Dear friends, when the children are small and you’re caring for them 24/7, when the family needs us non-stop, we often wish we could just be invisible. Invisible, so that nobody wants anything from us, nobody can call out for us – but today, Vanessa tells us what it feels like, a few years later, to be truly „invisible“…
Help! Does anyone in this family actually see me anymore?
My name is Vanessa, I have two children, aged 10 and 13. I’ve been married for 14 years and work part-time as office administrator. My husband works full-time and has a very time-consuming hobby with his motorbike. The kids are also both very involved in sports and have lots of friends.
I can clearly remember that when the children were small, my husband and I used to talk about what we would do when they were older. We wanted to go to the mountains together and go hiking. We wanted to go to the cinema; we perhaps wanted to learn a new language together. Now the time has come – the children are older and we’re doing NONE of those things.
When my husband isn’t working, he’s tinkering in the garage. And since I simply don’t like riding motorbikes, he often goes on hours-long rides on his own. When I suggest going for a walk or having an ice cream, the children aren’t up for it and my husband doesn’t have time. „We’ll do it soon“, he says. But we never do.
I realise the children are growing up and becoming independent; that’s perfectly fine, but it does hurt me that, at the moment, I’m just the one who washes their jerseys and cooks their meals. My husband also seems to have lost interest in me as a person. I’ve asked him before if he’s seeing someone else, and he just looked at me completely baffled. “Why? Everything’s fine between us!” When I then said that I sometimes feel really lonely, he told me I should just meet up with my friends.
I do that too. I go to the gym, we go to the cinema together, but as a family we do virtually nothing together. I really feel as though I’m invisible, that nobody cares about me. There are no loud arguments; I just carry on with everyday life, everything runs smoothly – but inside I’m withering away. How can it be that nobody sees me or really appreciates me – after everything I’ve done for years? How can it be that my husband has lost interest in me, even physically?
Is this just the way things go? Is it like this for many people? Or would it be better to go our separate ways? I’d appreciate hearing from others.
