To marry a man I'm not in love with

[Blabber1]

I'm 37 and have chased career and my heart my whole life. My "career" is basically a non- starter and I still live like a student. My ex was the love of my life but the relationship was a disaster from start to finish and I never want that type of life again.

I've met a man who loves me deeply, earns very well although inconsistently because he's freelance, wants to let me stay at home with babies, wants to take care of me etc. He's from a southern European country and very regular holidays are going to be par for the course. We just went away there for 2 months and he wants to go back in September. He paid for everything.

He is the person I should theoretically marry, and he's the only one I ever seriously considered having children with. But I'm not in love with him. I hate this phrase but I have A LOT of love for him and we get on amazingly well. Me and "love of my life" argued and fought viciously all the time.

My best friend told me the love in her marriage had died and the only thing keeping them together is the substratum of mutual bond and respect and the kids. She says what killed them, among other things, was finances. She said if he can give you a good life then go for it, because the crazy heady days go and then you're left with reality.

So, I've never had crazy heady days with this guy but the point is those will go anyway. He is absolutely lovely and gentle, kind, strong, generous to a fault etc. Help me. Am I making a mistake marrying him when I'm not in love with him, but love so many things about him, and he can give me a life I only ever dreamed about?

I disagree Op has clearly told him she doesn’t like him doing what he has been doing, he stopped for a bit and started again.

I absolutely agree they shouldn’t even be a couple. She has communicated her boundaries. He ignored them.

He doesn’t get a pass for that because he is southern European. You don’t get a pass for that because you have a high libido. If he isn’t happy, about that he should leave. Not continue to do something the Op has said she doesn’t like.

It's actually sad to read, because it sounds like you don't know what a healthy relationship looks like, which is definitely not your fault.

So at best you have mis matched sex drives, and that alone will drive a wedge through any relationship.

You don't seem to really like him and yet seem to revere him in some way.

On the other hand he seems to be bringing quite a bit to the relationship and you are bringing very little.

It does in some. Libido fades with age. It just does sometimes.

I just read the sex pest update. It sounds like he kind of gives you the ick. If you don't really like having sex with him and see him as a pest then that will become a real problem. I wouldn't say you have to be madly passionately in to sex with him but you do have to enjoy it in order to marry him. I don't think the sex does stop in marriages, except when the kids are young.

This would be the issue above anything else for me. I was inclined to tell you to go for it - assuming you think he is good husband and father material, and that you intended to be a good and loving wife and mother.

But you've said he is displaying "sex pest" behaviour. At the very least you're sexually incompatible and at most, he's a horny lech with poor boundaries.

If he knows you don’t love him then it’s a fair playing field and probably the relationship has mutual benefits that work for you both. But if you’re telling him you love him that’s unfair.

@sweetcherrypie91 my wife and I met when we were 11 and still fall into being bickering like children 30 odd years later 🙂 it works for us.

It's the difference between a romantic opinion and a pragmatic one. Only you can decide.

Your other half’s romantic idea is just that, romantic and ill-informed. Sorry to shatter your ideas but it really isn’t beautiful. It made me shiver.

Is it a national idiom of his country or something he’s made up? It sounds like the latter. Why not ask him? That might give you some insight.

If he’s the mast, then what are you? The hull? He’s expecting you to carry everything? And you do know that in a storm the mast can go by the board, right? The mast cracks and the ship cannot be saved, and it can kill the crew as it crashes down. Or is he expecting you to lash yourself to the mast in extremis, clinging to him come what may, even if it puts off the inevitable? Does he see himself as the captain and you as crew? It seems too that you see yourself as very much ‘crew’ and not as equals.

I’m afraid this suggests to me he might have pie-in-the-sky ideas on his part, and compared to the practical and financial aspects on your side, you don’t sound compatible.

You never know if you can both weather the storms of life together and it sounds as if you may already be in dangerous waters.

Sorry, but this has got disaster written all over it.

It absolutely does! I wanted to shag everything that walked and talked when I was in my 20's, I just entered menopause and I'm wondering where did my libido go? I'm fine with shagging twice a month nowadays :-) In the OP's case it's going to take her 10 years to get there so what should she do in the meanwhile with the mismatched libido situation? It's a problem.

I suspect it is a word for word translation of a saying from his language and probably has a certain, good meaning.

Have you considered that you might have some unhealthy ideas of what constitutes true love?
I find it perplexing that you'd describe someone you argued with viciously as "true love".
My current relationship has been easy from the very start. I can think if one particular relationship from my past that was filled with quite a bit of arguing and negativity, and it's someone I shouldn't even have become friendly with, let alone someone I'd call my "true love".

