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

LilElvis

Loz01 wrote: »

A few people I work with who are older than me (i.e.: 40-50, Im 29) have said to me it was the done thing to get married in 70's/80's and they see their relationship as more "friendly" now than being in love... i guess you can't keep that feeling forever but it still seems quite sad that so many people seem to be in a relationship they don't actually like, just for convenience? Id rather be on my own.

I'm aged 49, born in 1967, so in 1970 I was 3 and in 1980 I was 13. I don't think it was the "done thing" to get married whilst still a child :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

maman

74jax wrote: »

I'm in love with my husband, he drives me mad at times but I can honestly say I'm still in love with him. We've only been married for 3 years though, so I do expect it to fade. I love going out with him, spending quality time out for a meal etc, I still get butterflies at times if we haven't each other for a while.

It doesn't have to if you work at it together.:)

Brighton_belle

Person_one wrote: »

I understood your post!

Which goes to show how easy it is to misread a post - sorry!

Newly_retired

"In love ?.....of course. Whatever love means. "
So said Prince Charles on his engagement, and we all know how that ended.

System

Newly_retired wrote: »

"In love ?.....of course. Whatever love means. "
So said Prince Charles on his engagement, and we all know how that ended.

He was in love. Just not with his bride-to-be.

Kaye1

There was a BBC Horizon programme recently, about online love. They had an 'expert' in online dating and he rather interestingly said that the search for the 'soulmate', 'the One,' can actually get in the way of finding love.

While the OP has posted a very interesting post regarding not being 'in love,' and how this woman has regretted her choices, it is surely practically impossible to verbalise what 'love' is! I'm guessing it is different for each person perhaps?

I know my OH is 'the one,' for me, but in truth, I would struggle to find the words adequate enough to explain how I know. We've been together for 20 years, I just know. And if you don't know what it is, how do you know you have found it? It makes your head hurt!

Money_saving_maniac

You know what it is when you've got it.
When you haven't got it, you get affection and closeness and friendship.
I don't see why anyone should be shocked that people marry without being in love. Just think of the number of arranged marraiges in the world.

Cloudane

Love is, despite that old cute cartoon thing, kind of hard to define isn't it? Another reason I don't like to pigeonhole it in traditional ways. I have friends (more than one) who I "love" by my definition, that being: caring about them, hurting when they hurt, being happy when they're happy, getting a warm feeling from their presence and missing them in their absence, often wanting to just give them a big hug (easier to "get away with" when drunk, or of course online friends), would probably kiss/cuddle with if it wasn't so awkward for guys to do that with friends at least in the society we know and considered automatically a romantic/relationship-seeking thing etc. (From what I hear it's more common and accepted on the continent)

Admittedly I'm bisexual, so that might have something to do with it, but it doesn't always come with a desire to do sexual things and sexuality is ridiculously difficult to define as well.

I'm possibly more confused than most But for me the level of 'love' I feel in close friendships is certainly enough to keep me happy without any of these one on one romantic things that from my PoV are hard not to see as social constructs (that's not to claim that they are, just my perspective)

moneyistooshorttomention

I wouldnt dispute that - possibly - arranged marriages could work in a culture where that is the norm. But it would have to be a modern-day type version of at least getting the chance to meet each other first and to say "no" to it if they wanted.

In our culture though - we expect romantic love and I know I, personally, wouldnt have dreamt of getting married without that. Hence I never got married. I've been "in lust", I've been "very fond of" - but I've never loved a man. I have always known that if I entered a marriage without that - then I wouldnt stand a hope in heck of being faithful to them and I wouldnt regard that as particularly fair to them.

If I had married someone I didnt love - then I would have carried right on looking for Mr Right. (even if I'd tried very hard to "shut off" from other men). I know myself well enough to know that fact. As it is - I took the gamble that the best thing to do would be to stay single until I met him and accept that maybe I never would do so. In the event - I never did do so.

