Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have chosen a different life

557 replies

halfwaythroughaugust · 15/08/2019 07:34

I chose to marry a man who to be honest I don’t love. He’s a good man but quite dull and his family irritate me to the point where I dislike them.

I did this because to be honest I wanted children.

AIBU? I don’t think I’d have been any happier if I’d stayed single without my kids.

OP posts:
summersherewishiwasnt · 15/08/2019 20:26

I do think it was a bit cruel to not let him decide if he wanted to marry given how you felt at the time.

Hopoindown31 · 15/08/2019 20:29

You made your choice, either make peace with it or leave him. Either way sympathy isn't something you deserve much of.

derxa · 15/08/2019 20:40

,

TatianaLarina · 15/08/2019 20:42

Not particularly, i was replying to the pp.

tierraJ · 15/08/2019 20:44

2 of my best friends married for love.

My oldest best friend has been with her husband since 2002, they still text each other every lunchtime if they're apart... it's really lovely, & they are still flirty. They even wear similar his n hers jackets!

My other bestie definitely has a good sex life with her husband! They were I know at it straight after the birth of her second child! So basically its a myth that having children around kill your sex life.
They often go on date nights away.

That's what I'm looking for, true love (and lust). No boring settling for me.
I've known too many couples where mainly the women have settled & it rarely goes well.
I know they often cheat & feel resentful.

It means I'm too late to have children but I've got & had serious mental illness anyway so would struggle to be a mum sadly.

U2HasTheEdge · 15/08/2019 20:46

I don't see this husband as some victim. I am going to credit him with a bit of intelligence and assume he was happy to marry the OP. If he wanted a relationship with more passion etc then I doubt he would have married her. He seems happy with the marriage they have (taking this thread at face value).

I am sure he knows he has never set her world on fire and the OP describes what many view as love anyway, and what most marriages end up being.

I think people are having such strong reactions to this because they don't want to be faced with the fact that this happens a lot. This isn't anything new or unusual. People do it all the time.

MarshaBradyo · 15/08/2019 20:49

U2 did you, would you be ok if your partner did?

My posts are because I know I’d hate it. And I still reckon most would.

MarshaBradyo · 15/08/2019 20:49

The op probably would.

U2HasTheEdge · 15/08/2019 20:50

I do think it was a bit cruel to not let him decide if he wanted to marry given how you felt at the time.

Unless OP is an exceptional actress I am sure he was aware of the strength (or lack of) her feelings. Lets give this man some credit.

Watchingthyme · 15/08/2019 20:50

@U2HasTheEdge
THIS WITH BELLS ON

Look people, you know if someone loves you passionately; if anyone doesn’t, they’re either with a hardcore narcissist, they’re really stupid and naive, or they’re happy with the outcome

MarshaBradyo · 15/08/2019 20:52

Nope I don’t think it’s his fault for not noticing.

Same as when a husband says well I never loved you couldn’t you tell Confused on divorce / meeting someone else. Handy get out must would find that another blow.

MarshaBradyo · 15/08/2019 20:52

Most

U2HasTheEdge · 15/08/2019 21:00

U2 did you, would you be ok if your partner did?

I wasn't crazy in love with my first husband. I was so bloody young and immature. I wanted to be but I wasn't. He knew. I didn't deceive him. How I ended up in that relationship is a very long story.

My 2nd husband I love madly and I married for love completely. I wouldn't like to think he 'settled' for me, no. However, if he didn't have that love for me I would have known before I agreed to marry him.

MarshaBradyo · 15/08/2019 21:03

I can’t get on board with the op’s dh being in any way to blame for this.

The idea that someone can pretend to love someone to have children then say well you idiot it was obvious I didn’t so I’m off Scot free, sounds like a nightmare.

Hopefullyendsmeet · 15/08/2019 21:06

I wasn't crazy in love with my first husband. I was so bloody young and immature. I wanted to be but I wasn't. He knew. I didn't deceive him.

