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

catkins

74jax wrote: »

I know, not many will agree with me. If I had a friend who invited me over to theirs for a meal and all hubby and I were doing was staying in watching the TV, I'd be round at my friends in a heart beat. Same with hubby, if I'm going shopping or our for lunch he's not interested and would rather go kitesurfing with his friends.

Its just how we both are, but I think that's the clue - it's us BOTH. No one else would put us with, we're absolutely perfect for each other.

I adore our time together as a couple, even now I'm smiling thinking of a meal out with him etc.

We hold hand walking, at the table, cuddle (or drape! over each other), kiss in public etc, always have. I am very much still in the 'in-love' stage, but like I say we've only been married 3 years so would hope so. We've been a couple for 10 years.

Yes, of course, if you both feel that way and are happy with it that is all that matters.

I've been married over 30 years and still think we are "in love". A stranger asked us recently if we were newly married!

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I think that's just being tactile - lovely but separate from being in love.

But as I said, I am not a tactile person at all. I hate being touched by people I barely know - someone standing to close to me say in a queue really unsettles me. I never kiss any of my family except my parents but that is really just habit.

As other posters have said different people obviously have different ideas as to what "being in love" means. I honestly think I am in love with my OH but I can only go on how I feel and how I have felt about ex-boyfriends.

Obviously after over 30 years together it's not all romance and butterflies and fireworks. He does sometimes work away for a week at a time and I am always excited at the thought of him coming home and when he does, yes, I get butterflies

maman

I knew an elderly couple who stayed together although they hated the sight of each other, argued all the time and made everyone around them embarrassed and miserable. Apparently on their wedding day (after the ceremony) she told him she had a child by an American GI that she'd kept a secret. Probably a generational thing but what a waste of a life. Or even two lives.

Hard_Up_Hester

An acquaintance of mine recently had a 40th wedding anniversary party, I'm not sure why they were celebrating, they spend most of their time not speaking to each other as one or the other is in a sulk and they have both had at least one affair each. Oh well each to their own.

I've been with my husband 16 years, I still get weak at the knees at the sight of him and I love him to bits, I'm in love with him as well.

fierystormcloud

Hard_Up_Hester wrote: »

An acquaintance of mine recently had a 40th wedding anniversary party, I'm not sure why they were celebrating, they spend most of their time not speaking to each other as one or the other is in a sulk and they have both had at least one affair each. Oh well each to their own.

I've been with my husband 16 years, I still get weak at the knees at the sight of him and I love him to bits, I'm in love with him as well.

Awww that's precious.

Sad tale about the couple though. Not too uncommon sadly.

There are occasions when I want to strangle my DH, but I do love him, and have a lot of fun with him, and wouldn't wanna be without him!

maman wrote: »

I knew an elderly couple who stayed together although they hated the sight of each other, argued all the time and made everyone around them embarrassed and miserable. Apparently on their wedding day (after the ceremony) she told him she had a child by an American GI that she'd kept a secret. Probably a generational thing but what a waste of a life. Or even two lives.

Incredibly sad.

Money_saving_maniac wrote: »

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 marriages in the world.

Good point. Still, in this western world where we don't have arranged marriages (generally,) people shouldn't be marrying people they don't love.

Robin-o'-the-Hood

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.

If I did find someone who also had an income then it'd obviously open up other options and priorities, and sharing between 2 is more feasible. I'm aware of the chicken-and-egg problem between "finding someone" and "living with your parents" though (puts off a lot of people) but the kicker is I'm not actually all that interested.
A modern workaround is perhaps living with friends or seeking random lodgers but er... I already know what I'm getting with the people I live with and it's stable Vs. potential problems, having to find new lodgers when people marry off and move on etc.

It seems more likely at this point that I'll be there for life and end up looking after them into old age, repaying the favour they did me when I was a kid. Can't see how that's a big crime really - beats carting them off to some old folks home in 2-3 decades time.

Honestly I think the pressure is an old habit and also one of the things that used to feed into homophobia as well - it used to be a lot more necessary to have as many people as possible reproducing, and someone who wouldn't or couldn't was considered an unfortunate waste of a person. But now there are 7 billion people on this crowded little rock, with very little progress towards getting off it in recent decades, and it's expanding all the time. There's just no need for everyone to be spawning. Maybe given the current global relations that will all change when WW3 hits and the world's population is decimated, but I think we'll have worse things to worry about at that point anyway and we certainly won't be sitting here posting on the internet...

But yeah if I had £1 for every time someone judged me negatively for being a singleton living with parents or assumed I was unhappy, I'd be able to have my own mansion :P

From a "MoneySaving" point of view I see it that I'm not unnecessarily struggling away trying to pay a mortgage or commercial rent costs (sharing costs is different to paying for-profit rental), my parents hopefully won't have to go into care late in life if I'm around to help and so won't have to sell the house to pay for it, there isn't the potential senseless waste of divorce costs when the marriage you were pressured into falls apart and we can all afford to do the things we love and go places.

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:

No hate from me. A welcome change from stories about people having to leave home because they didn't get on with their parents. Very sad.

mariposa687

This is a particularly interesting thread for me. When my ex and I were having problems he came out with the 'I love you but I'm not in love with you ' line - those exact words. He rambled on about how he thought we could get the romance back etc but I wasn't having any of it. I couldn't believe he thought we could still be together after that.

That's just not good enough for me. I broke up with him because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with him wondering when or if he would fall back in love with me again.

missbiggles1

maman wrote: »

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

But, again, you're talking about love and not being in love. I don't see how you could possibly work at being "in love" - it's pretty well the opposite of what it's about.

System

Whether or not your in love with each other you can still have a future together. I think they call it companionship.

System

I hate to throw a cat into the mix...



Some people are happy to spend their life with or without someone regardless of love and some like to live with lets say a large feline family. Each to their own i suppose

Loz01

LilElvis wrote: »

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:

Haha I think I was being kind about my colleagues ages more than anything :rotfl: maybe saying getting married in 80's/90's would've been more appropriate :rotfl:

And just to clarify I didn't mean its a bad thing to be just friendly with your other half!! Obviously you want your husband/wife/gf/bf to be the person you spend most of your time with so you should be best mates really, I just meant I have encountered people who genuinely don't seem to like the person they're married to!