My husband and I recently came back from a two week vacation. For context I will say that the 2 weeks leading up to the vacation were a living nightmare due to a personal health issue and family related crisis. I will also add that I have really been struggling within my marriage for many years but have only recently (within the year) been considering divorce.
When my husband (58m) and I (48f) first met, we used to enjoy the little things together. Some of my best times with him were us cooking dinner together, dancing in the kitchen. He used to love dancing with me. I always told him it was something that brought me so much joy and while I know he doesn’t like going to night clubs I asked him if we could go dancing one night on vacation. He said yes. Out of the 12 nights, he took me dancing zero times. I know my husband likes a slower pace of life now and I didn’t expect him to want to be out every night of the week and considering that we have both been under a lot of stress I completely understand that he wanted to relax on vacation, I did as well. I was hoping this time away would allow us space and peace to really connect with each other. Unfortunately we came home and I felt so disconnected from him. There wasn’t one romantic dinner, no passion, no desire to let loose and get carried away with each other. We went to romantic restaurants but we could have been sitting in a cafeteria cuz the vibes between us were so “meh”. I did not see a man attracted to or in love with his wife sitting across from me. He was checked out, which I feel he has been for years.
The only time I caught a glimpse of “something” from him was when we were by the pool one day, I was swimming, my husband was lounging on the sun deck and a group of guys got in the pool, they started chatting with me and my husband jumped in. Weirdly, that evening, my husband was all over me, it was as if him seeing other men around me made him more attracted to me. I am an attractive woman, take extremely great care of myself and look very young for my age. Most people think I’m in my 30s. But over the years he has made me feel so undesirable. I shouldn’t have to wait for other men to notice me for my husband to get turned on. It’s sick and weird.
I tried to make the best of the vacation, didn’t complain and was as easy going as one could be. I even made excuses for him, saying to myself, we’ve just been under so much stress maybe he’s burnt out. I will admit though, I have been distant with him since we got back. And I’ve been heavily focused on work and not really interacting with him too much. The other night he wanted to go for dinner but I told him I had made plans with friends, I told him I was really wanted to go out dancing so I was going with the girls. He got upset and said I had be acting weird since we got back from vacation. I told him that while the vacation we had was nice I just didn’t feel like we connected, I was disappointed that he wouldn’t take me dancing and while I understand that he doesn’t like doing things that I want to do, I’m not giving up the things I want and that bring me happiness to make him comfortable. I want to go out with my husband, I want to have fun with my husband but if he can’t find joy in my joy then I will find joy by myself.
I asked him what has changed. He used to be fun and used to enjoy dancing and laughing with me. I asked him if he was pretending to be that guy when we got married or if he had just checked out.
He told me “I’ve changed and now that I’m older I don’t want to do things you want to do. I want a slow paced, chill life”
The truth is, he changed as soon as we got married. He stopped trying and started acting like an old man. I’m not ready for old lady life yet. I thanked him for his honesty (finally) and let him know that while there is absolutely nothing wrong with what he wants, there is nothing wrong with what I want. The problem is pretending to be someone you’re not in order to get someone to marry you, change completely and then attempt to keep them around knowing you have no intention of trying to share the life you said you wanted together. I’ve spent almost a decade trying to keep a sinking ship a float. I’m so exhausted.