# Help!



## JC85 (Aug 30, 2011)

I don’t know whether anyone will be able to help me to sort my head out with this situation. I can barely work it out myself so I doubt it, but any help is better than none. Hopefully someone has had experience of this probably common situation.

About 5 years ago I broke up from a relationship after finding out that my partner had cheated on me. I was still young at the time (only 21) and so in the grand scheme of things it was just a childish relationship that was never really going anywhere. But the betrayal really affected me and I went on a bit of a spree of sleeping around, but I was never happy and I never got over the betrayal. Then I met a girl whom I intended to be a part of that spree, but she dug her claws in and din’t want to let go. In the end I kind of kept her around because she wanted to be with me, she provided security and it wasn’t too bad anyway – the company was nice enough. But I never shared a real sense of humour with her, and never looked forward to chatting on the phone for long hours like you should do if you’re in love. Several times (I mean a lot) we had bad arguments and I wanted rid of her but she didn’t want to split up and I found it hard to follow through for fear of being alone again.

This went on for a year and a half, just plodding along, not unhappy but not in love. Just average. Throughout that 18 months she piled on the pressure to get engaged and eventually, having decided to man up and do the right thing, we got engaged. We were happier by now, less arguments, more stability and although I am not going to claim that I was madly in love with her, I did feel a lot more content. 18 months after getting engaged we were married. And tp be honest I was happy to do that. In my mind at the time I believed I was happy and this was what I wanted.

15 months on and I am now writing this. I am 26 years old. I have not cheated on her at all and don’t want to but I have got to the point already where I have realised that the lack of a shared sense of humour is a big problem. I feel like we don’t have much in common anymore. She doesn’t stimulate me intellectually (a huge thing for me) and a lot of things about her now annoy me, such as her work ethic (she hardly has one – she misses work fairly regularly and all she wants is to have kids and a housewife lifestyle). Now the next step is to have kids in a couple of years which I feel is only going to compound the unhappiness and make it impossible to turn back. I have just got to the stage where I have started to find it difficult to keep a lid on things and I have started to drop hints that it wouldn’t be that bad if the marriage were to end if we fell out of love, and that it could all be done amicably. She is obviously upset that I am saying such things and doesn’t understand why.

Which leads me to the next and final part of the problem. A girl whom I have known for years has turned my head. We haven’t done anything together and we won’t either because I know cheating isn’t the answer. With her I feel the connection, the sense of humour, the intellectual stimulation, that I don’t get from my wife. We have agreed to meet up and see how we feel about each other in the flesh. This would cause huge complications in itself – we already live 7 hours apart and we are going to be living even further apart soon (let’s just say it would involve a long flight for the next couple of years). Also, her circumstances don’t exactly look good for us to have a brilliant relationship – she finished uni a year ago and is looking at going travelling for 6 months, and although she has told me she has feelings for me she obviously won’t commit to saying anything more than that as she doesn’t want things to get all deep and serious before we have met up again, and for fear of letting herself get hurt.

She’s all I can think about at the moment, but the fact is I don’t know whether I would have carried on with my marriage without a problem had she not reappeared in my life, or whether she has just magnified the problems that were already there.

All I know is I am bored of sex with my wife, I don’t look at her and find her that attractive anymore even though I know other blokes do, and that together with the lack of stuff in common is causing a real problem for me. I have no idea what to do or how to approach this. I can’t stop thinking about the other girl and how perfect she could be for me, based purely on her a s a person and not her circumstances.

Please help me.


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## Married&Confused (Jan 19, 2011)

whatever you do, don't bring a child into this relationship.

i'm not a big fan of trial separations but since there's no kids involved, that's what i'd suggest here. give each of you time to figure this out.

as for the girl you know, that will never work out. she's long distance plus going to be traveling. the grass looks greener on the other side but if sex is part of what you re looking for in a relationship, i'd bet her intellectually stimulating conversation won't win over lack of sex.


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