To ask you what life is like when you are loved and in a relationship?

[OneDayIHopeItsGoingToBeMe]

When someone chose you, you are sharing and building a life with someone, when people ask you if you have partner and you can say yes and they smile and nod, not being shamed for being single and feeling akward, when you have someone to buy a house with and decorate it, someone to spend holidays with, someone to say good morning and night to, someone who cares how you are, knows who you are, to take to weddings/parties/whatever, having ’our’ things, to be someone’s nro.1, who helps you when you are sick or just tired, who gets you and you give them gifgts/flowers/whatever, share life’s crap with….. list could go on forever….

What is that like?

I've been there before, and having got rid of my EXDP who was making life worse for me, I know I'll get there again, in time.

Although I'm now ready to meet someone new, and have the mutually loving relationship you describe, I'm also fine on my own.

Don't look for someone else to be an emotional crutch or rely on them to show you what a great person you are. You need to love yourself wholly, and it sounds like you've got a bit of work to do to get there.

I don't believe this.

You're not pining for a partner, you're pining for a perfect partner. Your OP describes an excellent relationship, even an ideal one.

When you're sharing a boring, same old life with somebody else, it's more work and more hassle. As well as the boring same-old, you've got an extra person's needs to think of, moods to deal with and laundry to do.

If that person cares how you are, knows who you are and loves you for it, pulls equal weight in a partnership where you're each other's #1, then, yes, all loads are lighter and life is sunnier.

But you're mad to think any partnership would be like that. Half of them make life harder.

28 years in and I can honestly say I'm totally in 'bliss'. We have grown together and are probably more in love now than ever... I still get butterflies like I did when I was 17. We were chatting to a relative stranger the other week, who said he thought we'd been together just a few years because of how we 'are' together.

He's my best friend, the one I confide in, and we laugh together all the time. Yes, we bicker but we've always been able to communicate, so it doesn't last long. I can't imagine being without him. I'm often told it's rare - but it's all I know.

30 years and am very happy. He is my one, my rock and my soulmate. Life can be boring at times but I don’t mind that. We are happy and healthy and have each others backs. I still fancy him and he is always attentive and kind.

I see there's another thread about what your partner does to annoy you... mine leaves cupboards and drawers open, airing cupboard door...why
Dirty clothes on top of the wash bin, then he'll get up a ladder,clean the conservatory roof inside and out. Last night I was really annoyed with him, we were walking back to the car, after watching fireworks. He knows I'm night blind (rod and cone deficiency) there are hardly any street lights, the pavement is uneven bricks,tree roots,I am trying to find the flashlight on my phone
He walks fast anyway, told me it wasn't far to fall! I won't repeat what I called him under my breath!!

I would say it’s hard work too especially with young kids around. It has positives and negatives as do kids.

Together for very nearly 20 years and we are not together just because "lives are so entangled with finances and children that separating isn't appealing". We choose eachother regularly. It's not bliss if people interpret bliss as akin to a romance blockbuster movie. However it is bliss in the sense of having someone who is truly rooting for me and us, supports and cares for me, who makes me laugh and I find interesting, who is a fantastic father and who I love building a life with. I love our family stage of life but am also still very happy about how we will be when its just us at home. I'm not dreading being with just him. We were just us for nearly 10 years pre kids.

Not gonna lie, mostly it’s pretty good. Been married 33 years to my best friend and confidante who always has my back. Obviously there are ups and downs. He’s not perfect and neither am I but we can live with each other’s faults.

Positives: it feels comforting like a warm bath, regular affection and sex, companionship, for me it mean the chance to have a family. Opens up new areas of interest and activity, meet partner's friends.

Compared with a bad relationship it is relaxed and reassuring, balancing and comforting, fun and playful, satisfying. No more horribly tense meals, resentful silences, making my light dimmer to avoid blinding someone who couldn't handle it.

However, it's become easy to get lazy about doing things for me rather than stuff we do together, lazier about making some plans, I feel like my some of my dear dear single friends find it harder to relate to me. I don't have any new funny dating stories. I don't seem to have as many crazy whacky adventures (that might be down to less booze /being pregnant). I feel a bit sad when I think I may never again have the thrill of a first kiss or the anticipation of first touch. No partner is every single thing you hoped they would be (maybe a lucky few) and even if they are, they are human and so sharing one's space and one's life takes compromise.

I believe my life is enhanced by this relationship otherwise I wouldn't be in it. I was single for stints of years and years and I wish at the time I had been able to appreciate more how those times gave me total freedom to do so many things. I did use that freedom to some extent but also sometimes felt weighed down by the worry that I was single because I was fundamentally flawed and unlovable. I have to recognise that I am no more lovable no (or more flawed) than when I was single. I am the same person. I just happen to be in a relationship.