, (his hygiene issues) something in my gut tells me that there is someone else. I might be wrong, but you never once have mentioned that you talked to him about his hygiene issues. My friend was somewhat like your husband and I would continue to call her on it, make jokes to her about her breath, or coming out of her bathroom and telling her the bathtub said it missed her, maybe she needed to visit it more often. After about 6 months of me calling her out she is now MS Clean ;) I know your mind is made up, but take it from me, your kids are going to suffer, your husband will suffer as well, and all over the fact he needs some help in the hygiene department? Seems to me something else is really the problem, I mean after all you must have been intimate at least 2 times that we know of. When you told him you were not attracted to him did you ever state why? How old is he? If you think the grass is greener on the other side, YOU ARE IN FOR A RUDE AWAKENING! Good luck ion whatever you do, but be HONEST as to the reason why, and I find that thinking of yourself first is very very selfish, and not something a mother with children should ever say. You think I want to be 47 yrs old raising 2 little kids? You damn right I don't, but taking them into my home was the most UNSELFISH thing I could have done for them.

Your are right--I am not being honest with myself. When it comes down to it, he is more my "best friend" than my "husband". I do love him, but I am not in love with him. His personal hygiene has been brought to his attention many times throughout the course of our years together, and although it gets better for a time, old habits are hard to break. I am 6 years older than him (he is 33), and sometimes I feel as though I am his mother--he already has one of those! I got pregnant after being with him for only three months and thought at that time that I could overlook my intimacy issues, as I new that physical appearance was not as important as every thing else that we had in common Thus, that is why I have been with him for this long. However, being touched when you don't want to be touched is an aweful feeling (past experience) and it is getting to be too uncomfortable for me. He knows I do not want to me intimate, but he pursues until I finally give in. Selfish?? My kids are ages 6 and 5--right now, they see that we are happy, as we do not fight and we do give hugs and kisses. However, staying with him and giving my kids the wrong impression of love is very selfish of me--do I want my kids to settle at love when they get older? HELL NO!! The grass probably isn't greener on the other side, but staying in dead grass isn't fun either--it hurts!! I have feelings as well. If I was only thinking of myself, I wouldn't be on this website asking for advise!!