To think there's no such thing as an ideal partner

[towriteyoumustlive]

Is anyone married to someone they would consider to be their ideal partner? Do ideal partners exist?

My DH is a nice guy, we get on well and don't argue, he isn't nasty or violent or a twat (like many posts on here I read), he can be a fun dad with the kids sometimes, but I feel so frustrated.

We were mates for years then had a bit of a fling and I got pregnant and we made a go of it.

We have so little in common. I like noise and music and instrument playing and singing. He hates it and will go and hide in his garage (he has a sofa and TV and motorbikes in there). I turn the radio up, he comes in and turns it down.

I love reading. He has never read a book in the 14 years we have been together. He has no interest in me talking about a good bit in a book I'm reading.

He always has the TV on. All day. I hate the TV being on and get really bored sitting watching TV. And we then have completely different taste in TV so it's hard work finding something on Netflix we both like. We both liked watching Bones though!

I like playing computer games. He doesn't.

He is so grumpy and pessimistic. A 30 minute car journey yesterday and he complained 14 times. The constant negative comments are draining. I'm obnoxiously cheerful and bouncy.

I'm spontaneous. I suggest doing things which is met with a stream of negative comments " it's raining, the dogs need walking, how long will we have to be out for" etc...

I'm sociable and like chatting. He likes solitary and prefers dogs to people. He gets really fed up and snappy with the kids very quickly if they're too loud. He gets especially annoyed with DS3 who is autistic and exhausting to parent.

His mum waited on him and his siblings and dad without expecting them to ever lift a finger, and despite me working 40 hours a week term time, I'm often left doing nearly all the cooking, cleaning, meal planning, child care etc... which is frustrating. I do try and get him to help more and often he will, but then he reverts back to how he grew up.

But as above, we don't argue, get on fine.

Our sex life is non existent. He doesn't touch me, he comes to bed really late, and TBH I have no desire to have sex with him as I feel like his mum or friend, not his wife!

YABU - all relationships have their negatives. Your relationship sounds normal.
YANBU - there is far more to a relationship that this.

Sounds like you're trying to generalise your specific problem into 'Oh well, nobody's perfect', and get some online validation for it.

Your partner doesn't meet your needs or turn you on, and unless you want to keep feeling frustrated all your life, you'll have to make a change. Many people have happy, fulfilling, communicative, sharing, loving relationships. Face and deal with the fact that you don't, rather than theorising about abstract perfection.

Am I right in reading that you were friends first, had a fling then you got pregnant, so that was the reason you decided to make a go of it?

If you hadn't fallen pregnant, would you have still entered into a relationship with him?

My husband is by no means perfect. He leaves socks in the weirdest of places, snores like a tractor, is bemused by cooking and can't follow a recipe to save his life, is incapable of watching a show without having to Google every actor in it and drive me potty with fun trivia about them... But he's still my ideal partner.

We have lots in common, share the same values, get on really well and have so much fun together. He's my very best friend and no one makes me laugh like he does. We're a great team, we just gel. I can't imagine being able to find someone more suited to me than he is, even with his socks and his kitchen disasters and his bloody trivia.

I think little annoyances and frustrations are normal when you live with someone, but what you have sounds like much bigger incompatibilities in personality and lifestyle. Not sure I'd be happy in your shoes.

But it doesn't sound like you dated to find someone compatible. You found someone who would do for sex and ended up stuck. So it was never going to be perfect.

Someone who is more deliberate in finding someone whose hobbies, values (e.g. reading, expanding the mind) align more closely, will probably feel more like they found someone perfect.

But it is looking for a needle in a haystack, so most people settle for someone who will do some housework, ok in bed, ok financially, not an obvious psycho.

I don't think your situation is in any way unusual. He's not enabling your 'best life' by any means, but you plod on because it's not so awful you can't tolerate it.
You know if you left there's no guarantee you'd end up with someone better. There's enough dating horror stories to go on after all. Your life overall probably feels easier than if you were a single parent due to the financial pooling, and that the limited contribution to childcare and domestics of another adult in the house seems better than nothing at all.
Countless people plod on in your circumstances for these reasons. And provided neither of them ever thinks they've met 'the one' when a colleague or acquaintance shows an interest, they live and die this way.
Happy days!

So, he hasn’t actually changed?
Was he a safe bet, to get the marriage and kids?
And now that you got it, you resent him for being, again, what sounds like what he has always been?

It happens, btw.

You sound just totally wrong for each other. My first husband was like this, he was ultimately a nice bloke but we got together young and as we grew up it became more and more apparent that we had nothing in common. We struggled to find things we both liked doing or people we both liked and eventually it just lead to resentment and both of us being grumpy and probably not very nice. We could have stayed married but god it would have been miserable in the long term. One day I literally woke up and went, nope, I can't do 50 more years of this. We didn't have kids though, I might have stuck it out longer if we had but ultimately I don't think it would ever have lasted.

I'm now married to a great man. He's lovely, kind and thoughtful, a great dad, a real team player in our marriage and we have loads in common. We are very similar people in general and it makes life quite easy, overall but also on a day to day basis - like deciding what to do on the weekends and all that. I really think people underestimate the importance of that kind of thing.

My DH isn't perfect but I knew him for years while I was married to my first husband, we were work acquaintances, and I remember vividly once thinking 'god, wouldn't life be easy if I was married to a man like that' because of the things we had in common and just similar personalities. I was right in the end.

I'm actually with somebody who is so perfect I didn't think that they could actually exist.

We own a business together which is incredibly niche and we love.

