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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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:

BowerOfBramble · 08/02/2022 10:27

I think there is both a "relationship timescale" when you've been together for a while and feel you know each other well enough to see whether you might be in it for the long haul. But there's also a "life timescale" when getting married (or cohabiting, having children etc) seems like a good option for you, balancing out other things like age, studies, work, location etc. They have to tally up. I would have probably married the men I was with at 18 and 25, if it had made sense from a life timescale point of view.

Thank god it didn't though!!

Kelly7889 · 08/02/2022 10:29

I don't think it's always true, but it often is. Often, even now, women have a romantic dream and the actual character of the man involved seems to be a secondary consideration.

Most of my university friends were desperately looking around for a husband by their late twenties and married the first solvent and decent man they found as all of them wanted children and no-one wanted to be trying to have them in their 30s. Honestly, most of my friends married for money, status and stability.

For me, I never wanted to get married, and didn't want children as from the age of 20, I watched my lovely school friends get left by men and end up being single parents as a lot of the time, after a year, the men stopped seeing their children completely. Being a single parent is something I refused to ever risk happening, which means never having children.

I did meet a man and get married and have been together 22 years. We didn't live together first. If I lost him, I would not get married again, so this man was a one-off for me.

BogRollBOGOF · 08/02/2022 10:31

I married for love. We took our time. We felt we could grow old together. Slowly working on the growing old together Love changes. We're 20+ years older than when we met, married for well over 10 years, the dynamic changes as our children grow older. We still love each other, but the love evolves.

Some people do have a drive to be with someone and make do rather than be single. Women can face a drive to couple-up (marry) and have children before a vague biological deadline.

When people are older, reproduction is out of the equation and adult life is more stable, people make different choices and have different priorities to when they were younger.

People marry for lots of reasons. At least one change in recent decades is that few now marry because they have to before the "premature" baby turns up.

Ihaveroyallyscrewedup · 08/02/2022 10:33

I’ve married once for each reason and neither went well!

VikingOnTheFridge · 08/02/2022 10:33

I did notice, as we got to 30ish, some people marrying and/or having a baby with a partner because they were ready to do those things so by definition that meant the person they were with was the one they wanted to do them with. With varying results.

SleepingStandingUp · 08/02/2022 10:33

DH and I loved each other when we got married. But I can see that we got married so quickly because of our ages (30s) and wanting kids. If we'd met a decade earlier and had dated long term first who knows.
However, we've been together a decade, had a very poorly disabled son and then twins which we survived by pulling together so no regrets

freesolo · 08/02/2022 10:36

This was true for me, but it wasn't a conscious thing. I can't understand now why I married my exdh, we were not compatible and had different interests, expectations etc. I think it was just the 'right time'. I'm now very happily with the right person for me.

Beamur · 08/02/2022 10:37

One of my friends got engaged after 6 weeks and married in 6 months. I was aghast.
I asked her how she was that sure, that fast..she laughed and said she wasn't but it felt like the right thing to do. He actually was/is a great match for her and they've been very happy. Married for more than 15 years now.

PiesNotGuys · 08/02/2022 10:37

I think that’s very true and certainly true of the marriages I know which have mostly been undertaken in a “logical next step” mindset, not a bad thing per se but I’m not sure the relationships that ended up wed are necessarily more than the other relationships those people had, or will have.

However most of my social group and peers are not married and do not want to be, so I’m not sure how that fits in with the “what everyone is doing” narrative. My friends are mostly 35-50 years, so I’d say we are through the wedding stage to an extent (many are now at the divorce stage). I’m not married, and would consider it only after a lifetime together and not before.

ToffeeNotCoffee · 08/02/2022 10:41

Some people get married because, 'all their friends are getting married' which I always thought was a ridiculous reason for getting married.

Some people want to get married but the proposal does not seem to be forthcoming.

I married for love. Still married. Still in love with each other.

