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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

'You don't marry the one you love.. you marry the one you're with at that stage of life'

108 replies

humourme194 · 08/02/2022 09:36

Id like to ask your opinions on the question. AIBU to be on the fence with regards to this statement. A friend said it the other day.. you don't marry someone because you love them/they're the one.. you marry the person you're with at that stage of life where everyone is doing it or you feel as though you should, have reached an age where you should settle down and start a family etc.

Id love to hear peoples thoughts and if they agree or not. I guess it depends on the individual.. I know people (parents age etc) who have been happily married for like 50 years.. but can see in my own friendships people who are recently married probably wouldn't have lasted, lived together or wanted to marry each other if we weren't at the age where everyone else is doing so.

OP posts:
Onlyforcake · 08/02/2022 09:39

I feel like I did that at 30. But it all went badly. I AM now married to someone i do love.

Whitney168 · 08/02/2022 09:40

Think this can easily go either way ... plenty of tales of people who have been with Person A for years at a time marriage/children might reasonably be expected, then split up and married Person B very quickly.

Do also know one couple in particular though that I am convinced the only reason the wife married him is because she had deadlines in her head for the fabulous wedding and children. They split the day after their first child's christening.

Onlyforcake · 08/02/2022 09:40

I don't think everyone makes that mistake though. I don't have very good guidance or advice i can talk to people about relationships.

SartresSoul · 08/02/2022 09:41

Extremely cynical. People marry for all sorts of reasons, it isn’t always to do with love. I do think some marry because they think it’s the ‘right thing to do’ or just want to have a family and at that stage, don’t have time to be choosy. I personally married DH because I loved him, no ulterior motive.

Fairyliz · 08/02/2022 09:51

Realistically there are thousands of men you could fall in love with and have a happy life.
If you met one of these men at 15 would you marry them two years later?
Most people would say that’s far too young, so yes I think there is a certain ‘time’ when you are ready for marriage and children.

Aposterhasnoname · 08/02/2022 09:53

That was certainly true for me and my first husband, and for DH and his first wife. Second time round, obviously, not so much.

GeneLovesJezebel · 08/02/2022 09:55

I married the man I loved as we’d been together 6 years already. I didn’t marry him to have a baby.

IzzyD0ra · 08/02/2022 09:58

I married for love at 21.

Cherryana · 08/02/2022 10:00

I married the person I loved BUT it’s only 20 odd years down the line that I see that mixed with that was a need for validation from a man/somehow being married meant I was acceptable.

I wish back then I had known then, that is a crap way to think.

RitaFires · 08/02/2022 10:04

I think it can go either way. Some people meet someone, fall in love and get married. Some people want to get married and go out and meet someone they want to do that with. It can work out well or fall apart for either type of person.

Smarshian · 08/02/2022 10:08

I love my DH, but like a pp I don’t believe there is only one man in the entire universe that I could love and have a happy marriage with. Nor do I think that love is enough to sustain a happy marriage without compromise, and working together.
Luckily DH is a fabulous life partner in that respect too.
I also think there is some truth in marrying due to expectations etc, again, I wanted DC, marriage etc and we married in our mid-late 20s to start a family as it was the right time for us.

godmum56 · 08/02/2022 10:11

It may be true for some people, it wasn't true for me.

RoyKentsChestHair · 08/02/2022 10:16

I think you can love lots of people. I don't believe in "the one" so when I married my XH at 26 I loved him and thought it must be right. However, 3 kids down the line and it turned out maybe not!

So I met XDP and spent 9 years wishing we could get married and live happily ever after. If circumstances had allowed, I would have married him in a heartbeat as I was besotted with him. However, I was glossing over some pretty major incompatibilities.

I'm desperately hoping that freeing myself from that one will lead me to someone I can spend the rest of my life with. But I'm realistic that even if I do meet someone - presumably in his 50s and with DCs already - he may not want to get married for financial reasons even if he loves me enough that he may have done earlier in life.

