That I’m not DH “true love”

[Jensajenning]

Together 15 years , 3 DC and shouldn’t it be that I am his true love. But I’m not - apparently our love is companionship, it’s family, it’s parents to our kids , it’s him keeping the promises and vows he’s made - but it’s not true love or rather I’m not who he sees as his true love . I know how this sounds but it genuinely wasn’t said to hurt me I don’t think. It was said so matter of fact as if that’s just the way it is .

Last night he was packing to go back to his home country as he does every august , (I don’t go because I can’t bear the heat- esp this year) he’s taking our 2 older dc so l was sat on the bed talking to him about how eldest DD is still not keen wanting to spend the summer with her friends instead . He made a comment more like she wanted to spend the summer with her boyfriend , and I laughed and said but that’s love don’t you remember feeling that way at the start and he said no .
I admit now I know our relationship has never been passionate fireworks on his end but I hoped even though I suppose in a way I knew even back then I wasn’t his first choice. That I was there more at the right time , and to be fair being 7 years older he came along at the right time for me - but I did and do love him .

His answer still shocked me in the moment and I said have you ever felt that way and he clearly didn’t want to continue but I pushed and started to talk about it didn’t matter as true love is the one that lasts past that stage , that carries on once you were in thick of things and came out the other end like we have .

I suppose I was seeking reassurance , but instead he sighed and said what he did - that I was his companion, his wife , his family , the mother to his children etc but not his true love . He said true love was different and he’d known that and lost it and accepted this was his deal . That life wasn’t fair like that , you can have the wife , the kids , the house , the money , the holidays but you didn’t get everything .

I should have left it there but I didn’t - I didn’t because I wanted to know who he would say it was or if he would admit it was who I thought .
Like I’ve said I had felt I was more the right time, and there was someone particular before me . She’s from his home town , is still friends with his sisters, and I know he sees her whenever he visits home. I met her when we married, and heard the rumours about her and their history from his brothers wife since .
I know he isn’t having an affair - she’s married with a child and they ended as she wouldn’t leave to come to the UK -but i wondered if it was her as he’d never spoken of her except once when we first met .

He wouldn’t admit it all he would say was that he’s never not done his duty by me or treated me poorly so he didn’t think I had room to complain.
It spiralled - he would have happily ended the conversation but I couldn’t stop , it was almost like I wanted to hurt myself I can’t explain it any other way , like I needed the pain to believe it because his demeanour was so calm and casual as if we were talking about what to buy from the shops …

He got angry in the end when I kept bringing her name up and how if that was love why didn’t she follow him and why was she married now and he said

“If I was told I had a day , a week, a month left to live I’d go and be with her , I would tell you I’ve done my duty , I kept my promises so now it’s my time to have what I want and I’d go to her - yes that’s it are you happy now”

He stormed out after that and didn’t come to bed and today he’s barely spoken to me . They leave for the airport in a few hours and I don’t know what to say to anyone - how can I come back from this - I wish I had never pushed - but I can’t comprehend how he has compartmentalised his life like that …

I’m so sorry to hear this 💐

I’m so sorry that this has happened to you. Please stop blaming yourself for the information that you now have & for all the questions that you asked.
The part of you that loves you and knows that you deserve to be loved kept asking the questions. It’s only normal that you wanted to know all the information instead of filling the gaps yourself.

I had a similar experience ages ago with an ex-boyfriend and I still remember the feeling of shock, hurt, feeling blindsided etc
It’s shocking how some people can go about their lives with such “sh*t standards” of what a life partner should be & how easy it’s for them to throw such a hurtful bomb. You call it being direct, I think it’s cruelty disguised as honesty.

But that’s on him, not on you.

My advice is that if you can you get counseling to decide what you want to do moving forward. You deserve to be much loved for who you are! Best of luck 💐

Oh gosh. Normally I’m stoic, right up there about duty and commitment and vows. But, telling you he’d go to her if he knew he only had one week to live…. That’s brutal. I’m sorry.

I think I would feel like the terms of our “deal” were not what I thought they were. I thought he meant x, actually he felt and still does feel y. The very foundation of my relationship would be shook.

It’s like a long-term emotional affair that began before you even married, requited or not.

Truthfully, with a family and children, I wouldn’t back out until the youngest was on his way. And then, I think I would feel that both he and I have only one life to live and we should go out and live it. We would have both done the right thing up to that point, but the time had come to liberate each other.

