I am at the 3 year mark with DH too. I think about leaving at least weekly. It is miserable. I left once about 6 months ago but came back for some reason. He made promises, I wanted to believe. I should have stayed gone.

I used to think about it and the logistics at least once a month.

I think because we have already been through divorce or break up with a prev. LTR and came out the other side we know we can do it again and cope OK and life moves on. We know how to deal with the legal crap an the logistics.

Now this can be too easy to do and staying harder than you want to experience. The difference is how engaged is your SO/DH/DW in making this work? My DH made it clear from the beginning he and I come first. This is the model his parents set and I wish I had met his Dad because this is also the model my parents set. Parents come first.

Id DH had allowed his kids to not respect my place as his wife or disrespect me, if he had allowed his ex to call the shots or engaged in long discussions with her I would have walked out a long time ago.

Sometimes I think men have no idea what we add to their lives until we are gone.

I think about it almost daily. Sad. But I like notasm's approach, to reassure that I could go on without him.

If you're thinking of leaving so often, then I think there's got to be something about your marriage/situation that's causing those thoughts. I was miserable in my first marriage and thought about leaving all the time because my ex treated me like crap and made me not want to be with him anymore. I left eventually and it was the best thing I ever did! I'm now with 2nd husband (been together 7 years) with custody of 3 skids, and while skid/bm problems have caused a lot of stress over the last 7 years I've never thought about leaving dh as we have a strong, happy relationship and love and respect each other and we've always been able to talk to each other and work things out. I have thought about life on my own but as someone else said, more about being widowed than divorced as dh has health problems including a heart condition and I know that I could manage without him if I had to.

I think if someone is finding themselves thinking about leaving often and making even hypothetical plans about where to go/what to do etc, then they should look at their relationship and try to work out what's going on. Why would those thoughts be so frequent if everything in the relationship is going well? Even if you love your partner dearly, there can be situations you're having to live with which cause a great deal of stress, specially when coping with other peoples kids and difficult ex partners, and even if you have the most perfect and loving partner in the world, if they don't step up and deal with those things properly it's eventually going to affect the relationship.

Me and DH will have been married for 3 years this summer, together for 7. When it was bad, I never thought about leaving him because he wasn't really the problem, but leaving the house. I seriously thought about getting my own place and just coming over and visiting and spending the night on the weekends. I was delusional, clearly. I am glad I stuck it out though.

I have been with DH for 8 years now and I find myself thinking about it very often though I feel very torn as to how it would impact my children. Our parenting is worlds apart and that is what causes many of our fights. SS15 talks about joining the military when he turns 18....so I wonder if it will be better at that point as a lot of our fights are about how he parents...for some reason we hardly fight over our bios..don't know if its because I do the majority of it or if its because he doesn't have that fear that our bios will get mad and go live with BM if they don't like whats going on. Its a hard decision to make.

every.damn.day.

I have been thinking about that daily as well. Also trying to reassure myself on a daily basis that I am strong, independent and capable of living with out him. I often find myself looking at studio apartments and thinking about what things will be like when I leave.

As much as I love DH, I have had to really question where I stand on all of the BS I have been through with him. Is it worth it? No. Not worth the effort that I put in when his effort is no where near mine. Yea he works and makes money. If I wasn't in school FT, I'd be making more money also. But money is not everything. I need more. Need support, love and respect from him. You can make tons of money and still be an asshole. And it will still not be worth being with you.

As of right now, I think about leaving all the time. Can't stand the sight of skids (yeah I said it). Tired of not being able to say what I feel, when I feel it all for the "preservation" of our relationship. Our relationship continues to revolve around skids and their "needs". DH has helped to make this household (and me) the way it is and he doesn't understand what makes me mad.

Of course, there are 10 sides to every story and DH will tell you different. He will say everything that is wrong with me. But guess what? I don't care. It's not worth the argument.