To have chosen a different life

[halfwaythroughaugust]

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.

Do you pretend to be interested in him?

You sound very cold and cruel. I feel sorry for your DH. It is horrible to deny him thr chance of happiness, what arrogance to assume you are the best he was going to get. I assume most people would prefer to be in mutually loving relationships.

YABVU

But you said you only love him "sort of" because he is the father of your children. So before that happened, did you love him even in that depressingly half-hearted way?

There are many different foundations for relationships and no guarantee that any starting point will lead to long term success. If it works for you and your husband, then I don't see the problem.

If we asked every PP to define "Love" we would have 20 different answers.

By someone else's definition you do love him OP.

I sound cold but I’m not, really.

I personally think it’s better to be a bit cold about some matters, or at least to keep a clear head and consider the sort of person you want to father your children and the environment you want those children to grow up in.

Do you have a good sex life?

Weaning I believe there is an initial period of sexual attraction that we mistake for love.

Now I didn’t really have that, no.

However, through shared experiences you bond with people and affection and love follow.

So we travelled, we had fun, we had problems and fixed them, we supported one another, we bonded. Love? Maybe. I guess so.

I dont think what you've done is actually that unusual, i just think most do it subconsciously. I also think a large portion, like myself, go with the disneyfied idea that love will conquer all etc etc. and it just isnt true. If i had my time again id probably be much more pragmatic about marriage where children are concerned.

I think you are being flippant OP

For most people life and falling in love is not a Hollywood movie. It is much more pragmatic than that.

I doubt you do not love him, if he were to leave you for a pretty colleague, would you feel relief or sadness? If he keeled over with a heart attack, would you just think "oh well, I don't cared much about him anyway?"

I doubt it.

Most couples do not have Romeo and Juliet intensity, and love can come slowly

Not now with two small kids shimmery but I don’t think that’s any different to any other parents of toddlers

This is very common so why people are getting their knickers in a twist, I really dont know. The way people talk, you’d think most marriages are perfect. Which is clearly bollocks. Probably more than half marriages are some sort of compromise and in a high minority of marriages, the couple cant stand each other, despite the air brushed shite they might post on FB. If the op and her partner rub along ok and the kids are happy, they’re probably doing better than most.

That probably sounds quite cold but he was a decent companion and friend and now I do sort of love him through him being the father of my children

Where I live its common for people to enter into marriage for non romantic reasons and whilst some do end in divorce I know of many many marriages that have gone on happily for decades and are full of love.

halfwaythroughaugust - I get not being to able to not have children. I am going to have children...alone if I’m still single in a couple of years. I just couldn’t do that to another person and use them in that way. It seemed incredibly arrogant of me to think that just because I couldn’t love him, some other woman wouldn’t. It wasn’t my decision to make for him. “Dull”

That’s it solitude

And I know many people who have done this but it’s subconscious whereas in my case it was very conscious which is the difference I suppose.

I'm quite surprised that so many posters are scandalised by this. I'm sure it happens all the time.

The thing is name (and I am not one of them) some people would say choosing to have a child alone is supremely selfish.

I certainly don't think you're the only one who married for a reason other than being madly in love with someone.

As PP said marrying for love is a relatively recent concept and in many countries and cultures love doesn't even come into it and yet the marriage can still be long and happy.

Love doesn't always last anyway and what people think is love may be something entirely different altogether. Look at the countless threads on here of unhappy relationships, many of them probably started out marrying for love.

If you're both, happy, content and actually like each other, which I think is more important than love, then you're doing a lot better than many on here.

It's really unfair to him if he loves you and you feel you've just settled because you want to have children. Selfish of you.

Basically I'm invested here. After 11 years, a child together, going through all kinds of shit together, my partner has admitted to me he doesn't love me. Still wants to be with me, because he doesn't want to be alone or lose his standard of living. And given I am now a mother of a 2 year old child, to whom he is an involved father and who loves her life, my options are limited. But if I had known from the outset? No bloody way would I have wasted my young, attractive, childfree years with him, compromising on everything to try and make him happy, sacrificing so many opportunities for the sake of his goals.

I'm aware that it was my responsibility to decide if I was happy with those compromises and sacrifices; by I was, on the basis that I was doing it for someone who valued and respected and admired me. Not someone who kept me around and tolerated me because I served a function.

You sound so cold and dispassionate about everything it’s quite bizarre.

This School of Life video might help you to understand the possibilities of love beyond romantic love a little better, OP. Perhaps it will help you to feel a little more hopeful and charitable about your situation.

It occurs to me that even if you'd been wildly and lustfully in love with someone, you could have found his family a complete PITA anyway - you only have to look at all the in-law threads.

As for the 'duty sex' someone mentioned, I suspect that after a few years, and especially after kids, this happens quite a lot anyway, regardless of how anyone felt at first.

If you're kind to each other and supportive, love your children and look after each other's welfare, that is something to be very thankful for IMO.
How many people married their 'perfect' mate, only to have it all go sour some time down the line, because one or other doesn't pull their weight, or is hopeless with money, having affairs, etc.?

@halfwaythroughaugust I think it would better to have one loving parent whose chosen to bring them into their lives than to be languishing in the care system being moved from pillar to post.