I have been with my partner for 9 years, and I’m afraid I can’t do it any longer.
When we met, I was 17 and he was 22. During the first three years of dating we lived separately, and he was the best thing that happened to me. I was not the happiest person back then. I was lonely, I considered myself ugly, I had problems with my studies, and my parents were divorcing, so I was always on edge. In these circumstances, my partner seemed an angel from the heavens. He was there for me, he took me out, and we’d drive for hours or just sit in his car and talk… Really my best memories.
We married three years later, and I moved in with him. By that time I dropped out of college and started working at the supermarket. That’s when I found out that dating and living together are two different worlds. My husband is a nice person, and he’d help any time I asked. But I had to ask all the time! He’d lived alone for a long time before we met, and his habits were horrible, the worst cliches about men apply. He couldn’t cook, he never did proper shopping other than ordering pizzas, his whole flat was always a mess, and he was comfortable in it. I had to enforce basic hygiene rituals. At first I forced him to help me around the house, but it was really tiresome to always command “do this” and “do that”. I hoped he’d act like a grownup, but he never tried. I soon realized he wasn’t mean or overly selfish. He was just being himself, it didn’t come to his mind to help we with the groceries, to wash the dishes, to learn to boil eggs… His attitude was “you can do it if you need it, but I’m OK without”. I was patient, and angry, but most of all I got tired. After a year of working five days a week, I decided to continue my education, and between my job, my studies and home I had no free time at all. I felt I was living with a child-adult who couldn’t help me, because he couldn’t even take proper care of himself. My romantic feelings slowly evaporated, and so did our sexual life.
I wanted to go away many times. But something always stopped me. My husband is very kind and funny, he is my true best friend. I trust him, other women do not exist for him. We click emotionally and have common interests. Both my parents like him – they don’t communicate with each other, but they both communicate with my husband more often than with me (mainly because I’m always busy)! All the women I know divorced their men because they were cheating, or aggressive, or for some other unpleasant reason. Can I divorce my husband because he turned out to be a child?
I know that I’m not happy, but I dread the unknown future and throwing away nine years of my life. I love my husband as a person, but I don’t love him as my partner.
