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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you love your partner more than you love your parents?

115 replies

Selenaso · 15/02/2024 05:19

Or is it just a different kind of love? (Assuming you have loving relationships with both your partner and your parents, which I recognise that not everybody does). I’m single, and my parents still very much feel like my emotional centre. Obviously I’m sure when you get into a serious relationship that shifts, but I’m curious whether you feel like your partner replaces your parents as the emotional centre/sense of home, or it’s more like you gain multiple centres?

YABU - I love my partner more than I love my parents, he (or she) is my emotional centre now

YANBU - it’s a different kind of love, not greater or less, they are both emotional centres for me

OP posts:
SilverBranchGoldenPears · 15/02/2024 05:24

Absolutely I do.
With a partner you are choosing someone to spend your life with, to go to bed with and wake up with. Someone who will hold you when you lose someone else like your parents. Someone who will look out for you if you are in hospital sand help fight battles for you.
Parents are sometimes there to do some of those things, but not all, and nor should they be.
As a parent myself I hope dearly that my children will be able to form relationships which both replace the caring love which they get from me, and grow it with a passion and fire which they need to get elsewhere. When I die then they will feel safe.
This is the circle of life or whatever.
It‘s how it should be.

Tandora · 15/02/2024 05:27

I didn’t know how to vote. Certainly my partner is my emotional centre, much more so at this stage in
life than my parents. But that doesn’t mean I “love” him “more”. How do you measure love? It’s a different kind of love. All loves are different.

WandaWonder · 15/02/2024 05:30

I have parents, siblings, husband and child - It is all different

BeingATwatItsABingThing · 15/02/2024 05:31

It’s a different kind of love. I choose to love my DH and he and my DC are the centre of my world. I make decisions based on what is best for them and our family. I miss them when I’m not with them and can happily spend all day every day with them.

I love my parents but it’s different. I don’t make decisions with them in mind (unless it involves them) and I can only spend so much time with them before I start to get annoyed. That length of time is significantly longer than other people - a couple of weeks as opposed to about 3/4 days for DH’s family and a weekend for friends.

Meadowfinch · 15/02/2024 05:46

Sounds like the plot of King Lear.

😀

whathappenedno · 15/02/2024 05:58

I love my children the most
Then husband
Niece
Adult Children's partners
Dog
Dad
Closest Friends
Sister
In-laws
Extended family /friends

MariaVT65 · 15/02/2024 06:05

Yes i love my husband more than parents as I am NC with my dad and I often struggle to feel a lot for my mum due to what she put me through as a teenager and her poor attitude towards my average looks.

The people Iove the most are my kids, even though they exhaust me!

RokaandRoll · 15/02/2024 06:11

I love my husband a hundred times more than I love my parents but that's because I have an amazing husband versus parents who weren't good parents when I was growing up, but with whom I've made peace

threelittlescones · 15/02/2024 10:23

Absolutely I love my partner more. I wouldn't say I even love my parents in the "conventional" way. My family doesn't do any sort of physical or verbal affection or saying I love you etc and has been that way my entire life. I'm not close to my parents the same way other people are. So yes, I love my partner more. And I love my kids more than I love my partner albeit in a different way.

Unexpectedlysinglemum · 15/02/2024 11:20

SilverBranchGoldenPears · 15/02/2024 05:24

Absolutely I do.
With a partner you are choosing someone to spend your life with, to go to bed with and wake up with. Someone who will hold you when you lose someone else like your parents. Someone who will look out for you if you are in hospital sand help fight battles for you.
Parents are sometimes there to do some of those things, but not all, and nor should they be.
As a parent myself I hope dearly that my children will be able to form relationships which both replace the caring love which they get from me, and grow it with a passion and fire which they need to get elsewhere. When I die then they will feel safe.
This is the circle of life or whatever.
It‘s how it should be.

That's a lovely answer and relationship goals

Bex5490 · 15/02/2024 22:59

I think I love DH and Mum equally. But it depends on an individual’s relationships with both.

For me I chose DH, he chose me - we share a family etc

But I’m really close to my mum and more secure in the idea that nothing could ever get in the way of our relationship whereas marriages sometimes end.

AndThatWasNY · 15/02/2024 23:03

I would never stop loving my parents.
I absolutely love the core of DH but know relationships don't always last forever and have loved before and it has stopped completely (though 24 years is pretty good!)

AmaryllisChorus · 15/02/2024 23:24

DC
Then DH
Then my siblings
Then parents.

For good reasons.

PoliteTurtle · 15/02/2024 23:29

Not sure if this counts, both my parents suck. My husband has supported me in such a way that it’s helped me grow as a person way more than being with my parents ever did. I can deffo say I love him more than I ever loved them.

