What's the hardest part of marriage at midlife

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One partner usually is very selfish and breaks the other is left being the adult for everyone.

This

[Anonymous]

One partner decides the other doesn’t need sex anymore and withholds intimacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s going through menopause. It’s just rough physically and emotionally and my poor DH took the worst of it. The interruption of sleep, mood swings and less desire for sex were all not great for him.

Odd how menopause seems to cause women to lose desire for sex, but for men it causes lost desire for monogamy. Coincidence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One partner decides the other doesn’t need sex anymore and withholds intimacy.

That’s not how it works. Your body your choice, My body my choice. You cannot make any decisions about my need for sex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One partner decides the other doesn’t need sex anymore and withholds intimacy.

One partner verbally abuses and neglects the other, thus when he wants sex, it is withheld.

[Anonymous]

For safety and protection reasons

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boredom and realizing that you really have very little (or nothing) in common with your spouse except for a long shared history and kids.

What if this is what it is (if things are kept routine?)? Are we placing too much expectation on our marriages to organically keep us happy without the work or expect the partner to totally know how they and you have changed along the way? Or does life just with every day continues having a gravitational pull on us to where it's just harder and harder to get out of ruts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One partner decides the other doesn’t need sex anymore and withholds intimacy.

That’s not how it works. Your body your choice, My body my choice. You cannot make any decisions about my need for sex.

Exactly. It’s a decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me the sex is still really good, in some ways better than its ever been.

The hard thing in my marriage is just all the pressure from outside at this stage- aging parents getting sick, harder things with older kids, medical issues. It’s hard to prioritize our marriage.

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Agreed. Thankfully I have a good marriage too along with a solid friendship with DH. Sex is very good in a physical sense because we are better at it and know each other well. But, there is not a heart fluttering attraction with my DH because we are so familiar with each other. The infatuation is gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Husbands midlife crisis, mistress and subsequent abandonment of our marriage and family. I’m in shock and destroyed. Our marriage had no more problems than those listed in this thread

I will say he is probably dealing with some deep mental health issues. I got a stupid tattoo and bought a sports car. And suddenly I wanted to go to parks again like a kid son took our kids to Disney Universal and embarrassed them a few times with my antics I am sure. That was my life during midlife crisis. My wife didn't want anything to do with it lol. I am still so in love with my wife so leaving her and the kids would have been impossible midlife crisis or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Raising teens, especially when the stakes are so high, you're "running out of time" and when at least one of them is so difficult and high needs it can break the family.

One of our DC has interfered so badly in our marriage I am shocked we are still together. Differences of opinion on treatments, parenting, etc have taken an enormous toll of which I am not sure from which we can recover. Every day is a bigger struggle.

+1. We didn't survive it. It go so bad DW accused our son of hitting her during one her mental breakdown. He was a big kid 15, 6'3, strong athlete, his hormones at the time played a lot of tricks on him. At that time we decided to go separately and it worked out well because surprisingly I was able to manage him much better on my own. If you see now totally different kid much calmer. He just finished his junior year at Berkeley. Proud of him physics major just like me.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s keeping the love alive after 20-25 years. When empty nesterhood is on the horizon you really take stock of where you are and where you want to be. Many couples will stay together simply because it’s the easiest thing to do. I’m married to my best friend and we are very compatible and we’ve never faced a big marriage bump in the road. Our libidos are in sync (I think!) and sex continues to be high energy even after all of the years together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Raising teens, especially when the stakes are so high, you're "running out of time" and when at least one of them is so difficult and high needs it can break the family.

One of our DC has interfered so badly in our marriage I am shocked we are still together. Differences of opinion on treatments, parenting, etc have taken an enormous toll of which I am not sure from which we can recover. Every day is a bigger struggle.

+1. We didn't survive it. It go so bad DW accused our son of hitting her during one her mental breakdown. He was a big kid 15, 6'3, strong athlete, his hormones at the time played a lot of tricks on him. At that time we decided to go separately and it worked out well because surprisingly I was able to manage him much better on my own. If you see now totally different kid much calmer. He just finished his junior year at Berkeley. Proud of him physics major just like me.

He likely was always going to be a totally different, much calmer kid as a rising senior in college than he was as a 15 year old. That's how most teenagers work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s keeping the love alive after 20-25 years. When empty nesterhood is on the horizon you really take stock of where you are and where you want to be. Many couples will stay together simply because it’s the easiest thing to do. I’m married to my best friend and we are very compatible and we’ve never faced a big marriage bump in the road. Our libidos are in sync (I think!) and sex continues to be high energy even after all of the years together.

So true. One our neighbors both 68 are divorcing. It shocked us and make us think about our own marriage and are taking steps to prevent that. They seem so lovely, been empty heaters for awhile. It's scary. The husband did have a stroke last year, that's the only thing l could see that changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One partner decides the other doesn’t need sex anymore and withholds intimacy.

One partner verbally abuses and neglects the other, thus when he wants sex, it is withheld.

100%

Your heart turns to stone after years of belittling and critical comments and walking on eggshells around someone’s explosive moods and OCD. Gee- I wonder why I can’t turn it on when you decide to want to fk.

Only they can’t see their part in any of it- because they were nice for 1 hour- it’s you that’s a prude or asexual.