u/Honest-Parsley-5498

I've lurked here for a while, but I've never posted. I had a weird talk with my wife and wanted to get some other people's perspective.

First some background. I(m43,hl) have been married to my wife (f43,ll) for almost 20 years now. We've always had some hang ups with intimacy because of our up bringing. We were both raised in religious families and had purity culture garbage taught to us. I am pretty sure my wife still feels shame related to anything sexual now.
Once our kids were born, the physical relationship withered away. She was never in the mood. She would tell me I was ugly and gross. That she could only sleep with me if she was drunk. That she only slept with me because it was her duty as a good wife. I felt undesired, and stopped pursuing her. We haven't had sex in over 4 years.

A few days ago we were making plans for our 20th anniversary. She said to me "we should make sure to have some fun in rhe bedroom. I want that for you" all I said back was "we'll see what happens."

I realized, I don't want to. I still don't feel any desire from her. I also don't feel any desire for her anymore. Its not an attraction thing. I still think she's beautiful, but I've stopped seeing her in a sexual way. Also, I think the "I want that for you" line just made me feel like it would be obligation sex.

On the other hand, I am worried that this could be her reaching out. This might be the best she can say.

I know we'll have to have an awkward, uncomfortable conversation, I was just hoping to get some insight before I do

​I've been on this thread for a little while and figured I'd have a stab at writing my own story. It has been illuminating. Like a lot of people here, I was raised in a Christian home. My family was very involved in our church, and faith was a big part of our lives. I went to Christian school starting in the fifth grade, I went on mission trips, I played in worship bands. I was in it deep. When I graduated high school, I planned to become a pastor and was accepted into Bible college. ​Just before the end of the school year, my family suffered a tragedy. My older sister lost a child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)—which is basically when a baby dies and no one knows the cause. A six-month-old life is gone. A few years later, she lost a second child to SIDS. (This isn't the place to get into it, but both deaths were investigated, as is always done when a child dies where I'm from. Nothing suspicious was found. It was just tragic.) ​I went to Bible college with my faith shaken in a way that had never happened before. No one could explain why this happened. Doctors couldn't even give a cause. Pastors and professors at my college couldn't really give me an answer as to why God lets this happen, or even if my nieces were in heaven. Just: "Trust God. He knows best. His plan is perfect." It felt like a slap in the face regarding my nieces, but I bought it. My faith was the problem; I just needed to trust God more. Surrounded by Christians, I fell for the lie that I needed to be better. I pushed on with my faith, ignoring my problems. Looking back, I think I had been so trained to rely on God for support that I didn't know any other way to deal with grief. ​I left Bible college before I graduated. I married a wonderful woman I had met there, and we started a family. We have two amazing kids. Life seemed good, and I had almost learned to ignore my doubts when the final part of my sister's story happened. My sister had, understandably, turned to drugs to help with her grief. She ended up dying of an overdose. ​All the same questions and anger that I had been trying to ignore came rushing to the surface. I tried to push through it just like before, but this time I couldn't. I went to church, prayed, and did all the things, but I never trusted God again. He may have a plan, but I figured it had to be a selfish, uncaring plan. There was no one in heaven looking out for me or anyone I cared about. ​Once my blind trust was gone, I was able to take a harder look at the whole story. Questions about the Bible began to pop up in my life—conflicts with science, inconsistent rules, and strange consequences. I still thought I was a Christian, but the more I read the Bible, the more it came across as fake. It has taken more time than I want to admit, but ultimately, I came to the conclusion that I don't believe in the God of the Bible. If there is a god—and I really doubt there is—they do not care about me, and I'm done wasting my time trying to please an imaginary friend.

I am looking for some advice. After being a christian my whole life, I (m43) no longer believe in god. I have told my wife, (43, still a believer) and we are working through things.

The biggest issue is what we tell our two sons(16,14). We have raised them in the church, and they both have a faith.

She doesn't want me to "destroy thier salvation". She would like me to never say anything, and just ffake it and pretend I'm still a christian. I want to tell them what I now believe, and be able to discuss it with them. We are still working on a plan, but one thing we've agreed on is that if they ask a direct question, we will answer it, and won't lie to them. This has always been how we've talked to our kids

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for subtle ways to encourage questions about god and religion. I feel I am at a disadvantage. Like "good christian" we have surrounded our selves with christian influence. My kids go to church, youth group, thier grandma comes over and reads the bible with them daily. I am new to being an atheist and dont have the resources or support.

