To ask if you love your partner more than you love your parents?

I love my parents. But I have lived with my husband a lot longer than I lived with my parents.

Oh, I found that comment really patronising 🤨 I hate this notion that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m in my 20’s? I definitely do know… I’ve been through enough to know what I want and why…. but thank you anyhow

@Immemorialelms was exactly right @PoliteTurtle and your initital position and your further responses, particularly your insistance that you are right and that there is no other option betrays your immaturity.

In fact, that you truly believe with such utter confidence in your twenties that if your partner died that you 'would never date again', underlines that immaturity. It's a sign of maturity to appreciate that your personality changes sometimes in quite fundamental ways as you age and experience life. Grief particularly changes people especially loss of a life partner at a young age.

It's very sad that you can't actually open your mind to the idea that you are most likely wrong in your certainty but at the very least admit that it is a possiblity that you are wrong.

I'm taking "love" to mean whose death would you be most upset at.

This doesn’t speak well about my relationship if I admit I love(d) my parents and my children more than DP. I have more history with my parent(s) and my kids ate basically my heart.

I think it's different kinds of love as well. Why does it have to be about who you love more?

OP if you’re very close to your parents now it’s very likely you’ll remain so. You can see from the responses that not everyone is close to family and there are often reasons for that but if you have that bond it doesn’t go away just because you experience the love of a romantic partner

I love my husband a lot. I love my mum a lot. It's a different kind of love. The ds's I too love, differently.

No I don't love him more. I love them equally in different ways.

I have a very close relationship with my parents.

Yes, I do.

Neither of them are my emotional centre! I am my own emotional centre. Thanks to therapy.

DP is autistic so can’t, parents both immature & self-centred.

Yes of course and it starts from the first few dates.
You can even love friends more than your parents. Your family can be one you choose.

I like my partner a lot more then my parents but love... I guess it depends on what you mean by that.

A rushing sense of euphoria when I see them after an absence, or unconditional loyalty and duty

Oh, I found that comment really patronising 🤨 I hate this notion that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m in my 20’s? I definitely do know… I’ve been through enough to know what I want and why…. but thank you anyhow

For me it's different rather than more. My parents are wonderful and if I hadn't met my husband their love would have been more than enough for me. So it's not like I feel I've 'upgraded' by meeting him!

I love my son the most though. To the extent that if I had to choose 1 out of my parents or my partner I would always choose my partner because its what's best for my son.

It's an interesting question: I think my generic response would be 'it's different'.

I feel a greater sense of duty / responsibility towards my (elderly, widowed) mother than my OH, because he can take care of himself.

In terms of actual love? I don't know. I think I probably do love my OH more than my mother in the sense of 'the person I want to be with right now'.

Very complicated.

I love my partner and children more than my parents, my dad passed away a few years ago and while I loved him and was broken hearted I know it would be on a different scale if I lost my husband who is an amazing man

A different perspective from a widow. I spent nearly 30 years with my DH until he died suddenly. I didn't spend 30 years living with my parents, I didn't go to bed with them every night or wake up with them every morning. I hadn't been on holiday with them since I was a teenager. So the majority of my adult life was shared with DH. All the laughter, tears, house moves, our old dog dying, changes in careers and everything in between. We shared a similar sense of humour, taste in music and political and world views much of which did not align with my parents' outlook due to generational differences. My demeanour was, to some extent, adjusted when I spoke to my mum whereas I could be 100% myself with my husband.

My parents are both dead now and I would dearly love to see and hug them and I have wonderful memories but the person I would want most in all the world to walk through the door would be my DH.

I love them equally but differently.

Oh, I get you! Yes, that is true. I am looking back on my relationships, and you are looking forwards.

I love my DH immensely but when my parents were alive I loved them differently but just as much.

My parents dying were easily the worst things in my life. I didn't realise how much of an anchor they were and just how much I owe them for my stable upbringing (more or less anyway). And, their unconditional love.

I think there is a difference in grief for those who have lived a natural life span and those who have not. I know my FIL was affected all his life by the very early death of his mother in her thirties.

The question is odd. Surely, the love is different - but still strong. I lost my mum six months before my adult son (24) and my grief for him displaced my grief for mum, for many years. Now, I am catching up with grief for my mum. I loved them both intensely, but differently. Both, however, are in my heart and bones. Love is not a pizza, where those that you love are allocated different sized slices. I expect my daughters to love their children with an intensity which eclipses their feelings for me. It does not mean that their love for me is ‘less’, just less intense and coloured by the knowledge that their children are the future and parents will one day be the past. What made you ask such a question?

Well, my parents wouldn't even make it onto the list!
But even in "normal" circumstances, I think it's to be expected that we move on from our parents as we age. So then a partner (& children, if we have them) become the priority.
And for single and partnered adults, I think our close friends also take priority over parents - when we're adults, our relationships do change.

My parents are now dead but I love DH more than I loved them.
DH I'm sure does love PIL, but the change in them, their demands and unrealistic expectations and opinions they have as they have become older and frailer means he thinks very differently of them than he did years ago. And not in a favourable way.

Maybe it feels different because my dad is dead and my mum is so frail now that tbh I wish it was over for her. I'll be broken when my mum is finally released from life but love now is more about her as she used to be, whereas my love for dp is active and present.

I know in theory that I love ds more than dp but again ds is living his own life as it should be, so loving him is not as salient in my mind.