You could explore with a therapist and find a way to be honest with your partner about your feelings (to a degree), it would break your marriage anyway if he loved you and then found out you lied.

Define love; and being in love. What the hell are they?

There seem to be many things that would make a solid relationship here. If that's what you want then go for it. You have a lot of love for him, you share the way you both see the future; but the violins are not playing in a cloud of romantic love. So what? I am presuming you find him physically attractive.

Most marriages lose that wild romantic love (or is it lust?) element after a few years and settle down with a different sort of love and mutual respect, along with shared experiences.

This. A volatile relationship is not necessarily love. There's an element of wanting something you can't have - the love of the other person, the more its denied, the more you crave it and it wasn't reciprocated perhaps?

Maybe you need to take more time, it sounds like he would allow you that

@Blabber1 I would say it depends on what you want in a marriage. You've got to remember marrying for romantic reasons is a relatively new thing. Only really popularised in the last couple hundred years. Marriage was introduced to be used as a contractual notion of a father trading his daughter, often women would be sold off with a bit of land and a cow, also it was used to legitimise children.

My point is people marry for all different reason. For love, for financial stability, to have a family, romantic love is not always at the top. Also most marriages may start off with fireworks and that spark but will end up being without the fireworks and what's left is respect, admiration, care. So that's why I would say what is it that you really want in life and can see yourself living with without being unhappy. Marriage isng what you see in the movies. They're pretty "boring" day to day life.

it sounds to me like you do love him and he loves you. Im guessing you are equating love with what you had with your ex which was unhealthy but no doubt full of drama.
This is a more mature respectful relationship that you both seem to value. I wish you well.

Hyppyb
Mariage for romantic love is indeed relatively recent. But - apart from royal/major aristocratic circles - love based on mutual RESPECT and indeed CARE has been seen as the best option for several hundreds of years, at least in the UK. That's not a new idea.
This text (below) is mid 16th cent. It contains a lot today that most of us would most definitely not like, but the bare bones of a kindly, loving, respectful relationship are still very much there. See in particular the section marked 'thirdly'. That's still today a pretty good aim in a marriage, at least IMHO:

"First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.
Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body.
Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity."

https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/form-solemnization-matrimony

@TempestuousBehaviour glad to hear it's not just us! We have just celebrated 10 years marriage and 15 years together x

So how you sleep with him, go abroad etc, spend time but ....are you lying to him then.....

Quoting this not because I'm convinced that it is right, but it resonates because I too struggle to understand the distinction you make between 'being in love' and 'loving'.

You know 'The museum of innocence' by Orhan Pamuk? There, the narrator claims somewhere that love is about giving attention, observing closely. That has stayed with me. Maybe ask yourself if you 're willing to pay close attention to this man for decades to come. Not just willing, keen. All the best.

I don't think you should marry this man. It would be cruel.

Every so often on the relationships board someone posts who is stuck in a sexless marriage or a marriage where sex is few and far between. They are in great pain, with no almost no way out except to commit adultery and they often don't want to do, but feel almost almost forced to do so.

When you read these stories, often they say there was sex at the beginning of the relationship, but with time the other partner gradually withdrew sex. It might be babies came along, or illness, but often it's lack of desire by one partner for the other. In some cases it appears once one partner achieved the children they wanted, they could no longer carry on feigning desire.

These people were likely not equally in love at the beginning, but thought the other person was as passionate about them as they were. Sadly they weren't and with time it revealed itself.

You are in the early days of a new relationship the honeymoon phase and are withdrawing from sex already. The man is resorting to pestering you for sex because his passion waxes strong in these early days.

At 37 you are in early peri-menopause, so if anything it will become harder and women do go through the mid-life crisis or mid-life assessment too. They just don't do the crazy stuff men do as often,. So you may find yourself re-evaluating everything come 40-45. Adding kids would be a disaster.

Don't do it.

You don't say which Southern Mediterranean country.
However in my experience, & I have now lived with a man in a Southern Mediterranean county for nigh on 40 years.
Ignoring the sex, the fact he isn't fit etc.
What about the CULTURE, the sense of humour, his family, his religion, his upbringing, his ingrown Machismo ?
Because I fell in love with mine, but it was only many years later that I discovered the Culture gap, the Chasm, DIVIDE.
Don't underestimate the difference

If I were you, I would stay with him, but only if he doesn't physically repulse you... you have to at least find him attractive or it will be extremely hard to keep up the charade.