My wife (37F) & I (38F) have been married for 7 years. Together for 9. We have one child together. We both have full-time careers, earn a considerably good living & overall have a fairly fulfilling life outside of our marriage/bedroom. Our families are loving, supportive & we have a wonderful village of friends/loved ones who play significant roles in our child’s life. Picture perfect on the outside, truly.
Within our marriage we are barely roommates. If I had to label it, we’re roommates with a child-raising arrangement that tolerate each other. It didn’t happen overnight. Overtime, the intimacy between us dwindled until it became non existent.
It had nothing to do with the mental load, housework or other “not carrying my weight” issues that you often hear about in some heterosexual relationships. We’re both women, so no gender roles exist here. In fact, I do a majority of the housework/maintenance, cooking, scheduling & so on. This is because my work arrangement allows much more flexibility than hers so I’m able to tend to more of these things simply due to logistics.
I’m not an absent parent, or heavily invested in my own hobbies. I pick up & drop off our child to school daily. I make the appointments. Sign up for the extracurriculars, sports, attend every activity or game, and arrange all of the “fun” we have as a family.
I enjoy doing these things. What I’m starting to feel is resentment towards her because of the lack of appreciation and/or affection/love she doesn’t show me. I never felt this way before, having done the same things. Now, I feel more like an employee of our household or “convenient” to have around.
We have not been intimate in almost 2 years. No sex, no almost sex. No passionate kisses. Nothing beyond the obligatory peck on the lips once in a blue moon when leaving for work.
We’ve had “the talk” dozens of times. She knows how I feel. She’s well aware of the hurt/pain our lack of intimacy causes me. Nothing changes. At first, it would – for a short period of time. Then everything would revert back to nothing. She says this is just how she is. She doesn’t need intimacy. She doesn’t crave it. All of her precious relationships ended the same way. She’d love intimacy for a while, then at the drop of a dime, it’s gone.
The part that eats at me the most is her lack of effort. She doesn’t even try to figure things out. No doctor. No therapy. No effort whatsoever. She will spend hours/days on putting effort into things she’s interested in. Our marriage? Not even a minute of her time.
What’s even worse is she claims to love me. Be in love with me. She wants to spend all of her spare time with me. Wants to “grow old with me.” All of it. What? How?
Me on the other hand. I want my space now. The months/years of rejection and lack of attention has taken a toll on me. We have some child-free time coming up and to be honest, I’m not looking forward to it. The parenting 24/7 break, sure. Otherwise I feel it’s just going to be even more depressing for me because I’m sure any other couple would be excited to have their spouse to themselves and probably experience far more intimacy during that time vs. when children return. We won’t and it’ll just be another knife to the heart for me.
These moments of “1:1 time” we get feel more like moments where I’m being internally yelled at by my inner self that my needs are not being met in this marriage. That voice is always there, but the day to day of work & parenting do a good job at drowning it out. When one of those distractions is removed, the pain is amplified.
I have so many conflicting thoughts. I love her deeply. I hate what we’ve become.
I feel like I’ve spent a majority of my 30s begging someone to love me the way I need to be loved.
What does our child see? Kids don’t get enough credit. I’m certain we’re damaging them in some way even though we don’t fight/argue/yell at each other. They don’t see us love each other, either.
I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m lost. I’m a shell of myself. I don’t know who I am anymore. My self worth is depleted.
I just feel so done.
No DMs please.