Mostly, sadly, he would drop hugely in my esteem. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing (I’m of an eastern culture so recognise this as a possibility) but even so, it wasn’t on to have led me down the garden path like this. Sorry to say, I’d also be kicking myself that I didn’t find this all out before I committed. Marry in haste, repent at leisure.

I would not want to stay long term in the marriage in the hope that his regard for me, respect for me, appreciation of me might transform into love. Those are all words you’d use for a much-loved live-in housekeeper who’s been with you for 30 years. I would want a shot at a full, proper, you-are-my-everything relationship. Sounds like your DH would make a good ex (ouch, sorry, I mean he’d do right by you and your children).

Goodness me OP, you are worth 100 times more than this deluded man. His duty as he calls it is to love and are for you with all of his heart. Sack him off and make a good life for yourself, not just for yourself but to also show your children that neither you or they will be second best to anyone.
culturally there may be differences, however kind words and support was what you needed, not to be left reeling and emotionally stripped of your honour.

Yes, it sounds like this is a cultural thing. She couldn't marry him because she was an only child and had a duty to stay home and look after her parents. He had a duty to go to the UK and look for work to help his family. I can see their problem. It seems the OP's role in this was supposed to be to be grateful that he gave her children and fufilled the role of provided. She might guess at the first true love, but she wasn't supposed to ask questions. Difficulty is, OP doesn't come from that culture and is she happy to play that role?

OP, did you get married because your biological click was ticking? I know I did. I'm struggling to think of any women I know who didn't. Would you ever say to your husband 'thanks for the babies. I didn't really want them with you, but you can't have everything?' I know I wouldn't!

Exactly. All she wanted him to do was say something like 'there are different kinds of love'. He's blaming her and she's blaming herself for pushing, but, really, why couldn't he say that!

All hail feminism!

My thoughts and opinion exactly!! He obviously got taunted and carried away by the heat and emotion of the argument/discussion but to risk all that they had as an seemingly happy and functioning family unit on a what can surely only be described as a long lost romantic notion of something that 'might have been' and even worse to actually hurt and insult his loving and caring wife and life partner in such a callous way is the act of a selfish and not very empathetic person! 🤔🙄😢

There is a meanness in your conversation that is hard to get past—saying he would go to her if he had only weeks left, etc. that would be the very hard thing for me and I would be very tempted to tell him not to wait, go.
i have also waited days to post and keep coming back because I am currently in a relationship with a man I loved when I was young and we did not marry. We had circumstances that made it very hard for us to be together 30 years ago and we both married and had families with other people. I never forgot him and he never forgot me. In 25 years we spoke about 3 times, never cheated, never expected anything but it was clear we had had something special and we had were sad it had not worked out.
wee both divorced, not because of our feelings for one another at all. We have been together for a while now and it feels insanely lucky in some ways, but I can tell you this: I loved my husband and would have stayed married to him even though he was not my “true love.” My love for him was just different, but I loved my family and the whole package (my husband left me). The person I am with now had a 25 year marriage to someone else and I can tell you that though I nekieve he always had feelings for me (saved many things from our relationship, emailed every 8 years, etc), he loved his wife very much. Our relationship was an is special, but it is not magic and it only happened because our real relationships with others failed. What I am trying to say is that his having feelings for this “true love” doesn’t make his relationship with you inauthentic or less than in any way. But the meanness of his immature comments are a problem. My angry gut would say you want to go to her, bye. But if the marriage is otherwise good I think I would want to really talk through what was behind that meanness. Feelings are just feelings and humans are complex. I really do think the idea of “the one” is kinda nonsense and you and he have a real and good life. Wishing you peace as you deal with this. Just please never feel less than this woman n any way. You see very lovely. Yea

I feel this!

I think he has romanticised/dreamt up this wild love over the years and the other woman hasn't given him a second thought. I would ask him to go to her, declare his undying love to her and just get on with life.

I'm sorry @Jensajenning I think I would have pushed for an answer too 🌸

It's definitely possible to have more than one love. My best friend's husband died tragically young and she remarried, so now she has this 'I love my new husband and my new life, but I still love my first husband and wish he wasn't dead' head mash. But she loves her current husband. It's called rebuilding your life after loss and moving on. It's what grown up do!

OP I would have done exactly as you did with the pushing for information. I also wouldn’t know what to do with the information now either.

The good thing is that you have some time now to mull it all over in (relative) peace and decide how you will move forward. Do you think there is maybe a chance that he will decide he doesn’t want to come back? (Not talking about taking the kids etc, I mean genuinely, now he has said these things do you think he will want to come back to this way of living?) or do you think he might hope that YOU will break things off, not him? He was so keen to point out that he has done what he promised, do you think he would want you to end it? Sorry to ask that but it was just a thought.

in any case, I would be fuming with him - and then equally questioning what’s the point in being fuming with him? It doesn’t sound like he has done that to hurt you, it does sound like he cares very much in his own way.

all I can say is that you stay positive and strong OP. Put yourself first in this (and your children) and decide what YOU want to do from here xxx

OP it sounds as if this was a marriage of convenience for both of you. You wanted babies, and he wanted a visa, and you were happy to go along with that.

Reading through your posts on the face of it it sounds hurtful what he said, but nowhere in your posts do I see any indication that you were ever madly in love with him or that he is your true love. The only difference here is that he’s said it and you haven’t.

You said you always knew he was still in love with this girl, I’m wondering whether you actually want out of the marriage anyway but you want a reason to leave.

With regards to her being his true love, I can see that e.g. if they didn’t actually split up but left each other with a promise to return he might see it as some kind of a love that was meant to be but wasn’t able to be rather than one dumping the other.

I had a BF a bit like this. I lived abroad and was in a relationship with someone. Came back here when my family did as had no support out there, left the bf who I believed was the love of my life with a promise to go back and be together.

But life rarely works like that. He got involved with someone else and so I stayed here. But things didn’t work out with her and he tried to come back to me, by then I was already settled here and so things ended forever.

But I’ve since connected with him on fb and he’s told me more than once that I was the love of his life. I think inn his head he believes it. I think he genuinely thinks in moments that if there was this last week to live etc he would spend it with me. But in truth he’s now on his 4th divorce, and I suspect that if I’d stayed there to be with him I’d probably have been one of them. But it’s much easier to romanticise a relationship when it never actually ended in true relationship style.

He sounds cold and calculating. The fact he can live his life as a big fat lie is very concerning. He has put you in an awful place. 💐

There is definitely a cultural aspect here.

many men come to the UK to build a dream that they can’t have in their home countries and your DH is one of them. They are prepared to work extremely hard to do so and face the challenges of doing that in an unfamiliar country. It’s a very hard slog to be frank but they do it as they know that their hard work will be rewarded in a fair, meritocratic way that doesn’t get upended by corruption, inappropriate bureaucracy etc. That is your DH.

However your DH will still have his cultural norms deeply embedded inside him - and it sounds like his are ones strongly of family duty. So whether he was in the UK or not, he would have married and respected his family and looked after them. That became you and the kids. He is a doting father but busy with work. His view is that he must provide for his family and is doing that and is regarded by by his family and wider cultural network to be a success. He probably plans to continue to do that for the foreseeable ie only stop work when he is really old or ill. And a retirement will probably mean building a summer home in his home country you both will spend 6 months there a year - you catch my drift.

Your input was vital to his success. You will have explained British cultural, read forms and letters for him and given him a support which without would have slowed his success down. He will acknowledge this. So the combination of your support (ie a British person who wholeheartedly supported him) plus a work ethic means that he has achieved his dreams. It may feel like a list to you - and it is in the purest sense - but coming to another country and ‘making it’ within a few years is a dream most have but the reality is that it is very very hard to do.

I do have a question for you. If you hadn’t have met DH, would a British guy have given you the same life that you have now? Be honest with yourself. Only you know where you were at that point in your life.

I doubt he will want to break up his family especially over a reason such as ‘love’. For him, this would be highly embarrassing and even more so if the family friend was cited as a cause when there is no involvement or discussion on this. So this is more complex than it looks.

He may also do some thinking too. He will be looking at a British vs his own culture aspect - has it worked for him? Probably yes but only he can answer that.

Also, I reckon that many of your friends will have settled with a man whom they no longer passionately love but they love the lives they have built together. I personally don’t think that is a sham as I do think it is hard to find all those combinations of things in one marriage. Something normally gives - in your case, it’s romantic love. But as I say, lots of people will be in that boat, and some may not admit it.

Im trying to make you see that this is a more unique situation because of the cultural differences and that they are important to have in mind when weighing up what to do. Unless he is having multiple affairs here in the UK and is treating you very badly, I would go slowly and talk to him about his perspectives on being in the UK and see if there was something you missed (other than the romantic and unrealistic memories of someone else from his home country). Ultimately he may also have been this compartmentalised with her but he never got the drudgery of real life to grind them down and let’s face, it gets everyone eventually!

