Do you ever wish you had more romance?

pointersp · 2024-01-13T19:48:36+00:00

I love DP, and I do believe he loves me as well! [grin] However, sometimes I just want like... movie romance... or TV programme romance.. or romance described in books and music [grin] I know he loves me but I don't ever get the feeling that he's like head over heels obsessed with me. Do you think it's unattainable (given that my comparison is actively fictional for the most part)?

DreadPirateRobots · 13/01/2024 20:01

Um. Yes.

"Head over heels obsessed" is a temporary altered state thanks to hormones and endorphins. It is by its very nature fleeting and unsustainable. You can't function like that at other things for any real length of time, and you certainly can't live with and go through the awkward messy unglamorous business of life with a flawed selfish inconsistent real human with a real human body and remain "head over heels obsessed".

DH and I have been together twenty years. Yesterday he went out and got Oreos for me to eat while sick in bed because I mentioned in passing I felt like biscuits. That's far more romantic than anything I have ever seen in a film, because after all this time he knows me and cares for me and does little things simply because he knows they'll make me happy.

ComfortableAtLastTookLongEnough · 13/01/2024 20:08

I am married to a low reactor, I used to have those thought processes, then I got cancer, when your life partner is feeding you through a tube in your stomach for six months and in the early part of the treatment, took all your weight as you limped to the toilet to revisit your morphine and chemo dose, and helped you back to bed and then cleaned the bathroom. That is true love, that you won't get in books and films.

80skid · 13/01/2024 20:40

I do often wonder what it would be like to have a partner who is romantic and even notices things about you. I have to remind myself that my DH's love language is not like that. He will bring me cups of coffee and water before bed. He'll sometimes rub my feet when we're watching tv. No flowers, never a compliment and certainly never would arrange a date night but there are ways he shows he appreciates me.

bakewellbride · 13/01/2024 20:43

Did you not have the 'head over heels' stuff when you first got together?

pinksheetss · 13/01/2024 20:46

In 2012 I worked at a summer camp in America and had a 'love at first sight' moment with a guy there. Full on summer romance, just like the movies. Genuinely so much romance there

It all went completely sour when I found out he had a girlfriend

I've been with my DP almost ten years now and whilst we don't have the 'movie' romance we genuinely have so much love between us and a strong partnership and I couldn't imagine life any different. I'd take this love any day over the movie romance

MonsteraMama · 13/01/2024 20:47

Oh I'm a hopeless romantic and thankfully so is my husband. He's always been excellent both at the big romantic gestures that make me giddy, as well as the small, heartfelt gestures that really matter and show he knows me and is paying attention.

I also heartily disagree with @DreadPirateRobots , you absolutely can still be head over heels obsessed with someone even after a long time and a lot of trials. Romance doesn't have to die in a long term relationship!

Mangotango39 · 13/01/2024 20:49

No - I don't want that. I think it would make me cringe but maybe it's not my love language .
Everyone I have known to have that type of relationship , it has never really lasted and always seemed for show if anything else.

I much prefer the little things, cup of tea in bed, kiss on the forehead, asking how my day was ....

Mangotango39 · 13/01/2024 20:50

Oh and I have been with DP 8 years so we are way past honeymoon aha !

Sapphire387 · 13/01/2024 20:51

ComfortableAtLastTookLongEnough · 13/01/2024 20:08

I am married to a low reactor, I used to have those thought processes, then I got cancer, when your life partner is feeding you through a tube in your stomach for six months and in the early part of the treatment, took all your weight as you limped to the toilet to revisit your morphine and chemo dose, and helped you back to bed and then cleaned the bathroom. That is true love, that you won't get in books and films.

Very best wishes for your recovery, and glad you have the support of your DH. That is real love.

Like you, but on a not as serious level, I realise it through things like... after my c section I had a catheter and DH would support / half haul me to the hospital bathroom and empty it for me. The nurses seemed to think I would be capable of doing that myself.

