I have been married for 5 years, living as for 10. I love my husband and I know he loves me. Our problem is that we are not compatible. My passion for him got lost somewhere down the road. I haven't had any affairs nor do I desire too. I don't think he has either. I want my marriage to work but how can one restore passion? I also need to add that we have great communication with each other. We had fallen into a daily routine year after year, I don't know, I woke up one morning and thought "I don't do anything I used to love to do anymore". I started doing those things this summer, unfortunately it wasn't with my husband because he wants to stay in the house. I would love to have him come with me. I asked him if he would go to marriage counseling, he said no. One of the big problems is that I want children. I am 32 and hear that tick, tick, tick, we woman will get. He doesn't want kids. I don't want to hurt him because he is my best friend but on the other hand I'm not happy. There has got to be more, or is there? I don't know. I guess I got 6 in one hand and a half dozen in the other. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? I would really appreciate some feedback. Thank you.<BR>

LN, I don't have any insights for you, but I thought this was worth bringing back to the top for someone who does.<BR>Good luck, Mike

I suppose what your feeling is completely normal...it always helps me to know others are dealing with the same problems. I guess the passion you felt at the beggining of your relationship will never be there, maybe I'm wrong. I'm just dealing with that now and I've only been married for 2 years. I no longer feel in love with my husband and am desperately trying to get that feeling back. I recently had an affair and had those intense feeling again. The affair is over now. I'm in major withdrawl from the OM now, but am trying to realize that marriage can't always be about passion and should be about companionship. Maybe you should find activities to do together, that you both enjoy. I would love it if my husband would go shopping with me, but it's not worth dragging him if he's not enjoying himself. So, it might help exploring new activities together...take weekend trips together...find new places to go to, etc. Maybe that could renew your passion for at least a little bit.<BR>I'm trying all of these things now and am praying that they will work.

If you read my post you will know that I have very serious problems with this regards. The thing I know, particularly from being a jock in college was that new relationships are fun and after a while they get boring so you get a new one. When I got married 10 years ago, the passion was quite strong. Actually, up to the point that we had children the passion, while sometimes streaky was very good. It is easy to take out the frustrations of parenthood on each other. What does this have to do with your question. During the last 3.5 years the passion has fallen, until March when things turned ugly. All that time I based my relationship with my wife on friendship, trust, common interests, etc.. to me this constitutes love, and while I did not feel that newness in the relationship I was quite happy. So get your husband to spend time with you, develop common interests, go for walks, play pool, darts, swim at the YMCA, work out together, but just become part of each others lives. In my opinion, that will strenghten your relationship. Try new things when making love, talk to him and tell him your feelings. If this does'nt work, then get out now. If he does'nt care to be part of your life, don't be part of his.