Ask him what is his opinion of British women? He will have a view ie British women vs home country women.

Dont throw the baby out with the bath water yet. Sounds like you have a good set up and you risk being worse off if you leave him without having had a full and honest discussion and without letting emotions get in the way.

Ultimately only you can decide whether this is right for you, not mumsnet.

The thing is - you keep saying how awful it is because you're not his true love - but I don't think you've once said that he's yours either.

You also say you've always known there was no passionate love on his side and that he's always had feelings for this woman back home - yet you went ahead and married him and had two children anyway. It can't have bothered you that much.

I have to agree with the PP who said this sounds like a marriage of convenience on both sides. He wanted a visa, you wanted a baby and you got along well enough to stay together afterwards. It's probably a much better outcome than most.

It reads to me like his only "crime" here is saying this stuff out loud. It doesn't read like he's deceived you - you both used each other.

I’m so sorry @Jensajenning, this is a really hard thing to come to terms with!

Your husband sounds awful!…. I think he has a very warped idea of ‘true love’… If whatever he had with this woman was indeed true love he’d have sacrificed coming to England and stayed with her… or she’d have ‘risked it all’ and come with him, non of this ‘I’m an only child and need to stay…

Maybe he did marry for a passport but he could’ve left after a few years and sent for her…. He didn’t have to get you pregnant. Non of that sounds like true love!!

seeing her regularly doesn’t mean it’s not a fantasy….. at the end of the day who says she’d even want him if he was dying and flew to be with her… maybe her husband is her ‘true love!’ I think it’s pig headed and presumptuous of him to think she’d be the slightest bit interested in him!

why does he go over to see his family in August if it’s too hot for you to go? Can’t he go the first week of the school holidays? Would it be cooler then? Or go May half term or wait and go October half term for a week? I wouldn’t want him going alone with the kids, you’re a family and should go together.

It’s great you trust him. Both with her and to not stay out there with the kids, that was my first worry I admit… but you seem certain he wouldn’t do that so we have to take your word for it. It’s great the kids know both languages too, such a skill for them to have.

I think it’s just a first live thing rather than a true love!…. Did he ever live together with this lady? Probably not!… living together, having children, working etc is VERY different to that first love and having no worries or cares in the world, no mortgage, sleepless nights with children, rushing around to birthday parties, wiping puke off your wives shirt etc!! He’s an idiot for mixing up the fantasy of what could’ve been and reality!

I had a first love, we were together 3 years, I adored him and he seemed to me, used to cycle miles to meet me on my lunch break if he was off, would meet me after work just to wait half an hour with me at the bus stop then cycle and meet me at my parents house… we’d go out partying together, have nights in hotels, go on beautiful holidays abroad… it was bliss and everything true love should be…. I still look back at that relationship and think he was lovely.. BUT I also know if we’d married, bought a house, had children and done all the normal things couples do…. We’d probably have argued, had days where we forgot why we were even together etc… possibly even be divorced and bitter now!! The reality is never the same as the fantasy we hold for our first love! …
I had 2 relationships since my first love, both were magical at times, but never quite the same because an adult relationship never is the same as that one you had at 17 til your early 20’s ! Does it mean I loved either of those two long term relationships less?! NO!

I do think though after years of marriage you do become more like companions, that fire can’t last forever… especially when they’re children…. Me and my last partner bought our first house together, tried for a family, did IVF and then split… I then met my husband, married quickly after a year together, struggled again with fertility (both times it was the men)… finally got pregnant and it was only then when I was being so sick that his selfishness showed…. And continued to show once she was born…. After 15 years of marriage we’ve separated!…. Can I remember happier times … sure! Do I remember ever feeling that ‘true love’ no not really…. But I know i did love him… just struggle to remember why or how much because it’s all buried under 15 years of sleepless nights, baby puke, arguments over money, about him not being ‘present’, about him coming in drunk etc…

so what I’m saying is maybe your husband did feel all those things for you… but you got pregnant quickly after marrying so didn’t have many years to enjoy each other before the tiredness and responsibility kicked in…. I doubt life with her would’ve been any better!! They’d have struggled had they stayed in his home country … he’d have resented her for keeping him there…. And they’d have struggled here both being illegal and probably would’ve ended up deported and again struggled back home with the lack of opportunities you’ve mentioned…. I think he lives in cloud cuckoo land !! And YES… she is a fantasy. That whole life is a fantasy because his thoughts around his possible life with her is BS!! It would be hard work years on just like all relationships are!