ALittleFreakedOutby · 15/02/2024 23:34

It will depend on your parents surely. The love will be different because its a different kind but the love for your parents will be unlikely to be trumped by your partner if you had good parents.

If you had great parents, no one will love you like your parents because it's that unconditional love thing particularly for women - no man will love you like your father if you had a great father.

A partner is someone who has randomly chosen you and you randomly chose - they could have chosen many other women, are likely to have loved at least some other women, and no matter how devoted you think they are to you, history shows they can leave at any time for a younger model/your best friend/the postman. The same is true for you - a random choice based on luck, who you happened to meet, how you felt at the time, wehther you were in a space for a relationship and so on.

Your mother and father will always be your mother and father and again repeating if you had good, kind, stable, loving parents, that is the kind of love that you cannot get anywhere else. Equally the love you have for those kind of parents runs very deep and is very profound.

No matter how much you think you love your partner, the reality is if he died tomorrow and you are young enough, you would meet someone else different and love again. You can't get new parents in the same way.

It's a joyful thing to come from a loving happy parentage and anyone who has that is very blessed.

NewName24 · 15/02/2024 23:36

It isn't a competition.
It is a different sort of love.

Changington · 15/02/2024 23:37

Love my parents, but they are starting their new lives now their kids don't need them any more, and good for them.

My husband and I get closer every day as our kids are out of the needy toddler stage. My kids are still my priority but they are less my focus as they grow.

So I'd say it changes throughout your life. It ebbs and flows.

IrisM22 · 15/02/2024 23:40

BeingATwatItsABingThing · 15/02/2024 05:31

It’s a different kind of love. I choose to love my DH and he and my DC are the centre of my world. I make decisions based on what is best for them and our family. I miss them when I’m not with them and can happily spend all day every day with them.

I love my parents but it’s different. I don’t make decisions with them in mind (unless it involves them) and I can only spend so much time with them before I start to get annoyed. That length of time is significantly longer than other people - a couple of weeks as opposed to about 3/4 days for DH’s family and a weekend for friends.

Edited

A couple of weeks?! That's fantastic! My mum annoys me within hours 😂 My dad would annoy me almost immediately when he was around.

BlueThroughandThrough · 15/02/2024 23:48

My child is my centre along with my parents. I have a strong caring protective love for all of them.
My partner I love too but my parents have given me everything and always been there for me. It's ingrained into my soul and I dread the day I lose them.
My DH is only just on the outside but I cannot bet my heart on anything but unconditional love.

Merrymouse · 15/02/2024 23:49

No matter how much you think you love your partner, the reality is if he died tomorrow and you are young enough, you would meet someone else different and love again. You can't get new parents in the same way.

Maybe it’s just different life stages and experiences but my perspective is different.

If you are with your partner for a long time and you share children they become part of your life in a way that can’t be replaced.

At least in the U.K. your parents aren’t usually part of your day to day life if you are an adult, and if they are lucky they won’t survive their children.

Allthatwegotisthispalebluedot · 15/02/2024 23:50

I love my parents and I love my partner but I genuinely love my cat the most. 😂 I don’t even care how bonkers that makes me. She is my emotional centre.

kellonie · 15/02/2024 23:51

My parents have never been my emotional centre. I have never felt love for them. I am nc with them now.

I love my DH although I am not sure I'd say he is my emotional centre. I am a very self-reliant person.

PoliteTurtle · 15/02/2024 23:54

No matter how much you think you love your partner, the reality is if he died tomorrow and you are young enough, you would meet someone else different and love again. You can't get new parents in the same way.

Big no from me. I’ve already said if I ever lost my husband (we’re in our 20’s) I wouldn’t ever date again! And my IL’s are like my adopted parents 🤭 So he really is my everything!

cauliflowerqueen · 15/02/2024 23:54

I'd say it's just a different kind of love, but it's true that the first person I'd turn to in almost any crisis would be DH, before my parents. He's the one I see every day and speak to most, by far, and he's the one whose absence would leave the largest hole in my life, now. Before I met him, that would've been my parents.

Also, you choose your spouse (unless you've had an arranged marriage); your parents are really a matter of luck. However much you love them, you didn't choose them... It's a totally different thing and not really comparable.

MorrisZapp · 15/02/2024 23:54

No I think I love my parents more. They do my head in but they love me unconditionally. My dad would give me the shirt off his back, he utterly adores me. Nobody else could ever take that place. I've had loads of boyfriends though and no matter how hard a break up, there's always another fish in the sea.

DP likes me but we rub along like flatmates mostly.