normal feelings in a marriage??

[misstf]

helloooo
i'm a mother of 3, and my husband and i have been together a total of 7 1/2 years (married for 5 of those years). i guess i'm writing because i'm starting to feel that maybe we're not the best fit for each other. going back to the beginning....

after only 7 months of dating, i found out that i was pregnant with our 1st child. we didn't get married right away, but we did eventually get married when our (1st) son was about 10 months old. looking back, i feel like we got married more for financial/insurance reasons, and also because "it made sense" (we were living together, had a baby....why not). i was a sahm at the time, and rarely left the house; in my own little bubble/prison, where i didn't have any outside communication with anyone else but him. but nonetheless, we got married. about this same time, i started going back to school. in one of my classes i met this guy and we just clicked instantly; so much so that when the semester ended i had to just leave without really saying bye to him cuz all i was thinking was "this guy is bad for my marriage". about year and 1/2 after that class ended, i found out that i was pregnant with our 2nd child. at this time, i started getting suspicions that my husband was cheating on me. i found this weird text from a girl that he works that alluded to that. he also seemed pretty distant, but that was how he normally acts when i'm pregnant. i let everything slide at that time. after the baby was born my suspicions became even greater, and so did his behavior. i finally confonted him and he denied everything. at that point we started marriage counseling. we didn't get very far in counseling, and at the end of it i really felt checked out of the marriage. all at the same time that all of this was going on, i graduated school. this became a big issue for us. it was like he couldn't handle me graduating...he said i had changed and i was now "arrogant". i told him that i was just more confident now; school does that to people. he didn't agree and proceeded to be an a**hole to me on graduation day and just really brought me down on a day that i should've been so excited for. and then when i started working, he was so unsupportive that i felt like i had to quit my job to save our marriage...and it was a job that i looooved and a very coveted position for my line of work. our marriage counselor had said that marriage can be like a seesaw, in that when one person is all for the marriage, the other one can be checked out. but that doesn't seem right to me...that there would always be one person checked out?? (our marriage couselor had ironically never been married....hmmmm) anyway, at one point we got back on track and i became pregnant with our 3rd (and last) child. she is 3 months old now, and i feel like i'm checking out of the marriage again. and i keep thinking about that guy from my class....actually, i don't think i've ever stopped thinking about him. and i just keep wondering, am i with the wrong person? maybe there's someone out there better suited for me....and better suited for him. i feel like i could tolerate this marriage forever, but shouldn't marriage be more than just tolerating the person? i want to be in a marriage where i feel truly loved and where i feel like i truly love the other person.
has anyone else felt this way???? is this normal??? will these feelings go away and we'll live to have a happy and loving marriage??? help!! (sorry it's so long...don't have a lot of people i can talk to about this...)

[Newmom!]

What you need to do is talk to your husband, maybe talk to a couselor (not necessarily a marriage counselor, but someone who can help you sort through your thoughts), and definately search inside yourself and determine what needs to be done.

I wouldn't make the "dream guy" a factor - as you don't know if you'll meet him or anyone else that makes you feel that way again.

If you two got "back on track" once - can you two do it again, and then stay that way? You are right, a marriage needs to be more than two people who simply tolerate each other - but there are also going to be slumps in the marriage. Are you two in a slump, or is what you have now the status quo? These are just a few of the questions you need to consider.

Most importantly, what you need to keep in mind is whether or not your current marriage is healthy for the well-being of you, your husband, and your children.

[misstf]

thanks newmom. we had a really good talk a couple of weeks ago, one that began with tears and yelling, and ended with smiling and hugging and really good make-up...you know. ;-) but now i'm back to feeling like i might want out. it's like we're good, but i just don't know if i really love him anymore. i just keep thinking, how do you know when to call it? there's so much on the line....we have so much together....kids, house, financial stability...but just because it's good on paper, does it mean i should just stick it out? is it all worth living life with someone you can just tolerate but may not really love?