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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think I could find love?

29 replies

KittyClark · 11/05/2020 07:17

I’m looking for some hope I think.

I’m a 42 year old woman. I have had various relationships over the years. I fell in love at 22 with a boyfriend who I was with for 3 years. Unfortunately he broke up with me and it completely broke my heart. After that I tried to meet other people. I had a couple of brief flings and 2 years later met a new boyfriend.

My feelings for the new boyfriend were different. I didn’t feel that same intense love but I thought that was normal because this relationship seemed more mutual.

Fast forward. I married the new boyfriend. Had 2 boys with him. Then after 14 years together I met someone else. Someone who completely blew me away. It was those same feelings that I had experienced for the boyfriend I loved.

I was married, didn’t have or want an affair. Other guy was married too. I split up with my husband because it wasn’t fair. Other guy stayed with his wife which I understand and respect. So nothing happened between us.

So now I see that I fell in love aged 22, again aged 40.

Now I am single. Will I ever fall in love again? Is it possible? Not that ‘settling’ love but actual proper deep love like I had at 22 and 40.

I’m concerned that there was 18 years between these feelings. Scared that it could never happen again. Maybe I just got really lucky to even experience it twice.

FWIW I am still very close friends with the 2 men from 22 and 40.

AIBU to hope I could find love a third time?

OP posts:
HonestOpinion10 · 11/05/2020 07:40

But it was unrequited love twice. Both times you loved them more. No i don't hope you find this a third time. I hope your next and last relation is with someone who loves you back just as much.

SaladSpoons · 11/05/2020 07:51

The way you describe it makes you sound helpless in the face of your own feelings, regardless of any mutuality, and as if you have an artificial ‘Soulmate’ vs ‘Settling For’ template for relationships. I’m intrigued that you broke up what sounds like a functional 14 year marriage because you developed a crush on someone who himself remained married, because it reminded you of the level of intensity you felt for someone when you were 22 — I don’t think that getting that back is necessarily a realistic or helpful expectation.

JKScot4 · 11/05/2020 07:54

You left your DH for a man that nothing had happened with? That’s very impulsive and irrational.

megrichardson · 11/05/2020 07:54

Yes of course you might, but perhaps it might be better to love yourself first and I know this sounds wanky. But find some inner peace before you look to someone else to fulfil you.

Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 08:03

I love myself already. I’m very happy in all areas of my life. I would like to share my life with a partner I love.

OP posts:
JustinMyJustin · 11/05/2020 08:08

You left your husband for a man nothing even happened with?Confused

Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 08:28

Boyfriend 1 did love me. It wasn’t unrequited but in the last 6 months of the relationship things changed. I was his first girlfriend and he wanted to experience more than just me.

Friend 2 and I became very close. I fell hard for him. Neither of us are cheats.

OP posts:
Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 08:29

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to split up if you fall in love with someone else.

OP posts:
Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 08:33

I’m not saying that I didn’t have some or most of these feelings for other partners but the 2 men I loved had these similarities.

I really liked them both as people.
I enjoyed spending time with them.
When I was apart from them I felt a physical pull from missing them.
They both made me laugh.
They made me a better person.
I was very sexually attracted to them.
I felt like I was learning from them and developing around them.
Their happiness was very important to me.

OP posts:
Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 08:34

My marriage had a lot of issues. It wasn’t perfect.

OP posts:
Valkadin · 11/05/2020 08:34

Unrequited love is not something to dwell on because if together it could have been awful. So you have a fantasy about how it could have been, you think but you don’t know.

Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 08:37

As I say, it wasn’t unrequited love. It was mutual love in the first case but the relationship ultimately didn’t work out. In the second case he wanted to stay with his children which I understand.

OP posts:
Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 08:37

I was in a 3 year relationship with the first guy so I know what being in love with him felt like.

OP posts:
JKScot4 · 11/05/2020 08:38

I’d think your marriage had issues because you were in fantasy land about another
man.
Your last update sounds li it was written by a teenage girl not a woman of 42, I cringed reading it.
Did your fantasy man ever say he’d leave his wife?

Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 08:59

My marriage had issues because my partner cheated on me.

We never discussed leaving partners. I read on here that people say if you find yourself wanting to have an affair then do the decent thing and leave your partner first. I didn’t want an affair. I knew that if I was in love with someone else that my marriage wasn’t sustainable. I don’t think that’s immature.

OP posts:
Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 09:01

I wrestled with it for a few years. It wasn’t impulsive.

OP posts:
Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 09:12

My question is, can I find love again? How likely is it? Will I need to wait another 18 years? Or, if I hadn’t been married in the middle, would I have loved someone else in that time?

I know that none of you are psychic but I’m interested in your life experience or of the people you know. Does it happen?

OP posts:
LonginesPrime · 11/05/2020 09:14

You left your DH for a man that nothing had happened with? That’s very impulsive and irrational

If you ask me, staying with someone you've realised you don't really love seems irrational!

OP, one of the reasons there were several years between your two loves is because you probably weren't even open to the idea of being with someone else when you were having children and making a home with the man you married. So you can discount those years anyway.

Now you're available and say you're happy in your life, so as long as you're not desperately searching for that feeling of intense love and are open to the idea that every relationship looks different (as opposed to looking for the exact blueprint of what you had before), you may well find love again. No-one can guarantee it, but obviously lots of people find love later in life and not everyone settles.

dontdisturbmenow · 11/05/2020 09:22

Noone can answer your question. It could happen today in the supermarket, or never again. Falling in love is not something you command and indeed some people never experience it.

I think you are questioning it maybe in a desperate way because you want to move on from your friend. Ultimately, you left your husband for him, or 6iu could have divorced sooner and he chose not to do the same. You must still in love with him and looking for distraction.

Time will ease the feeling, gradually. Do remember that somehow, you are more likely to meet someone you're madly in love with when you are not looking or expecting it.

Also, these sort of love more than often evolve, so that after a few years, you don't feel the same heat but the happiness from the companionship and/or friendship becomes more important.

Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 09:27

If you ask me, staying with someone you've realised you don't really love seems irrational! - that was my thinking too.

OP posts:
Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 09:29

Yes I’m still pining for my friend and hoping that one day I could feel this way about someone else.

I’m in no rush though. I don’t feel desperate. I just want to have some hope.

OP posts:
Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 09:30

I definitely agree with the finding love when you’re not looking. Both times for me I was good friends with the guy and not remotely looking.

OP posts:
Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 09:33

I would love that feeling of settled contentment once the first couple of years of PEA have faded. I’m not all about the first flush of excitement.

OP posts:
LonginesPrime · 11/05/2020 09:51

OP, I'm about the same age as you, also single and happy and I believe I'll find love at some point.

And it's a lot easier to be open to love when you're not trapped in a waning marriage or bad relationship, so there are plenty of positives!

Original poster
KittyClark · 11/05/2020 10:01

Thanks Longines.

OP posts: