Is it possible to fall back in love with my husband of 12 years?

Question

I have been married to a good but cold and sometimes selfish man for 12 years. I worked my but off for the first 6 years and got not much in return. Recently I told him I was done and wanted to leave. Now he has turned over a new leaf and is trying to fix everything and doing the things now that he would not do in the past. 90% of me says to little to late. We have kids 6 and 2. But the other 10% says stay maybe the feelings will come back in time because he is now trying to change the things that made me not love him anymore. I am feeling torn because I don't want to lead him on by staying and trying to love him again and have it not work. But I also don't want to walk away without knowing for sure because of my kids.

To James, it is not as shallow as christmas presents. This is more like love and affection. I would go out of my way to show him affection. I would tell him I loved him. He would not return that. He never wanted to have sex. He would put me down when I expressed my opinions. He would not fix up our house instead he would spend all of his time and our money (I work full time as well) on his hobbies. I guess if wanting a loving, caring partnership was selfish than maybe I was.

Answer 1

You shouldn't use your kids as a "might be solution" to stay in your marriage and try to make it work...Yes, they are a very important aspect but, no matter what happens you both will still remain their parents...Twelve years is a long time and although you might not have been happy most of those years have you ever really told him that you very unhappy or that you were considering leaving him?? It sounds like this is the first he is hearing about how you want out for him to now try and change....If thats the case then you really never gave him nor your marriage a chance....It's not like my marriage where I constantly told my"ex-husband" and things were good for awhile and then it would change again and basically I just got tired...He couldn't gave me what I needed and I was okay as long as he was honest instead of dragging me on....We also have two kids together and believe it or not we are better being friends as co-parents then when we were together and miserable....You have to think of "YOU"....Your kids will be okay***

Answer 2

I wanted to leave my husband as well and we had a big blow-up and I was ready to book a flight and get the heck out of here. He thought about what I had to say and said he wanted to change. People always advise that men who say "I want to change" are just using that as a last ditch attempt to keep women around; however, I thought, Well, I have lasted this long, the least I can do is give him a chance to prove himself. If he doesn't in fact change, then I will know I did all that I could to save this.

So, give him the benefit of the doubt and don't hold resentment. Should he really mean it through the long-term, then good for you guys. If, on the other hand, it only lasts a few months or whatever, then you will know for certain that you have made the right decision.

Answer 3

I once found an old bottle on the bottom of the lake (really old early 1800s). It had some rust and stains on it. Some people told me to wash the stain off. I didn't. I knew that I could always wash of the rust but could never put it back on.
You can always choice to leave later - but you can never choice to not have left once you have.
Give yourself a period of time that you will put your whole heart into trying to save your marriage - not just for your kids but for yourself. If things are better in X months then stay for another time period. Do not make this a threat to pressure him. Rather make it a time to see if you can rekindle the feels that made you fall in love originally - and a long enough time to see if he as grown permanently. This time will work best if you make a point to communicate your positive feels about what he is trying to do. Let him know that you appreciate it when he take initiative to do something that make life easier/happier for the family and for you.

Answer 4

For me there would be no question. I would stick it out and see if he really has changed. Make sure he knows where you stand though so as not to mislead him. And let him know that he has to continue his good ways, that it is not just a temporary fit. He may not have realized that he wasn't doing enough for you or being there enough for you. By you all of the sudden telling him you had enough and you want to leave, that was probably a big shock to him. Stick it out as long as there is not constant fighting. If the 2 of you still get along and like spending time together then it is worth it, especially for your children.

Answer 5

You probably think there are better men out there. Let me tell you, there are not! If you leave, you will either live your life alone or you will find another man just like or maybe worse than this one. How about if you give him a chance? Do you really think you're going to miss out on something better out there? I think you'll regret it if you leave. You have nothing to lose by staying and everything to gain. Most men who are single in their middle years are single because they were unfaithful players. I don't think you want that. Better stay.

Answer 6

no one said marriage is an investment that's going to yield dividends.

you want to leave him because you haven't gotten much in return? let me guess, you give out gifts on one Christmas and when the person doesn't give you anything back, you don't give gifts to that person the following year, right?

i got a news for you. you said you're married to selfish man for 12 years. go look deep into that mirror. maybe you're the one that's selfish.

i guess love is measured on what someone does for someone else.

go ahead, find out what breaking apart a family is like.

they deserve better.

Answer 7

unfortunately i don't think you can fall back in love.i didn't.i was with mine for over 30 years and once that feelings gone theres no bringing it back.my husband was so loving and devoted,yet something was missing in the last years.if i was going to fall in love again it should have been with him because i couldn't have asked for a better man,it just wasn't there anymore though.thats just it,men and women want to try harder after they find their spouse is tired of it and wanting out,too little,too late.

Answer 8

I'd give him a little more time, give him a chance to change. Perhaps 6 months.

Answer 9

i sure would give it a try don't you think that would be fun and maybe rekindle the fire

Answer 10

*"What in the world is the difference between loving a person and being selfishly attached to them?

Love is the sincere wish for others to be happy, and to be free from suffering.

