Spending your life with someone you're not in love with...

seven-day-weekend

missbiggles1 wrote: »

In the immortal words of Joni Mitchell,

"Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way"

Both Sides Now

I love that song.

seven-day-weekend

catkins wrote: »

Me too. He proposed 2 weeks after we met and we were married 5 months from the date we met.

With us it was three weeks and four months

You just know, don't you?

catkins

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

With us it was three weeks and four months

You just know, don't you?

Yes we both knew. Before meeting OH I would certainly never have considered myself to be a romantic person and I thought I probably would not get married. That's mainly because I believe strongly in marriage and fidelity and also, even if my marriage was to break down, I don't believe in divorce. I didn't think I would meet someone with the same views or, perhaps more importantly, someone who I believed when they said they had the same views.

seven-day-weekend

catkins wrote: »

Yes we both knew. Before meeting OH I would certainly never have considered myself to be a romantic person and I thought I probably would not get married. That's mainly because I believe strongly in marriage and fidelity and also, even if my marriage was to break down, I don't believe in divorce. I didn't think I would meet someone with the same views or, perhaps more importantly, someone who I believed when they said they had the same views.

Yes, we are pretty much that way too with our relationship.

I saw a programme the other day where a couple had divorced and the man had been sleeping rough for two years while his wife was in the marital home. I said to my husband'unless he was violent, why would you do that? Even if you have split up, surely she could say have the spare room until you are on your feet. We would look after each other. But then again we wouldn't split up either,

Mojisola

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

- yep....it is sheer luck even so as to whether one meets them or no.

It certainly is - when I finally got to meet my OH and shared our history, we had been in the same place around the world at the same time on half a dozen occasions but had never met before.

When we finally did - initially just 'across a crowded room' - it was like an electric shock with a sudden, deep recognition "At last - there you are!"

Nice to hear there are a few people out there that get "happy ever after". Gives the rest of us hope...

Like FBaby said - the happy-ever-after isn't effortless - we both do things that irritate each other on occasion, etc, but the connection is so deep that it over-rides things that might split up another couple.

suki1964

My now husband told me he loved me on our very first date

I admit my drink was sprayed across the table with laughter

He still maintains he loves me as much

I don't understand that

My love has grown over the years. Mostly I take it as granted

It's not till I think to myself there's no passion and perhaps it's time to call it a day, that I sit and think about how good we are together and how much we have achieved together and how lost we would be without each other that I realise what we do have is this "love" thingy

I find emotion extremely difficult I'm self contained. I manage any relationship within what I'm comfortable with

I do love him, yet if he walked away, I'd just carry on

Running_Horse

Now the kids are grown up, why doesn't the woman in the OP get some qualifications or develop a career? We're not living in the 1980s anymore.

barbiedoll

I've been with my husband for just over 20 years and we knew that we were going to be married within a very short time. He had previously been in a 16 year relationship (including kids, both hers and theirs) and I had divorced my first husband, who was an abusive drunk. So we had our baggage in common if nothing else.


I don't know what it was/is about him, he's not the physical type that I usually go for, he's 12 years older than me, he's not a big earner (not that money's ever been important to me, I was born poor and I'll probably die poor!) and on the face of it, we don't have much in common at all. We don't like the same music, I don't wear the clothes that he would like me to wear, he's a "boob" man, I'm a 32A on a good day. But we just knew, within around 15 minutes of meeting each other, that something was going on. And I was most definitely off men at that time, in fact, my first words to him, after him offering to buy me a drink, were "I don't do slow dancing or holding hands, you're not coming anywhere my flat and I'm not interested in a one-night stand". He still reminds me of that on a regular basis!

One thing that I do know is that I can trust him completely. Not just to be faithful, but to have my back no matter what. I can tell him anything and trust him not to judge me. I can rely on him to care for our son if I cannot. And our pets come to that. He takes care of my mum, he looks out for my sister and he is just a real gem, I count myself very lucky to have found him.

Of course, he's not without his faults. He can hold a grudge for all eternity, he's a tad on the lazy side and he is a bit of a Victorian husband in the sense that he thinks that washing, ironing and menial tasks are the responsibility of the women of the household. Unfortunately for him, I hold the exact opposite view so if something needs to be done and I don't want to do it, hard luck. We have grubby cupboards, dusty shelves and under the stairs is a clutter-filled horror. If it bothers him that much, he knows where the cleaning stuff is kept.

As for being "in love"....well, at the moment, I'm in love with the junior doctor at work (I'm not alone, we're having a draw to see who's going to give him his first "cougar" experience, the poor boy!) my best friend's brother, who I've had the hots for since I was 15, Jon Snow, the guy who plays Quicksilver in the X-Men movies, Jesse Pinkman and Beck.

I probably wouldn't leave Mr B for any of them, but I may take a sabbatical if I got any offers! :rotfl:

cyantist

I wonder how many people who think they are not in love with their partner would realise they were once they don’t have them anymore. Happened to both me and my sister.

barbiedoll wrote: »

Jon Snow, the guy who plays Quicksilver in the X-Men movies

Me too! Just finished watching American Horror Story where Evan Peters plays a dead mass murderer who rapes his girlfriend's mom (amongst other pretty bad things). It was hard to watch it and not think "awww but he's so hot"

bugslet

suki1964 wrote: »

I find emotion extremely difficult I'm self contained. I manage any relationship within what I'm comfortable with

I do love him, yet if he walked away, I'd just carry on

If it ever turns out I have a long lost twin, you could be themselves(especially if your user name is your birth year.