To think ‘I could have married you?’

[User2638394]

I am incredibly happy with my husband, who is a gorgeous, clever, funny, kind, decent man. I truly love and adore him and would / could never be unfaithful. I choose him every day.

But sometimes I meet men (usually through work) and get on with them in a way that makes me think ‘if things had been different, I could have happily married you.’ I’m not in love with them and don’t want anything from them, but I have this feeling that in another life, I could have been happy with them. It’s happened perhaps 2 or 3 times in my life.

Does anyone else feel this way? That you sometimes just have a piercing awareness of how different your life might have been and how under different circumstances you could have loved someone else?

YANBU. I completely understand what you are saying. I used to work with a guy who I get on very well with. We are very similar in background, personality and outlook, and quickly became good friends. Communication was easy and instinctive from the start. We always knew what one another was thinking about an issue, or a person. Often, a raised eyebrow was all it took. We have been mistaken for a couple, although nothing ever happened between us.

I am in a very happy LTR, but I could easily imagine being married to ‘Frank’. It’s not something we have discussed, though. That would be too weird...

I think it is both. I think there has to be that element of special, the sudden recognition of someone, the way you feel and the way you lose time when you look into their eyes, but then also as time goes by the choice becomes just as important, the choosing to do things to keep the relationship good and healthy.

In relation to special, I am guessing there isn't just one out there, but I am not convinced that there would be multitudes.

No, I have the complete opposite to be honest. I am completely intolerant of basically everyone in the world apart from DP, but especially men.

I have no attraction towards my husband or any other man, for that matter. And I think it's because that part of me has died a death. It's all in shadow. I don't see beauty the way I did when I was happier. In fact, I find most men repulsive now, which is sad.

Vanguardsix I was where you are now and felt exactly like that. I'm now separated, and while I have no plans for a relationship any time soon, and am guarded about men, that part of me has come back to life, it wasn't actually dead. The appreciation for beauty of all kinds has come back too. I was just depressed, anxious and ground down while living with my ex.

for you and I hope you get where you want to be. You're still you somewhere in there.

Yes..! I think it’s normal to think like that..has no bearing on your current relationship I don’t think, I’ve often thought about different lives I could’ve had..not that I’d necessarily want

@TheVanguardSix I have no attraction towards my husband or any other man, for that matter. And I think it's because that part of me has died a death. It's all in shadow. I don't see beauty the way I did when I was happier. In fact, I find most men repulsive now, which is sad. I was in a similar situation and felt the same, and interestingly many women thought my mean dh was the bee's knees, seeing what I had seen before we were married no doubt, but then after years of avoiding men I met someone and suddenly the colour came back into the world again, so never say never

I think part of this is about expectations, as well. I've noticed a lot of women on Mumsnet seem to think it's more likely than not that any given partner will be moody, useless around the house, even unfaithful and I think I've been very lucky and so am hopelessly naive (grew up seeing my parents in a very happy marriage, both my serious boyfriends before DH were very nice people and no one did anything wrong, we just weren't quite right) and so I think I have a baseline expectation of being treated well by a partner (I was really struck by that when people were posting that shark cage/domestic abuse post on here). So while I think DH, who is kind, funny and very dedicated to us being genuinely equal partners, is great, I don't have that sense of having got a rare diamond out of a general cesspit?

No never, I've never gotten close enough to another man to develop that opinion? Either you are getting inappropriately close to men, or you are sensationalising a person, I assume it's the latter though lol!

Yes. Not often but yes.

I completely understand this, OP. It's happened to me. I recognised that I was very happy with DH, though. What I mean is that this never threatened our marriage.

You only have to look at the numbers of people who marry twice to know that there is more than one perfect partner.

No never. I didn't really care about marriage but knew I wanted to marry my DH. I can look at other men and think I would have wanted to date you if I was not married but I think if me and DH ever divorce I probably wouldn't marry again.

I have honestly never felt I could marry and stay with anyone other than my DH. I am quite quirky, independent and difficult in some ways, I guess he is in others - I just feel like no one else would put up with me and no one else would truly appreciate him. We have been together around 30 years and it just works in a way I have never even fleetingly though it would work with anyone else.

it’s more of a strong general sense that while I am committed to my husband, it’s because of my choices rather than any cosmic sense of destiny / fate / soulmates, and that I could also have been happy with someone else.

That's pretty much my take on it. I don't believe in fate or soulmates and there are billions of us on this planet so chances are there are quite a lot of men I could have been happy with. However, it took me 30 years of adult life to find the right man at the right time and now I've got him, no bloody way am I letting go

No, I’ve never personally felt this way. When I stopped loving my ex husband I did start noticing other men more but I just left the marriage. I’ve never been interested in another man since meeting DP.

No never, I've never gotten close enough to another man to develop that opinion? Either you are getting inappropriately close to men, or you are sensationalising a person, I assume it's the latter though lol!

Nonsense. Do you live in an entirely sex-segregated world? Don't you work with men, socialise with men, have pastimes where some of the participants? And there's nothing 'sensational' about thinking that, had circumstances been different, you and some other man could have made a go of it. It's not something that happens a lot, or not to me, anyway -- I've come across two people in the 28 years I've been with my husband, and other than registering the thought enough to remember it, it didn't cause me any internal drama, any more than thinking it would have been nice to live in France if I'd taken a different job ten years ago.