ToffeeNotCoffee · 08/02/2022 10:42

Right person. Right time. There's a lot to be said for it.

theemmadilemma · 08/02/2022 10:44

My first husband it was 100% a case of timing. My best friend was moving abroad, I was firmly settled in my own house, career. Everyone around me was doing it.

This time we've been together 8 years, at this point it's more of a box ticking exercise to make things easier with the house in case of us dies. But it will 100% be for the right reasons, with the right person. This time it will be about the marriage, not the 'wedding'.

jellybe · 08/02/2022 10:46

I married the one I love, that's why I got married at 21 and am still happily married 16 years later. I think for some it might be true but not for everyone.

gingerhills · 08/02/2022 10:50

I'm not sure. For me, I married the person I was ready to love at that stage in life. If I'd met him earlier he wouldn't have been my type (nor I his.) By the time we met we were very much each other's type and we have been happy together for 28 years.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 08/02/2022 10:54

I married dh because I could never imagine wanting to marry anyone else. Decades later and that hasn’t changed.

peaceanddove · 08/02/2022 10:55

I don't believe in The One. That's just nonsense. There are thousands upon thousands of people that you could connect deeply with and decide to spend your life with. But I do think there is still a sliding scale and it's whether you're happy to settle for Mr. 1347 on the scale - or wait in the hope you might meet Mr. 127, or even Mr. 6???? Let's face it, the chances of you actually meeting Mr. 1 are vanishingly remote.

I got very lucky. Met DH when I was nursing a badly broken heart. He confidently told me 'I'll make you forget him' and my God, didn't he just. Our first date lasted the whole weekend and by the Sunday night I could barely even remember my ex's name. DH just absolutely overwhelmed me.

I fell in love with him, heart and soul, that weekend - and 30 years later, I have still never once stopped falling in love with him. But, I think what we have is quite rare.

Pedalpushers · 08/02/2022 10:55

There is an aspect of timing in whether or not a person is right for you. My DH always says that if I met him when we were younger I wouldn't have been attracted to him, I say it's not true but it's possible it is and vice versa. I don't believe there is one single perfect person for you in the world, and you are obviously more likely to marry someone you love if you meet them around 'marrying age' than before.

Triffid1 · 08/02/2022 10:55

It's not one or the other. As others have said, there are loads of people who could or do love throughout your life. But you have to love someone AND be at the point at which you want to make longer-term life decisions. Which may be "when everyone else is doing it" or may be at a different time. I know three couples who made the decision to get married very young and who, 20+ years later are still together and happy.

It IS true however that sometimes people "settle" because there is a timing issue, and that doesn't work out. And of course, many people will look back with a certain wistfulness on a person they loved but who, for whatever reason, wasn't the right person for that time or place.

ExConstance · 08/02/2022 10:55

I fall in love very easily, but with DH i felt there was a stong connection that I could not label. There is something about the smell of the back of his neck, the way he looks at me, his lovely brown eyes and smile that are just addictive to me. I felt like this when I met him and I feel the same 39 years later. There is no logic to it.
My view is that there may have been others I might have met and felt this way about, but that in my extensive romantic life before I met DH I had not come across those feelings.

Tunnocks34 · 08/02/2022 10:59

I did marry the person I loved, but I also loved someone prior equally as much, the timing was wrong though, life happened and we split. I met my husband, fell in love and the time was right, and everything fell into place

merryhouse · 08/02/2022 11:03

Thing is though, why would you be with someone you wouldn't want to marry?

Pr1mr0se · 08/02/2022 11:08

Notjustanymum - that's lovely and you are very lucky.

Tittyfilarious81 · 08/02/2022 11:14

I married the man I love ,we met as teenagers and got married in our 20s and are still very happily married 17 years later

Kittromney · 08/02/2022 11:21

I agree with that statement. I have loved many people in my life. I am marrying the one that I happen to be with now that the time is right. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think we’ll have a very fulfilling relationship.

Mylittlepixie · 08/02/2022 11:33

I married for love at 21. We are mid 30s now and still happily married.

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