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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:
ohdeerohdear · 15/02/2024 23:56

I love my parents more.

asdf33 · 15/02/2024 23:59

Definitely just a different type of love for me. I moved countries for my partner and miss my parents (we speak daily). My parents have shown me so much love and have always been supportive and protective, despite me moving countries. I still feel like I have a home with them. But when I visit my parents without my partner, I miss my partner terribly (despite speaking everyday), but in a different way. I like to cuddle for hours on the sofa with my partner, which I don’t do with my parents for example. So it’s different.

Sconeswithnutella · 16/02/2024 00:02

I love them equally but differently. Until the day he died my dad would do anything for me; he was a massive support both emotionally and practically. He was the sort of dad who would drive an hour to bring me a coat because I mentioned I was cold. My mum is the kindest human ever and worships me, my husband and my kids. I adore(d) my parents.
My husband is a different kind of amazing. He’s my absolute rock and the first one I call when something good or bad happens.
My children come above everyone.

Gloriosaford · 16/02/2024 00:07

I'd say the bond with my partner is stronger, but also very different.
With parents it's more primal, there's a kind of involuntary loyalty that I can't break, even though I don't feel especially positive towards them.

Aecor · 16/02/2024 00:08

Meadowfinch · 15/02/2024 05:46

Sounds like the plot of King Lear.

😀

Not till you start dividing up your actual kingdom and threatening to come and be a permanent houseguest with your 100 knights.😀

Blanketpolicy · 16/02/2024 00:10

I never sit down and think about , of the people I love, who I love the most.

It is unnecessary to rank them.

Theatrefan12 · 16/02/2024 00:14

It’s a different kind of love but I truly love my partner and I truly love my parents

I do raise my eyebrows when I see people say that my “nuclear family” is my only family now (especially when it comes to things like Christmas). My parents are as much my family as the people I live with and always will be

And shock I also love my in laws. Not as much as my parents obviously, like my DH it’s a different kind of love but they still are part of my family

If life goes as planned my husband will be around after my parents are gone so I want to cherish every moment with them while I can (which isn’t every day as we currently don’t live near family but moving home because both sets of parents are not getting younger)

Aprilrosesews · 16/02/2024 00:15

Prior to having my child I would have said my husband. However, now I know what it’s like to unconditionally love a child, it would be my parents. Knowing what that love is like makes me truly understand how much they love me. I love my husband unconditionally but he could still choose to leave me and after the rocky year we’ve had, I know unconditional love doesn’t always mean you are compatible to live together. It’s a good thing I don’t have to live my parents ever again!! My husband is part of my soul and will always be my family regardless but you cannot touch that against the love for a child so my love for them has grown in understanding of their love for me

Ofmince · 16/02/2024 00:17

My partner is the first and only person that I feel securely attached to. It's taken a long time, but it is safe to express my emotions and needs to him. He supports me without me asking, and he has never let me down.

I wish I had that feeling with my parents, but I don't, and they can't/won't change, so I know that I never will. I feel a bit sad and guilty for saying that I love my partner "more", but there are reasons why my parents are the way that they are; they were severely emotionally neglected by their own parents. I do love them. It's not a secure love though, and they don't really know who I am.

MidnightMeltdown · 16/02/2024 00:23

It's a different kind of love.

Your parents are the only people who will love you unconditionally throughout your life, so they come first imo.

Partners may come and go

Charlie2121 · 16/02/2024 00:30

I love DH + DC way more than anyone else I have ever met in my entire life.

I’ve never been close to my parents or siblings and wouldn’t considered I’ve ever loved them or indeed any other extended family members for that matter.

DancingOnMoonbeams · 16/02/2024 00:37

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.

I'm like this too!

theduchessofspork · 16/02/2024 00:37

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!

Yes… but you would date again OP, that’s how life works, you didn’t die with him in this scenario.

PoliteTurtle · 16/02/2024 00:40

@theduchessofspork No, I wouldn’t date again 🙂

ViciousCurrentBun · 16/02/2024 00:48

Good grief yes I do, I chose him I was my parents child as an accident of birth and as number 5 was a bit overlooked.

I get mighty peeved when people assume I would date again, I really wouldn’t because men irritate me very easily and he is the only truly tolerable man I have ever dated.

herewegoagainy · 16/02/2024 00:54

My DH.
I love my parents, and my mum especially has been a great mum. But my DH really knows me and understands me and our love feels really deep. Even if we split I would still love him.

Winter2020 · 16/02/2024 02:08

I don't mean to sound mercenary but my parents are my past and my husband is my present and my future.

I think it is best and natural if a certain amount of distance and independence grows between adult children and parents so that when the parents pass away (if this happens in the natural order of things) then the child is able to cope and go on.

I hope to have a good relationship with my children when they are grown but I truly hope they have their own independent lives and families and that losing me or their father, while sad, is nothing that they can't cope with.

GodspeedJune · 16/02/2024 02:19

Love the post that said their cat is their emotional centre 😄

For me it’s the case that both are emotional centres. I don’t love DP more than my parents. I’m especially close to my DM and it’s a relationship that can’t be broken. I love DP very much but I’m not naive to the fact that could change, and we could even end up separating.

Then you have children and the love for them supersedes all else.

HelloHi33 · 16/02/2024 02:27

i love my partner, my children and my parents but all 3 are different kinds of love.

Ulysees · 16/02/2024 02:40

Not the same thing but I always remember an audience member on Oprah years ago. When asked if her dh and child were drowning which would she save? She said she because she could always have more dcs 😳 Oprah's eyes were on stalks as far as I can remember. I don't remember what the show was about now? I hated that woman.

Ulysees · 16/02/2024 02:41

She said dh because she could always have more dcs! 🙈

Moro93 · 16/02/2024 04:34

Both my parents have passed away but I do love my DH more than I loved them. I was very close to my mum and she used to be the person who gave me comfort if I was ill, upset etc, but that changed to my DH.
He knows me better than anyone else ever has, I’m the most comfortable around him and he is my rock.

I agree it’s a completely different kind of love. I find it hard to measure ‘how much you love someone’ as it can ebb and flow in intensity. I was devastated when I lost my parents but I know it would hit me a lot harder if I lost my DH.

I understand the love between spouses can be less permanent though and things can change. But that doesn’t affect the strength of it while it lasts.

MotherOfVizslas · 16/02/2024 05:41

I definitely do. He is the only human I trust 100%.

My mum loves me but she's unpredictable and difficult. I can't trust my dad as far as I could throw him, sadly. He does care about me, but he cares about himself first always.

Tatonka · 16/02/2024 05:45

I would say equally, but I have a great relationship with my parents and also its a different kind of love. I also love my DC, I'd say more than anything but actually probably the same, and again it's a different kind of love. I think naturally with DC it's different as they have to be your first priority in life and they rely on you

Immemorialelms · 16/02/2024 08:24

@PoliteTurtle you don't know, sweetheart, you're in your twenties. The length of your whole life, (the time you have taken to form this fervent conviction), could happen all over again...and you'd only be in your fifties. How do you know how you will change? It's risky to be so rigid.

Love him now, be optimistic, be all in for the future, but be humble about time and change. They are far more powerful than any human - that's my philosophy.

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