I still believe I took the right decision. It's been hard spending the last 40 years of my life a lot worse off financially than I would have done if I had got married (ie 2 people to pay the mortgage/bills/etc instead of just me) and I do regret having been worse off financially - but not enough to think that, if I had my time again, I would marry the "best available" man in order to avoid that.

I would have always been worried that the day or the week or the year after I married "someone else" that I would eventually meet Him and then the sh*t would have hit the fan one way or another.

Maybe I might have "succumbed" if I'd wanted children - but I'm very thankful I never did - and that meant I was free to "take the gamble and wait and hope" I would meet Him.

I find it so sad that so many people do seem to have married without it being Love:(

fierystormcloud

Cloudane wrote: »

Yeah, there is still an unbelievable amount of pressure to get on the marriage/house/kids treadmill regardless of whether or not all that interests you. Here's a shocking confession: I'm in my 30s, happily single, and live with my parents, and am content to do so. I can already see the pitchforked mob coming to call me a sad person, a burden on my parents and a failure at life. There are programmes on Channel 4 about people like me

Yet I do have a full-time job, pay my way in the household and my parents want me around (they've made that clear). I enjoy their company and vice versa. It's a win for us all in a country where houses are so expensive and living costs are so high and it just makes very little sense to try and struggle along on your own.

I'll probably get a lot of hate for this, but oh well - from my PoV am not doing anyone any harm. There are people in far worse situations in the world and people who do much worse things in society than the crime of being single and living with parents :shrug:

Awwww bless you! I don't see why anyone would give you any hate! And good for you for being happy to stay with parents. If there is room, and you get on well, and it works well for all of you, then why the hell not?

It's a travesty that people are made to feel like poo for being single and not having children! As has been said, there are enough people having kids now, so it won't hurt for some people to not have them!

I am married with no kids (married 10 years) and I constantly get nagged by people 'well you MUST want them soon! You're not getting any younger etc.' *Rolls eyes*

Loz01 wrote: »

A few people I work with who are older than me (i.e.: 40-50, Im 29) have said to me it was the done thing to get married in 70's/80's and they see their relationship as more "friendly" now than being in love... I guess you can't keep that feeling forever but it still seems quite sad that so many people seem to be in a relationship they don't actually like, just for convenience? Id rather be on my own.

I agree. I have spoken to a number of people who have said similar things, and have seen a few couples who married pre-1990s, who don't seem to even like each other! Let alone love each other. But they stay together because it's preferable to being alone. Some of the couples in question have had affairs too, but stick together anyway for some bizarre reason. Very sad.

AubreyMac wrote: »

I think there is still a social stigma about being long term single, especially for men.

One of my male friends thinks being married is more for status for men, especially those in top positions in work.

I also think being 'in love' can/does wear out.

As for a cheating partner, my grandfather had an affair. Back then my grandma had nowhere else to go so had to stay. She made it her mission to make the rest of his life hell and would verbally beat him down about it each day. It may have made her feel better to punish him this way but she made herself ill over it and both died rather young (grandma ensured she was buried really far from him). I would never want to live like this so if a boyfriend ever cheated, he'd be chucked immediately.

What an incredibly sad story, but more common than many think. Several of my nan's neighbours who married in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, had husbands who had affairs, and the women did occasionally too. Their relationships just weren't great! One man used to keep all his wages to himself, and gave his wife about a tenth of it for housekeeping and bills and childcare, and squandered the rest on other women. The wife hardly ever had a thing! Rarely new clothes, no meals out, no holidays. And I knew a few like this. The wives always stayed. They stayed together til the end, but seemed to argue endlessly and really dislike each other!

(Not all couples of course, but some.....)

And as we have established, even in the 1970s and 1980s, some people got married because it was the done thing, and they are still with them, and not in love with them. A few have fallen out of love; some never were in love. (Again not all, but some...) As I said, I was shocked when my colleague said she has never been in love with her husband, and if she had the money, she would leave him. In addition, she has never been in love with anyone.