Divorce after 11 years together
several days ago my husband and I decided to get divorced. We have been together for 11 years (now I’m 33), no kids. We’ve been through so many things together, he is my family. I made a mistake and cut off contacts with my friends and concentrated all my communication energy on him for the last years. I thought I married my best friend. And I don’t know, I just didn’t want to talk or be in life of other people (even with my mom when she was alive). I told him almost everything, we always laughed a lot, but the problem between us is the following:
It’s not passionate love from my side. He wants to hug me and touch me often and I don’t feel like it very often and I have to reject him physically. Emotionally I’m there with him, ready to talk all night about what’s bothering him e.g., but when it comes to hugging kissing every day it’s mechanical for me, I don’t feel anything. Sex is rare too, but when it happens it feels good for me. He says that he doesn’t feel that I love him. I think I do, but in my own way. For me it’s emotional connection, partnership etc.
So it was rather his decision to get divorced, but I actually understand that I’m in comfort zone, but not happy in this marriage too. At least , I think I can have a better life alone or with someone else. I think that the reason why I don’t want him physically is that I expected him to be a certain person and do certain things, but that’s not what he is. So I collected grievances because I couldn’t do certain things because of him. And he is tired and drained to wait when I change and become a different person.
The situation is complicated now because we have to live in one apartment and go to the same job (our small business), and we don’t live in our country. We left 3 years ago because of war. It’s not safe to come back for both of us. We don’t have a home there. And we couldn’t assimilate very well here. All we have here is us and our business to make a living. We decided to close it, but now to work hard for 2 more months to collect some money and then each of us is going their way. We don’t hate each other and possibly can become friends some day, but now…
I feel like my leg is being cut slowly. I don’t know how to communicate with him while we’re not separated. I want to share my feelings with him, because that’s the habit of 11 years together. He’s near, but absent. Every little or big thing reminds me of our life together, and it hurts me so deeply that it ended. This new country we live in is full of memories about us, not me and my memories. So I don’t know how to survive these 2 months and what’s coming after
@intuitiveLion9549
Thank you for sharing something so deeply personal and painful. I want you to know that what you're feeling right now the grief, the confusion, the emptiness it all makes perfect sense. You’re not just mourning the end of a relationship, you’re grieving the life you built together, the version of yourself that only existed within that shared story, and the comfort that came from being someone’s "person" for so long.
Eleven years is a lifetime. You didn’t just share a home and a business you built rituals, language, inside jokes, and a quiet understanding that can only come from years of closeness. Of course you want to talk to him, to reach out and share your feelings. That’s the muscle memory of love. It doesn’t just stop because the relationship shifts. That ache in your chest when he’s nearby but not really with you it’s so real, and I’m so sorry you’re going through that.
You’re incredibly self-aware, and I can see the courage it’s taking you to be honest with yourself. You’ve given love in the way you knew how, and now you’re facing a reality that’s no longer aligned with either of your needs. That doesn’t make you cold, or broken, or unlovable it makes you human. Sometimes love doesn’t look the way we thought it would, and sometimes it’s not enough to carry two people through forever, no matter how much history is there.
Living together while detaching is unbelievably hard. It’s like grieving someone who’s still in the same room. You’re being incredibly strong by continuing to show up, to hold space for both of you to finish this chapter with dignity and care. Two months might feel like a slow, aching stretch of time but they will pass. You’re moving toward something new, even if you can’t fully see it yet.
This next part of your life is going to ask a lot of you, but I promise there’s life beyond this. You will rediscover your voice, your independence, and your joy. You will meet new people and build new memories that are yours and yours alone. And when the grief feels unbearable, please remember that healing isn’t linear it’s messy, exhausting, and also incredibly beautiful.
Let yourself cry. Let yourself miss him. Let yourself feel lost. That’s not weakness that’s the process. And through all of it, be gentle with yourself. You are not alone, and you are not failing. You are learning how to breathe again in a world that’s been flipped upside down and that takes a rare kind of strength.
You’re going to get through this. Not just survive it, but grow in ways you never thought possible. One step, one breath, one day at a time.
@intuitiveLion9549
Hello, and welcome to 7 Cups!
After reading your message at least twice I started to wonder: You said you were marrying your best friend. Does it mean there was no lovers' intimacy between you (I mean both emotionally and physically) from the start? There were no "butterflies"? Or did it go down during the years? Or can it be attributed to any external conditions (like a hormone therapy)?
"I can have a better life alone or with someone else" - unfortunately, doesn't sound as a good foundation to carry on a relationship.
"I expected him to be a certain person and do certain things, but that’s not what he is" - also sounds like he had been a wrong actor placed in a wrong play.
But, on the other hand, I believe most divorces happen after either 2 to 3, or 5 to 7 years. And something must have made you stayed together much longer than that.
Thank you for reading this several times.
Your questions are what I have been thinking about these days. What was it exactly?
Yesterday I came to realise that I chose this man with my mind, not my heart. He’s kind and caring, we have many things in common, etc. So mind said go for it, I guess. And I hoped that everything else will come. But it didn’t . And it all became a routine. A second job for me. And for him it’s been like constant waiting for something.
Why did it last so long? Circumstances, I guess. For example, on the 2nd year of our relationship he got to a hospital with brain tumor. We went through this together as a family (surgery, recovery etc). Everything ended up well with his health and it united us. And there were new hopes for happiness. Later on other good and bad things kept happening in life and we shared them. And stayed together because of habit, comfort, etc.
I’m realising this only now. But my emotional state is jumping from nostalgia and sorrow about the years together to calmness of liberation to the fear about the future. And the feeling that years and possible opportunities are lost is here too. It’s good that we realised the reality when we’re in our 30s, not 70s, I know. But we both could have lived the lives we wanted long before. I feel even stupid now realising that I was afraid to look for someone who touches my heart, not only mind. And there’s also guilt that he wasted his time too. He could have had kids now. But instead he will have to take time to recover from all of this, and perhaps it will take another several years to find the right person and to have everything that he didn’t have with me.