Yes, i don't really believe that there's one person who's the only one you could ever truly love, the odds are you'd never meet them (even if they lived in the same country!)

I think DH is the best of the people I've met, obviously, but there are others who i could probably have settled down with and had a happy life.

@Sherkin I work full time around lots of men, and nope never met anyone I've wanted to marry! My point is surely you'd need to get quite close to someone to think you could marry them?! How would you get that close to a colleague? Or even a male friend tbh? I don't believe there's one person out there for us, of course not, but I've never got close enough to anyone to think I could marry them barring my husband, which obviously developed over years (teen relationship) To think someone is good looking or fancy them a bit is different course because that's quite easy to do superficially!

I think you're misunderstanding me, @avalanching. I didn't 'want to marry' either of these men -- I'd been happily married for years, and it had never occurred to me to look elsewhere.

It was just a fairly factual recognition that, as pps have also said, that here was someone else I could probably have been happy with, had I not chosen DH years earlier, or never met him. It caused no internal drama whatsoever, and it's been two people in total in almost 29 years.

I suppose I'd always been theoretically aware that there were other people I could have been in a happy longterm relationship with, had I not met DH, but these were the only two times I'd actually met someone and seen how it could have worked in other circumstances. I just thought 'Oh, interesting' and didn't give it much more thought either time.

I don't see an issue in getting to know colleagues well -- work has been my most reliable source of male and female friendships in recent years.

think part of this is about expectations, as well. I've noticed a lot of women on Mumsnet seem to think it's more likely than not that any given partner will be moody, useless around the house, even unfaithful and I think I've been very lucky and so am hopelessly naive (grew up seeing my parents in a very happy marriage, both my serious boyfriends before DH were very nice people and no one did anything wrong, we just weren't quite right) and so I think I have a baseline expectation of being treated well by a partner (I was really struck by that when people were posting that shark cage/domestic abuse post on here). So while I think DH, who is kind, funny and very dedicated to us being genuinely equal partners, is great, I don't have that sense of having got a rare diamond out of a general cesspit?

I totally get this. I was hugely lucky with my male role models growing up and had 3 serious boyfriends before I met my husband who were all lovely, kind, respectful men who treated me well. I wasn’t suited to them in the way I feel so incredibly suited to my husband, but it’s not like I had to wade through shit to meet the one man who was half decent!

The shark cage analogy is an incredibly perceptive one, that thread made me so sad for so many women though.

No never, I've never gotten close enough to another man to develop that opinion? Either you are getting inappropriately close to men, or you are sensationalising a person, I assume it's the latter though lol!

I think you’re misunderstanding. I don’t know any of the men where I have thought this well enough to actually know whether we would be happy together, and I don’t want to be married to them. It’s just having that sense of clicking with someone in a way that makes you think ‘in another world, we might have suited’. It’s inevitably superficial because I don’t know these people in any meaningful sense, but it sparks a recognition that other people exist who I could potentially have found as compelling as my husband, had circumstances been different.

think part of this is expectations I think that there are a lot of men out there who haven't been brought up with enough love or understanding of emotional intimacy, more than there are women possibly because of how many parts of our society think about bringing up boys, and that affects how they are in their relationships with women and generally, and in terms of numbers affects women's chances of finding a decent man. - but at the same time I agree that if you have been brought up with the expectation of a good relationship with a normal loving man then then that is more likely to be your expectation, and you will probably subconsciously filter off anything else. A woman's self esteem is a big part of this - which often goes back to upbringing and expectations - she might know logically that there are decent men out there and that that should be the expectation but still subconsciously gravitate to men who don't treat them well. Though there is always the possibility and opportunity for men and women to change and to change their expectations.

I think that this thread is also about the fact that some, but not all, people find a deep happiness from their relationship, not just that their partner is decent, loving, normal, behaves well. And I think for those the Tim mantra that "someone else will do" doesn't enter their thinking, whether Tim is clever or logical or not?

Yes I agree op. Met Mr formerbabe in a bar, who knows if I hadn't gone to that particular place, I could be sitting here married to someone else and he'd equally have met someone else and we'd be living totally different lives.

Interesting discussion.

I read once that people who believe in fate are more likely to disengage from relationships when things get hard as it clearly isn't 'fate' if things aren't rosy.

I think thoughts of 'the one' can be particularly harmful for some serially single people waiting for 'the one' when what they really ought to be doing is figuring out their own relationship attachment issues and why they can't hold down a relationship. It's no coincidence that when people do this internal work they often find a partner quite quickly

Everyone meets people they feel attracted to when they are married, but I think it's unusual to think about marrying other people on several different occasions. I have fancied people yes but I can't imagine marrying them. You seem to get very strong feelings easily op!

Yes mine is an ex, we crossed paths again years later and our lives are almost parallel, similar hobbies, jobs, family set ups etc, I think we’d have worked really well together if we’d only been a bit older and he often says the same but both very happily married now so no risk of an affair just a kind of comfortable fondness.

I often think about how my life could have been different if I had taken another path. It could be as little as thinking, what if I had made that train or as big as, what if I had split up with my horrid ex sooner. I don't do the could have married you part, but it isn't like you are wanting that other life, just considering what it would have been like.

The problem comes if one day you think, I wish I'd married you