ShallWeTalkAboutBruno · 08/02/2022 10:16

I split from the person I was with at the stage of life where all our friends were getting married and having babies as it made me realise that I didn’t want that with him. We had been together 8 years. We got on perfectly well and he was lovely but I was petrified at the thought of being with him for the rest of our lives. Felt like a big gamble in case I didn’t meet anyone else.
Anyway, I met my DH about a year later and found what I was missing with my last partner.
So no, it isn’t true for me.

Traumdeuter · 08/02/2022 10:17

@Fairyliz

Realistically there are thousands of men you could fall in love with and have a happy life. If you met one of these men at 15 would you marry them two years later? Most people would say that’s far too young, so yes I think there is a certain ‘time’ when you are ready for marriage and children.
This. I was in my late teens when I met now DH and despite being very much in love, I didn’t want to marry until we were much older.
Rossnagoose · 08/02/2022 10:18

I think that presupposes that the people involved are very attuned to a fairly conformist peer group, though, where there's a sense of 'everyone's couplling up' and 'everyone's having children'.

Partly because we move around a lot between countries, and have very scattered and various friends as a result, I don't think we ever did have that cultural or social pressure. (We got together as undergraduates, but have spent long periods of time living and studying in different countries while still a couple, we didn't marry until 20 years after we met, and only had a child just before turning 40 -- but we have friends who have done similar, or who are married but live separately, or who are childfree, or live peripatetic lifestyles because of work etc, so we're not outliers.)

RoyKentsChestHair · 08/02/2022 10:18

@SartresSoul

Extremely cynical. People marry for all sorts of reasons, it isn’t always to do with love. I do think some marry because they think it’s the ‘right thing to do’ or just want to have a family and at that stage, don’t have time to be choosy. I personally married DH because I loved him, no ulterior motive.
I didn't take it as a cynical conscious choice to deceive someone, more that you both just happen to be at that age and stage of life that marriage feels like an option.
Lifeslooser · 08/02/2022 10:18

When I was young people married for love.

Now I’m older and wiser people marry for lots of different reasons and not always for love

Onlyrainbows · 08/02/2022 10:21

Maybe the first marriage? I'm on my second one and definitely married for love

TheDaydreamBelievers · 08/02/2022 10:22

I don't believe in the one, and I think timing is one factor in compatibility eg you both want the same things at the same times. Imagine for arguments sakes there is such a thing as the one, but when you met you really wanted kids and he didn't. No matter the fairytale love lust aspect of it, that person isn't actually the one for you because of the lack of shared values and a shared timeline.

MrsTimRiggins · 08/02/2022 10:23

It’s certainly a depressing take on marriage, and not one I recognise for myself.
I married my husband because I was (am!) head over heels in love with him, because he was the one I wanted to continue building a life with, because I wanted him to be father of my children, because he’s a good person in more ways than I could list…
That being said, I don’t believe in ‘the one’… what are my chances of meeting ‘the one’ through a late, who was living 45 minutes from me, given the population of the world? I’d not like to say 😂 but I do think there’s more to it than just ‘you’ll do’!

BattleMyDemons · 08/02/2022 10:23

If that’s true, maybe no wonder so many marriages end in divorce. Personally I’d never have settled, it’s too important. We’ve never bothered getting married though as it wasn’t important to either of us.

Bubbles1st · 08/02/2022 10:24

Well I thought I married the one. He was just the one for the time it turned out. But I don't believe that many people would really Marry for the sake of it would they? That's sad.

Notjustanymum · 08/02/2022 10:25

I married my Best Friend in the world so I could spend the rest of my life with him. He’s still my Best Friend 30+ years on, and he says the same about me!

HeyItsPickleRick · 08/02/2022 10:26

I think both. People might love one an other and be at 'that stage' but it still be a bad idea. I've loved several people but am glad I married my husband. I think many people rush it but realistically when women's fertility declines so soon in our lives what choice do they have?!

I don't believe in 'the one' though. You find someone you fancy the pants of and are sexually, philosophically and practically compatible with and work at your relationship.