I want them to know their are options. If they choose a faith, that's fine, but I want them to be given a choice, unlike I had. I want them to think for themselves, and feel free to make thier own decision, not have only opinion pushed on them

This weekend my (m43) wife (f43) blew up at our youngest son (m14) and I now feel like I should leave her.
Some background first. Our marriage has been rocky for a while now. My wife has a temper, and I don't feel safe share or opening up to her. I didn't realize I was doing this at first. We've both been seeing therapist for a while now, and its one of the thing I've figured out. As I was closing myself off, she felt alone, and turned to alcohol. This didn't help her temper, or make me open up to her more. Also, I had a pornography addiction that I went back to a few times, during all this.
We have both gone to therapy, and even did couples therapy once. Things haven't changed much. I still don't open up to her much because, even if we have a good, calm, discussion when she is sober, she will get drunk and yell and scream about it day or two later. I have stayed this long for two reasons. First, I feel guilt and responsibility for pushing her to this. Therapy has helped little with this, but I still feel it is my fault. Second is the kids. We have 2 boys (16/14) and I don’t want to abandoned them to her. When she is drunk, most of her rage is pointed towards me. If I left, I'd never get full custody, and I worry it would fall to the boys.
Things have gotten worse over the last few years. There have been more drinking and more screaming matches, loud enough that the boys have heard. She has also had a few outburst at the boys. These have always been caused by her misunderstanding something, or overreacting to something because she is drunk. Recently, I have become aware of how all three of us walk on eggshells at home. We are all extra careful in dealing with my wife, until we're sure she's in a good mood (meaning sober) . It has caused me to second guess whether staying has been better for the boys, or if I've done the wrong thing. This weekend something happened that has really affected my decision. On Saturday morning, once everyone was up, my wife asked our youngest to take the puppy out. He was playing video games, and said he do it once he was done a round. This has been a bit of an ongoing issue, him ignoring the new dog for his games. It set my wife off and she stormed back to her room yelling about it to me (I was in the kitchen making breakfast) and calling him an idiot. He got mad at her (obviously) for calling him an idiot and things blew up. I tried to help calm things down. I apologized to our son for the language "we" used but said he needs to take care of the dog over his video games. I was hoping my wife would catch on and apologize for calling him names, and we could move on. Instead she dug in, and started to day she would give the puppy away since he'd rather play games. Thus sent him into a full blown panic attack, and he couldn't catch his breath. We both tried to get him to calm down and breath, and just as he was starting to catch his breath she started about giving his dog away again. This set him back off again, and we had to calm him down again.
All this happened while our oldest was sitting in the other room, hearing the whole thing. She wasn't even drunk. She was just angry and mean.
I feel like I have made the wrong choice, and let my kids down. I thought if I stayed I'd be there to shield and protect them. I should have left and created at least one safe place for them. Anyway. That's my rant. I Know what i have to do. I just have to figure out how to do it. I have no family close by, and all my friends are "our" friends. Thanks for listening

Tldr. I want to leave my wife, after an angry outburst towards our son has me second guessing if I've really been keeping them safe.

Atheists married to religious spouses, how do you make it work?

I have known for about a year that I no longer have a faith in God. It was slow process, but I would now consider myself an atheist. I have been worried about telling anyone, including my wife, because my entire social circle is mainly Christians.

I just told my wife. It was a big surprise to her. We have both been Christians since we're children. We met at Bible college. She knew I was going through some doubts, but never expected this. All the bad reactions i had pictured in my head came true. She threatened to to kick me out, to leave and take the kids so I couldn't "corrupt" them. But,then she calmed down some.

We are taking a few days to process this, and are going to sit down and talk out how we can work through this and continue to have a marrige together.

So I am asking for advice from people who have gone through this. What can we so to keep our marriage working?

I (M 43) have stopped caring about my wife(F 43). I have never been a great husband, but I've realized lately that I dont care anymore. We've been married for 20 years.

