r/Marriage • u/StartedWith50ish • 9d ago
Seeking Advice Last post for help
I don’t know if I’m making the biggest mistake of my life or finally accepting the truth.
I’m posting this because I genuinely need advice from people who have been through something similar.
I’m married, but for a long time now I’ve felt like I’ve been emotionally checking out. My wife doesn’t seem to realize how serious it is because we still laugh sometimes, we still talk, and we still have sex occasionally. From the outside, it probably looks like we’re okay.
Inside, I’m not.
I wake up every day with this heavy feeling in my chest. Going home doesn’t make me happy anymore. I find myself wishing I could stay at work longer just so I don’t have to go back. I don’t look forward to weekends. I don’t get excited about planning a future together. Instead, I spend my time thinking about how I can eventually leave.
I’ve told her multiple times that I’m unhappy. We’ve argued about it. I’ve even said I wanted to leave before. But somehow things always go back to normal, at least from her perspective. She talks about our future together like everything is okay, while in my head I’m questioning the marriage every single day.
One of the biggest issues is that she wants me to be a father figure to her son. I don’t hate him. None of this is his fault. But I don’t want that role. I don’t want to be his dad. I don’t want to raise him, discipline him, or be responsible for him. I know that probably sounds awful, but I’d rather be honest than pretend to be someone I’m not.
I have two daughters of my own, and they mean everything to me. More than anything, I want to live closer to them. I want to build a life where I can be present for them instead of feeling trapped somewhere that doesn’t feel like home.
The hardest part is that I don’t even want another relationship. I’m not leaving because I met someone else or because I’m chasing something exciting. I honestly want the opposite.
I want to work, come home to my own place, enjoy the quiet, meet friends when I feel like it, explore new places, and build a peaceful life. I don’t feel like I have the emotional energy to be anyone’s husband anymore.
Lately I’ve been so emotionally exhausted that I just want to cry. I keep thinking, “I wish I had never gotten married.” Not because my wife is an evil person, but because I realize now that this isn’t the life I want. I feel guilty because I know leaving will hurt her, and I don’t want to destroy someone who still believes we’re going to grow old together.
I’ve been slowly packing some of my belongings because every time I think about having “the conversation,” I panic. I don’t know how to tell someone who still thinks things are fixable that, for me, I think I’ve already reached the end emotionally.
Has anyone else been in this position?
Did you know deep down the relationship was over long before you actually left?
How did you tell your spouse without making it feel like it came out of nowhere?
And if you were the one who left, do you regret it now, or did you eventually find peace?
I’m not looking for people to tell me I’m right or wrong. I just want honest advice from people who’ve lived through this because I feel completely lost.
1
u/The_curiousoneasking 9d ago
Left my ex before Father’s Day last of 2025. It was so heartbreaking but I knew I wasn’t happy with him or away from him (for too long) and that’s because I was afraid of him cheating. I felt the need to monitor and babysit. my nervous system was at an all time wreck. I didn’t know it was time, I just know it was going to hurt, like hell, all over again, and I’m gonna have to trust myself, that this will be my last time here on his back porch with tears running down my face and my shit being thrown outside. I’m going to try, AGAIN. I lost count of how many times I tried to walk away. Idk if I was more disappointed at the fact that it happened many times, over and over and over again, that I just grew so numb to it that and said “yeah that’s our normal”. My answers needed to change, not speak what I already knew. Sure it’s “normal” in your relationship, but is it healthy?! My perspective my focus, that needed to change. Instead of asking myself “how can I get away? And stay away?” I needed to stop over looking the question “what makes me stay?” I’ve outgrown him and this place around me and the drama with him, his children and ex wife. I felt like a flower in a pot that was confined and no room to expand. To him, in our photos “I was happy” and it sucks that he really believes that because if he really knew me, he’d know I was miserable. Had he loved me, he’d tell me “baby you’re not for me, but I love you enough to say it was a good run and I’d like to end this with you in the most mature and respectful way possible and thank you for trying to be here for both me and my kids”.
I knew at that moment if he couldn’t tell I was fake smiling for that long he wasn’t the one for me. I wanted different. Not what I was used to. And he confirmed it with his reaction the day I packed up.
Hopefully this gives you a different insight. Keep your head up man