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 13/01/2024 20:52

No - I don't want that. I think it would make me cringe but maybe it's not my love language .

Same here, but tbh the phrase 'love language' makes me cringe just as much!

FrozenGhost · 13/01/2024 20:56

Yes I do. I know it's unrealistic but I also wish I'd experienced it once, even just for a little while. I'm married but DH hasn't ever been head over heels for me, doesn't do compliments, dates, never stayed up all night talking, never couldn't keep his hands off me, no proposal.

Milange · 13/01/2024 21:23

@MonsteraMama We’ve been married 13 years, known each other over 25 years and still very romantic and ‘head over heels’.

I’ve become disabled in that time and my wife still has to do a lot of caring for me, but we are still crazy about each other.

Bbq1 · 13/01/2024 21:59

ComfortableAtLastTookLongEnough · 13/01/2024 20:08

I am married to a low reactor, I used to have those thought processes, then I got cancer, when your life partner is feeding you through a tube in your stomach for six months and in the early part of the treatment, took all your weight as you limped to the toilet to revisit your morphine and chemo dose, and helped you back to bed and then cleaned the bathroom. That is true love, that you won't get in books and films.

My husband cared for me during my cancer 12 years ago, by my side at every appointment, took an unpaid career break to care for me and our then 5 year old son. He even changed my ileostomy bag at times. Sadly, the exact same cancer, Lymphoma has recently reoccured and he's doing it all over again. It's even tougher this time around but he's there for me, my absolute rock. As you say, that is true love.

PrawnofthePatriarchy · 13/01/2024 22:11

DH was incredibly kind and endlessly funny. We enjoyed 16 years of what a friend calls shitty knicker romance - the basic joys of a happy partnership.

But he was also very romantic. He used to call me 'girl of my dreams' - and he meant it. He filled our sitting room with flower displays one morning after a gig he did at the Dorchester... I have so many lovely memories, memories that make me smile many years after his premature death.

I count myself very lucky.

toastandtwo · 13/01/2024 22:21

My DH is very romantic. I’m not! So no I don’t… but I’m sure he does 😂

slatter · 13/01/2024 22:30

I still open the fridge to pieces of paper with a love heart drawn on it. We have been married 25 years this year. He is romantic in that sense, will write little notes, turn on the electric blanket on my side and call it preheating the oven like he will cook me. I also repay those romantic gestures with ones of my own.

But what shows me that he loves me is looking after me when I have been in a ball of pain on the floor. Carrying me to the car when I collapsed from said pain when out in public, that was mortifying rather than romantic. These days he couldn't lift me I have gained so much weight from medication and lack of ability to move much some days.

Sorry to hear of people on here who have lost partners and who have survived cancer or are sadly going through it again. I think when someone is by your side through the worst of you, still looks at you like you are that teeny 22 year woman he met with that same look in his eyes, that, that is romantic. He is my absolute best friend, we laugh every day with each other. I still fancy the pants off him. I feel very lucky.

hitherandhither · 13/01/2024 22:31

Yes, I'd like more of this. I get a cup of tea and some chocolate on occasion. But otherwise he's very practical rather than romantic. We don't even laugh that much together. Doesn't flirt/banter. I flirt/banter more with my female colleagues! Been married 18years.

Edited to add - when I had emergency surgery last year, he took me to and from the hospital and sat with me but he didn't do 'emotions' and ask me how I felt, or how I was. Just the practical side, as I said. I sometimes feel very lonely.

SweetFemaleAttitude · 13/01/2024 23:38

Been with DH 21 years. We aren't romantic with each other and never have been. I told him when we met he daresn't get me a valentine's day card as its bollocks and luckily he agreed.

We do nice things for each other all the time though, but not in the romantic sense. But we are kind to each other and make each other laugh every day.

Romance to me means gestures that are more about the giver - i.e. look how wonderful I am.

WhatanEmbarrasment · 13/01/2024 23:39

Yes but I’m single and have been celibate for 7 years. I miss anything at this point 😂