Having realistically recognized others' kindness as well as their faults, love is always focused on the other person’s welfare. We have No ulterior motives to fulfill our self-interest, or to fulfill our desires; to love others simply because they exist.
Selfish attachments, on the other hand, exaggerates others' good qualities and makes us crave to be with them. When we're with them, we're happy, but when we're separated from them, we are often miserable. These selfish attachments are linked with expectations of what others should be or do.

Is love as it is usually understood in most societies really love? or selfish attachments ?

Let us examine this a bit more. Generally we are attracted to people either because they have qualities we value or because they help us in some way. If we observe our own thought processes mindfully, and carefully - we'll notice that we look for specific qualities in others.
Some of these qualities we find attractive, others are those our parents, or society value.
We examine someone's looks, education,
financial situation, social status. This is how most of us decide on whether or not the person holds any true value to us.

In addition, we judge people as worthwhile according to how they relate to us! If they help us, praise us, make us feel secure, listen to what we have to say, care for us when we are sick or depressed, we consider them good people, and it is this type of people we are most likely to be more attracted to.

But this is very biased, for we judge them only in terms of how they relate to "us", as if we are the most important person in the world.

After we've judged certain people to be good for us, whenever we see them it appears to us as if goodness is coming from them, but if we are more aware, we recognize that we have projected this goodness onto them.

Desiring to be with the people a lot who make us feel good, we become emotional yo-yo's - when we're with these people, we're up, when we're not with these people, we're down.

Furthermore, we form fixed concepts of what our relationships with those people will be and thus have expectations of them. When they do not live up to our expectations of them, we're very disappointed, or may become angry.
We want them to change so that they will they will match what we think they are. But our projections and expectations come from our own minds, not from the other people.

Our problems arise not because others aren't who we thought they we're, but because we mistakenly thought they were something they aren't.
Checklist: "I Love You if __________ "
What we call love is most often selfish attachments.
It is actually a disturbing attitude that overestimates the qualities of another person. We then cling to tightly to that person, thinking our happiness depends on that person.

" Unconditional Love, on the other hand, is an open and very calm, relaxed attitude."

"We want someone to be happy, and free from suffering simply because they exist. While selfish attachments are uncontrolling and too sentimental, Unconditional Love is direct and powerful. Selfish attachments obscures our judgment and we become impatient, angry, and impartial, helping only our dear ones and harming those who we don't like. Unconditional Love builds up others, and clarifies our minds, and we
access a situation by thinking of the greatest good for everyone. Attachments are based on selfishness, while Love is founded upon cherishing others, even those who do not look very appealing to the eyes. Unconditional Love looks beyond all the superficial appearances, and dwells on the fact that they are just like us: they want inner peace, happiness, and want to avoid suffering. If we see unattractive, dirty, ignorant people, we feel repulsed because our selfish minds want to know attractive, intellectual, clean, and talented people. Unconditional Love, on the other hand, never evaluates others by these superficial standards and looks much deeper into the person. Unconditional Love recognizes that regardless of the others' appearances, their experience is the same as ours: they seek inner peace, to be happy, to be free from sufferings, and to do their best to avoid problems.
When we're selfishly attached, we're not mentally and emotionally free. We overly depend on and cling to another person to fulfill our mental and especially our emotional needs. We fear losing the person, feeling we'd be incomplete without him."

However, this does not mean that we should suppress our emotional needs or become aloof, alone and totally independent, for that too does not solve the problem. We must simply realize our unrealistic needs, and slowly seek to eliminate them. Some emotional needs may be so strong that they can't be dissolved immediately.
If we try to suppress them or pretend they do not exist, we become anxious, insecure, falling into a depression. In this case, we can do our best to fulfill our needs while simultaneously working gradually to subdue them.

"The core problem is that most of us seek to be loved, rather than to love. We yearn to be understood by others rather than to understand them. In all honesty, our sense of emotional insecurities comes from the selfishness obscuring our own minds. 'We can develop self-confidence by recognizing our inner potential to become a selfless human being with many, magnificent qualities, then we'll develop a true and accurate feeling of self-confidence. And
then we'll seek to increase true unconditional love, without selfish attachments, to increase compassion, to cultivate loving-kindness, patience and understanding, as well as generosity, concentration and wisdom.'

"Under the influence of selfish attachments we're bound by our emotional reactions to others. When they are nice to us, we're happy. When they ignore us, or speak sharply to us, we take it personally and are unhappy. But pacifying these selfish attachment doesn't mean we become hard-hearted. Rather, without selfish attachment there will be space in our hearts and minds for genuine Affection and Impartial Love for them."
We'll be actively involved with them.

As we learn to subdue our selfish attachments, we can have successful friendships and personal relationships with others. These relationships will be richer because of the freedom and respect which the relationships will be based on. We'll care about the happiness and the misery of all human beings equally, simply because everyone is the same in wanting and needing inner peace, happiness. However, our lifestyles and interests may be more compatible with those of some people more so than with others and that is alright. In any case, our relationships will be based on mutual Love, mutual interests, and the wish to help each other in life."*

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