That’s the difference. The OP married her husband knowing he was in love with her and letting him believe it was mutual. She deceived him in order to have children.

Yes, it’s possible he might realise now. But it’s a bit late to unmake children.

U2HasTheEdge · 15/08/2019 21:17

I don't think he is to blame for anything. I just think he is happy with the set up they have and the amount of love OP shows him.

This is what OP says

And as I’ve repeatedly said I do love him in a way, but it isn’t passionate romantic love, it’s borne from affection and respect.

Sounds like they just skipped the honey moon period and skipped to what most marriages end up as. I don't think he is to blame for anything, but I also don't think OP is an arsehole or has deceived this man and deprived him of 'true love'.

SAHM2019 · 15/08/2019 21:20

Unreasonable 🤔 I wouldn't say so no. It's sad for your husband (if he is oblivious about your feelings) but lots of people do it. Lots of people also fall in love, start a family and then fall out of love but stay in the relationship/marriage for the children so are doing the same thing and staying in relationship with a person they arent in love with. If you posted that are having an affair because you find your husband dull and never loved him, then yes that would definitely BU. But you've said that you are nice to him so I assume he has a nice home life with you? So really at the moment I think the person you are doing the most injustice to is yourself. Because you arent as happy as you could be in your marriage had you chosen a man with your heart as well as just logic.
A friend of mine who is single and desperately wanting to start a family and panicking about her biological clock said the same thing to me about choosing a man who had a certain salary and his own home and was stable so that they could start a family. My response was 'whatever makes you happy, but I'd go for the soul and not the materialism'. Because although you say you don't think you would have been any happier single and childless, you are clearly lacking something in your marriage which isn't really being happy.
I think you are being unreasonable to yourself by depriving yourself of sharing love in a romantic way with your husband.

MarshaBradyo · 15/08/2019 21:21

Well some could settle and be ok with I do love him in a way. I couldn’t but yeh I suppose some do.

The op was much starker than that though. I don’t love him and honestly did it for children. So different messages.

No idea which it is.

U2HasTheEdge · 15/08/2019 21:24

That’s the difference. The OP married her husband knowing he was in love with her and letting him believe it was mutual. She deceived him in order to have children.

When I say my first husband knew, I never told him. It was just bloody obvious that there was no passion there. I didn't set out to do it but the result was the same. Unless OP's husband is complaining about their marriage I assume he is fine with the marriage they have.

Whats to say that he doesn't feel exactly the same as OP?

Hopefullyendsmeet · 15/08/2019 21:24

I chose to marry a man who to be honest I don’t love. He’s a good man but quite dull and his family irritate me to the point where I dislike them.

I did this because to be honest I wanted children.

This is the OP.

It’s not the same thing as settling into the “years down the line” love.

U2HasTheEdge · 15/08/2019 21:25

Well some could settle and be ok with I do love him in a way. I couldn’t but yeh I suppose some do.

It wouldn't be for me either.

Hopefullyendsmeet · 15/08/2019 21:27

U2

And that’s the thing isn’t it. You’re no longer married to him and you are married to someone you DO love. Imagine still being married to your first husband. That’s where the OP is right now. Awful thought isn’t it?

MarshaBradyo · 15/08/2019 21:27

But I’m with Hopefully that op is as blunt as you like. All the fudging round it later on by other posters doesn’t change it.

U2HasTheEdge · 15/08/2019 21:39

And that’s the thing isn’t it. You’re no longer married to him and you are married to someone you DO love. Imagine still being married to your first husband. That’s where the OP is right now. Awful thought isn’t it?

I could probably have handled staying with him if we had an affectionate respectful relationship like the OP describes. We didn't though.

I am not going to assume that OP's husband is unhappy with what they have.

Hopefullyendsmeet · 15/08/2019 21:44

U2

But you later met someone you really do love who you married?

Then you of all people will understand that there’s a world of difference between “handling” a relationship and being in a mutually fulfilling one.