We also are on the same page financially which really helps. Shared goals. Invested equally in the same things right off the bat.

We both share an incredibly unusual and expensive hobby. It's something arts related. It takes up a huge amount of time and head space at the level we are at, I didn't think I'd find somebody to share this with ever. In fact I thought I'd be lucky to find somebody who tolerated it as it is a huge time sink.

We do argue, about decisions, work, the business and our creative pursuits, but only because we both care so deeply about these things and are so invested. We are respectful, and we both regard the other as irreplaceable so the relationship never comes into question even when we disagree. We are very secure.

In himself he's perhaps not everyone's cup of tea but nor am I. We are much softer and more playful with eachother than we are to anybody in the outside world and that makes us feel very allied.

It's a very unusual feeling. I've never had anybody I could be around constantly before, but we do everything together and it's actually wonderful.

I do consider myself to ge very lucky, I've had relationships in the past that felt always something was a compromise but nothing at all here.

Your DH might well be the ideal partner - but for someone else.

@keepsmiling89 If I hadn't been pregnant I don't think it would have lasted.

@gwenneh we had work in common. Interesting jobs but an arse of a company to work for, so we would all often vent our frustrations to each other and all got on well.

@TheYear2000 I'm not sure what the kids see, but it isn't hostile. They just see me being me, their dad being dad, but not a huge amount of interaction I guess.

I certainly don't think of myself as the ideal wife! I'm not good at sitting still (likely ADHD along with DH3), I like organising and planning things, I am rubbish at staying up late but wake up early even at the weekend. I can be childish (I'm not the type of parent that sits on a bench in the park or soft play - I play and run round with the kids!).

I guess in my head I always had the idea that I'd get home from work and someone would be happy to see me, and ask me how my day was, do chores and stuff together, enjoy listening to me play piano/guitar (or perhaps tolerate, rather than escaping to man cave!), share my enthusiasm when I suggest a random outing etc...

Our kids have a nice life. Their own bedrooms and we can afford activities for them. We couldn't afford this separately.

ps - it's good to hear all the positive relationship stories! It's nice to know that exists.

You don't argue because you're indifferent to each other. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. You sound like house mates which is fine but it's not enough to satisfy you for the rest of your life. It's a very wise homily "Don't ask whether you can live with them. Instead ask whether you can live without them."

I think you would be perfectly happy living without your DH, don't you?

@Anotherparkingthread

Dying to know what your hobby is!

If everything's so bad why do you stay. Is this the point of your post?

I felt sad for you both reading this, it doesn’t sound as if you are each other’s best friend or desires lover. Life is so damn short, you both deserve to actually be wanting to spend time with a partner, most of the time.
I find my DP’s view on anything interesting, we don’t generally chat about my books but I know he would happily if I wanted to. Current affairs/news/mundane life stuff - I always want to tell him first. And we are openly affectionate most of the time as we just make each other happy. DP is nearly 70, the time we spend together we both consider a blessing.

This is sad. My H and I kill each other at times over our annoying habits but we wouldn't be without each other. We have common interests that we talk about, independent of our child. Without that connection, it would feel like just exosting in the same house tbh.

You settled for a weak match. That doesn't mean that other people do.

Sounds like you are both decent enough people to recognise that you both made this choice and not resent each other for it so choose to just get on with it. Thats a positive.

Lots of other people would have been careful to chose more wisely and then another set of people would have allowed the poor choice to become toxic.

But ideal partners absolutely do exist.

I definitely feel me and my DH found our ideal partners for one another. I adore him and him me. We are very different in a lot of ways though and have separate interests but we have very similar values and beliefs so always find commonality. We also have lots of fun and make each other laugh which was always a dealbreaker for me.

I'm definitely more of the thinking of how to make relationships work rather than LTB. Have you thought that perhaps you don't argue because you don't voice your frustrations to one another? Maybe if you did, some could be resolved.

Could you try something new together that may bond you? A sport, hobby, planned date nights where you each take turn to plan.

But is it actually bad? Frustrating, perhaps dull, but not bad. I guess I'm trying to work out if it's like this for lots of people.

I've never thought of it that way.

And yes, I probably would be happy living without him. But the kids wouldn't be unfortunately.

I wouldn't say I am unhappy now. Just frustrated.

I feel very lucky that I have found my ideal partner, he is very different to me and we have different hobbies, but for us thats a positive and it works well. We enjoy being in each others company, we take an interest in each others hobbies as well, while I might not wish to do his hobbies, as they’re something he is interested in I like learning about them, seeing him doing etc as I get pleasure from seeing him doing something he enjoys.

Are you actually even friends, can you see yourself both putting the work in and maintaining that work to become friends again?

This.

For myself, I'm sure my husband and I would be able to come up with a long list of flaws and irritations, but although neither of us is an ideal partner, I'd say we have a fairly ideal relationship.

We have shared goals, shared things we enjoy. We give each other space and time to enjoy the things we don't like to share. We negotiate to agree. And we don't make a big deal out of unimportant things where we know the other person is trying their best.

Frustrated is unhappy. I understand your POV but you're doing yourself, your h and your kids a disservice here. Happy parents are better parents. This sounds like a half-life and it won't end well.

I don't think there's any such thing as an ideal PERSON. So when you factor that in that obviously lowers your expectations and makes you more realistic, compassionate and forgiving of a partner.

But after that, with those reasonable expectations, my partner is fantastic and Im sure it would have been difficult to find another one like him. Judging by the behaviour of plenty of men I know.

Frustrating, and perhaps dull definitely isn't how I'd describe my marriage!