I [33F] am not in love with him [30M] anymore but don’t want to leave
We’ve been together for 10 years. We have two little girls together, 2 and 5 years old. He’s a great dad, and a great person, and I feel terrible about all of this.
A few things have happened over the past 5 or so years that have just started changing my feelings in this relationship. Last year one specific event made me want to leave him, but ultimately I didn’t because of our kids, so I let it go.
I should also note that we haven’t had sex in over a year, and I have no desire to restart it. He’s tried recently and it makes me extremely uncomfortable now and it didn’t end with either of us happy.
I’ve just felt unhappy for a long time and recently I’ve realized that I don’t think I’m in love with him anymore.
We’ve just been in a roommate/coparenting situation for so long now, and I’ve been content with it. Recently though, he started questioning why I didn’t want to be intimate. I brought up how I wanted to end the relationship last year but didn’t, and he’s been a mess since.
We plan on having a serious sit down conversation about it in a couple days, and I’m not sure how to even begin. I’m very anxious about it. How do I tell him I’m not in love but I want to stay together for the kids? I don’t know if he would even want that. I’ve contemplated to keep pretending there’s hope for improvement but that feels cruel. But so does making things hostile between us and the kids suffering as a result.
The situation we are in right now, splitting up is not financially feasible. We parent well, we get along in each others company, I’m content to keep doing things this way but I don’t think he will be and I don’t know how to approach this.