I’m 27 and already feel completely checked out of my marriage. I love my husband, but I don’t know if the damage can be repaired.

Im 27F and I’ve been married for less than a year. I’m at a point where I genuinely don’t know whether I should keep trying to save my marriage or accept that too much damage has already been done.

My husband and I had a very rocky relationship before getting married. There were periods where I left because I felt neglected and disconnected from him. Before we got married, things changed dramatically. He was extremely loving, affectionate and reassuring. He fought hard to get me back, apologized to my family, made me feel wanted, proposed, and made me believe things were finally going to be different.

Not long after getting married, that energy disappeared.

One of the biggest issues has been intimacy. Sex has become incredibly infrequent, sometimes going weeks or over a month without anything happening. He rarely initiates, and I've explained over and over that this makes me feel unwanted. It isn't just about sex — it's the feeling that my husband doesn't desire me. When I bring it up, it often turns into an argument or becomes about my reaction rather than why we're disconnected in the first place.

I've also developed major trust issues because there have been things involving his phone/social media that haven't made sense to me. I've seen things deleted, gotten explanations that changed, and found things that made me question whether I was being told the whole truth. When I ask for reassurance or transparency, it often seems to create more anger and distance instead of making me feel secure.

There have also been some really ugly fights. Me threating to leave, name calling, told I'm negative, and told that my unhappiness is basically the reason he pulls away from me.

I also want to be fair to him because he isn't completely uncaring. I have been struggling badly with depression, and he does try to support me through it. He tells me he loves me, he doesn't want me to leave, and he wants our marriage to work. When I'm extremely low, he doesn't just tell me to get out or abandon me. I know my mental health affects him too.

My depression has gotten to the point where I've been feeling hopeless and having suicidal thoughts. There have been days where those thoughts are there every day. I'm not saying my husband or my marriage is solely responsible for that — I'm unhappy with my life in general right now and I have my own mental health struggles — but the constant anxiety and sadness surrounding my marriage absolutely adds to how overwhelmed I feel.

That's actually part of why I'm so conflicted. He DOES want me to stay. He DOES say he loves me. He DOES try to support me when I'm depressed.

But the actual relationship problems that are hurting me don't seem to change.

I've repeatedly explained what I need to feel loved and secure: affection, intimacy, reassurance, transparency, romantic effort, feeling desired, and feeling like we're actually partners. He can comfort me when I'm falling apart and tell me he doesn't want to lose me, but then the behaviours and relationship dynamics that I've been begging him to work on remain essentially the same.

It leaves me asking myself: if someone genuinely doesn't want to lose you, why don't they change the things they've repeatedly been told are causing you to emotionally check out?

At the same time, this isn't a marriage where every single moment is horrible, which makes this incredibly confusing. We can laugh, have good days, cuddle, be affectionate, and I can still look at him and love him. Those moments make me question whether I'm giving up too easily.

But most of the time lately I feel sad, anxious, suspicious and emotionally exhausted. I constantly think about everything that has happened. I don't feel like myself anymore. I've tried explaining that I'm genuinely unhappy in general and struggling, and sometimes his response is that I need to stop letting negativity consume me and try to be happy.

Recently I've noticed even more distance. He used to call me while he was at work. Now he rarely does, and when he does call, he'll go outside rather than talking to me around his coworkers. Little changes like that probably sound insignificant on their own, but after everything else, I notice absolutely everything.

He says that he pulls away because I'm unhappy, because I question the relationship, and because I've talked about leaving. From his perspective, I understand that constantly hearing your spouse question the marriage could make you emotionally withdraw.

But from my perspective, I started wanting to leave because I felt unwanted, unsafe, disconnected and like my needs weren't being heard.

It feels like an endless cycle: I'm hurt so I pull away, then he pulls away because I'm pulling away, which makes me feel even more hurt.

I'm now quietly looking at places to live because part of me desperately wants my own space. Another part of me is terrified that I'll leave, realize I still love him and regret ending my marriage.

I know I'm not perfect in this situation. My depression, anxiety and trust issues have become severe, and I'm sure living with someone who is constantly questioning whether you love them or whether the marriage is going to survive is exhausting too. I'm not looking for Reddit to tell me I'm completely innocent and he's completely evil.

I genuinely want outside perspectives.

Can someone genuinely love you and desperately want you to stay, but still be unwilling or unable to make the changes necessary to keep the relationship healthy?

At what point do you stop listening to "I don't want to lose you" and start looking at whether anything actually changes?

And for anyone who has been in a marriage where there was still love and genuinely good moments, but you were miserable overall — how did you know whether it was time to leave?