We met at Bible college and got married. When we first got married things were pretty good. But we had our issues. we lived near my family, and after the wedding she seemed to suddenly not like my family. I also had a pornography addiction I was not dealing with. I have never been an emotionally open person and struggled with expressing my feelings. I would bottle stuff up, and then let it out in a yelling match eventually.

This came to a head when we were expecting our first child. In a moment of uncharacteristic openness I talked about my worries about being ready to be a parent. After, she told me I made her feel like I didn't want to be a parent, and wouldn't be there for her, or the baby, and I "ruined her pregnancy." In her defense, as I said, I dont show my emotions well, and I probably didn't express my excitement as much as I could have. We have never been quite the same after this.

Our son was born, and 2 years later we were expecting our 2nd. She was not happy though (she was about the pregnancy, I just mean in general) I had an idea, and we talked it out. We moved several hours away to be closer to her family. I thought this would make her happier, and it did little bit. I, on the other hand, was not. We moved from a city, to a remote country lifestyle. I feel isolated, and bored.

I couldn't tell her that everything she loved about living here was soul crushing to me. She felt I wasn't opening myself up to her, and began to drink. She is an angry, mean drunk. Over the last few years I have taken angry outbursts and been verbally berated infront of our kids. As I have said, I am not perfect, and I deserved some of what I got. But, even before the drinking, I have never felt encouraged by her to be better, just shamed for not being good enough.

While I don't know when exactly I stopped caring, I can point to 2 incidents that were major contributors. The first happen a few years ago. We are both seeing therapists, and at his suggestion, I wrote out a letter to explain my feelings about her drinking, and how I would like her to stop. She read the letter, and promised to set sometime to talk about it. The next night, when we planned to talk about it she was hammered. Her response to my "Sad whiney letter" was that I needed to be a real man. A real man would be able to deal with it. A real man would probably get drunk with her, and then we'd have more fun together. It was an emotional gut punch. I have never brought up her drinking again, and only talk about when she brings it up.

The second incident happened during fight while she was drunk again. We had just had to put our dog down. She got drunk to deal with it and then picked a fight with me because I wasn't being comforting enough. During the fight she told me I was acting like Travis. Travis is the POS my sister was dating when she died of an overdose. Travis was physically abusive, Travis stole money from everyone. Travis stole medication from his own mother to get high, and let her suffer. While my sister was ODing, Travis didnt call 911 because he was worried the cops might show up. There are so many reasons, that my wife know, that I vehemently hate Travis, and she chose to use that to hurt me. Because I wasn't being comforting enough.

Recently my parents were having an open house for thier 50th anniversary. Several months before, here parents had celebrated thiers. After it was over I heard for months, rants about how her brother didn't help enough. When it was getting close to time to go to my parents, she was sick. She had been sick for a while, but not in a needs constant attention way, just vary tired and uncomfortable. She still went out with friends, went to work, but the trip to my parents would be alot. I suggested I go alone. Someone from our family should make an appearance, and it was important to me. I got told that I couldn't go. (Actually I was told if I did go, her and the kids would be gone when I got home)That I was choosing my parents over my sick wife, and I should be ashamed of myself.

I had an appointment scheduled with my therapist a few days later, and we talked about it. We talked about ways I could bring up my feelings, and how to handle things. but I found myself just not that worried about dealing with it. My wife is an angry drunk and a bully. In large part because I am a shifty husband. That's my life. I have stayed with her because if I leave, she'll have only the boys to direct her anger at.

Now, here's where things get tricky. A few months ago she went out with some friends for a girls night. She was drinking before she left, and got very drunk while she was out. (She wasn't driving, everyone was safe) her friends had an intervention for her a week later. She is really trying to cut back. She has tried other times, but this time she is doing much better.

My problem is, I don’t care. She has said some terrible things to me while drunk, and I have realized I don’t have feelings for her anymore. She talks about getting back to doing things together, helping her get over her drinking, and I just can't seem to care. I don't hate her. I think it would be great for her if she turned things around. I think it would be great for the kids. But for me, I feel meh. In her drunken fits She has told me what she really thinks of me, and how she feels. I don't see her as a partner anymore. I see her as a roommate or a co-worker in raising our kids. Sometimes we get along. Sometimes she makes me mad. It doesn't matter, we just worry about the kids. I'm not proud of how I feel. I know I can be more supportive and helpful with her dealing with this. But I'm not. I have checked out.