As for you…. Your position now is can you stay with a man who thinks so little of you to drop this on you and then fly out…. Can you stay knowing his feelings?… do you want to stay??

once the kids grow up maybe companionship will be enough? I mean that’s all I want from my next relationship… but I don’t mean that nastily…. Companionship to me is about being happy in a relationship and growing old together … looking out for each other and caring about each other… I don’t have the energy now for all that true love crap…. For now I give my DD 100%, when she’s older I want someone to go out for meals with, watch the cinema and chat about the good old days with! To me that’s better than true love anyway…. Because true love is like a candle…. Burns bright for a while then flickers and dulls…

He sounds like a typical man who never actually grows up!! Fantasises over the one that got away…. He’s a plonker and he won’t know what he’s got till it’s gone!

So wise. I wish you were my friend.

This.
I think if he had married her the gloss would have worn off in time. As it is he can fantasise and it seems he has never done more than that. It’s not too different from him fancying Margot Robbie or someone.
You have done well to have a marriage that lasted a good few years and brought up children together. Don’t let your anxiety get through to them.

Both my DH and I have had people for whom we were the love of their lives. His is a model and apparently they were promised to each other as kids. The thing is, it isn't reciprocated.

Your DH may have married you knowing he would never marry her. I tried dating the guy who felt like that about me and it just didn't work out. Perhaps if he'd married her, he would've appreciated what love really is and how impractical being married to them would be. I know now that if I'd married my first, "true" love I'd have been bored out of my skull as he wasn't actually very intelligent. I think he realised that whilst we felt it was true love, we'd be awful as a couple.

Your DH or perhaps you haven't realised that real love is much more like friends with benefits than grand passion. I married one of my best friends and there is deep love and passion there twenty five years later. I suspect he's just not being very realistic about love and life.

I'm sorry OP, this sounds like a very hard thing to hear. And yes, you probably shouldn't have kept pushing but once you had started along that track, I can totally see why you weren't able to stop!!

I don't know what culture your DH is from, but is it possible I wonder that he doesn't see marriage as a romantic arrangement but more as a contract that's entered into for the stability of the family as a whole? And that, actually, he might not see romantic love as being all that important - more just an infatuation, whereas marriage is built on more solid commitments and long term companionship and collaboration etc. Maybe he just doesn't think it matters that much whether your partner is the "love of your life" or whatever, because in his head, that's not really what marriage is all about?

In our culture, we tend to idealise romantic love, but that doesn't always result in happy ever after endings - you only have to look at the divorce rate to see that! A lot of cultures are more pragmatic approach to marriage and put less weight on the whole idea of "falling in love". Perhaps that's where he is coming from? And if that's the case, it doesn't necessarily mean that he values your relationship less than what he had with this other woman... he may just see it as something different. The fact that he was so bluntly honest about it suggests that he doesn't necessarily see it as an issue in the way that you do?

Of course, you may decide that it doesn't matter and that you don't want to stay in the relationship on that basis. But I would at least consider whether you are potentially coming at this from two very different perspectives a) about what marriage is, and b) about what is really important in a long term relationship. He might not actually see anything as "missing" in your relationship. The real question is whether you can move past what he has said, and indeed whether you want to.

And it's irrelevant because not really the subject of the thread, but I do completely agree with you about your kids needing to go to their dad's home country to explore that side of their heritage. Ignore the posters who assume that he will kidnap them because you know him and you clearly don't perceive that as a risk.

Wow Brutal. You deserve love not favour . After all these years if you have it in you.. let go of him . Tell him to find his joy and you find yours. x

That must have been v hurtful.
Look, there is so much guff about ‘True Love’

We aren’t living in a Jane Austen novel.
We can learn to love who we are with.
Sounds like you have had a good thing going with your husband so far.
He’s deluded if he thinks his life would have been wonderful if his crush has chosen him. She didn’t! End of. He’s living is his head. It’s childish dreaming.
If you love him, and up to this point were content, and he’s a good father, could you consider ignoring this foolishness? Tease the old fool about it.
The reality of leaving him over this will have huge consequences, for everyone, especially the children. If you feel you can’t live with what he said then you must do what you must do.
Listen to ester perel, A psychologist , she has a great podcast. She makes a huge amount of sense!
good luck