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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:
AffIt · 16/02/2024 17:01

It's an interesting question: I think my generic response would be 'it's different'.

I feel a greater sense of duty / responsibility towards my (elderly, widowed) mother than my OH, because he can take care of himself.

In terms of actual love? I don't know. I think I probably do love my OH more than my mother in the sense of 'the person I want to be with right now'.

Very complicated.

SpongeBob2022 · 16/02/2024 17:13

For me it's different rather than more. My parents are wonderful and if I hadn't met my husband their love would have been more than enough for me. So it's not like I feel I've 'upgraded' by meeting him!

I love my son the most though. To the extent that if I had to choose 1 out of my parents or my partner I would always choose my partner because its what's best for my son.

PoliteTurtle · 16/02/2024 17:16

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.

Oh, I found that comment really patronising 🤨 I hate this notion that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m in my 20’s? I definitely do know… I’ve been through enough to know what I want and why…. but thank you anyhow

telestrations · 16/02/2024 17:20

I like my partner a lot more then my parents but love... I guess it depends on what you mean by that.

A rushing sense of euphoria when I see them after an absence, or unconditional loyalty and duty

Gwenhwyfar · 16/02/2024 17:24

Yes of course and it starts from the first few dates.
You can even love friends more than your parents. Your family can be one you choose.

Wednesdaysotherchild · 16/02/2024 17:25

Neither of them are my emotional centre! I am my own emotional centre. Thanks to therapy.

DP is autistic so can’t, parents both immature & self-centred.

restingrichface · 16/02/2024 17:27

Yes, I do.

K0OLA1D · 16/02/2024 17:28

No I don't love him more. I love them equally in different ways.

I have a very close relationship with my parents.

Oblomov24 · 16/02/2024 17:30

I love my husband a lot. I love my mum a lot. It's a different kind of love. The ds's I too love, differently.

BungleandGeorge · 16/02/2024 17:36

OP if you’re very close to your parents now it’s very likely you’ll remain so. You can see from the responses that not everyone is close to family and there are often reasons for that but if you have that bond it doesn’t go away just because you experience the love of a romantic partner

hottchocolate · 16/02/2024 17:40

I think it's different kinds of love as well. Why does it have to be about who you love more?

EvangelicalAboutButteredToast · 16/02/2024 17:42

This doesn’t speak well about my relationship if I admit I love(d) my parents and my children more than DP. I have more history with my parent(s) and my kids ate basically my heart.

SomeCatFromJapan · 16/02/2024 17:44

I'm taking "love" to mean whose death would you be most upset at.

ALittleFreakedOutby · 16/02/2024 23:49

Oh, I found that comment really patronising 🤨 I hate this notion that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m in my 20’s? I definitely do know… I’ve been through enough to know what I want and why…. but thank you anyhow

@Immemorialelms was exactly right @PoliteTurtle and your initital position and your further responses, particularly your insistance that you are right and that there is no other option betrays your immaturity.

In fact, that you truly believe with such utter confidence in your twenties that if your partner died that you 'would never date again', underlines that immaturity. It's a sign of maturity to appreciate that your personality changes sometimes in quite fundamental ways as you age and experience life. Grief particularly changes people especially loss of a life partner at a young age.

It's very sad that you can't actually open your mind to the idea that you are most likely wrong in your certainty but at the very least admit that it is a possiblity that you are wrong.

herewegoagainy · 16/02/2024 23:58

I love my parents. But I have lived with my husband a lot longer than I lived with my parents.

MrsSkylerWhite · 17/02/2024 00:00

Yes, absolutely.

Lennon80 · 17/02/2024 00:04

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.

Agree 100%

herewegoagainy · 17/02/2024 00:07

My mother loved me unconditionally. She did not know me as an adult like my husband knows me. He knows me inside out as we have lived together for decades.

bozzabollix · 17/02/2024 00:10

It’s a weird question to think about, I’ve been with my husband for longer than I was ever with my parents. I remember having a really bad stomach once which hurt, and you know that feeling you get when you’re hurt as a child and you just want your mum? I had that but it was for my husband. Funny really because we’re not lovey dovey and I wasn’t guaranteed huge levels of sympathy! But I did feel better with a hug. It was then I knew everything had shifted.

KThnxBye · 17/02/2024 00:13

I’ve known my partner longer than I’ve known my parents. I’ve lived with my partner for longer than I ever lived with my parents.

yes, I absolutely love him more than anyone else except my children.

herewegoagainy · 17/02/2024 00:13

When you are in a long happy marriage, the love does get deeper. It is different to being married for a shorter length of time.

WearyAuldWumman · 17/02/2024 00:15

I don't know how to answer this but...It hurt when I lost each of my parents. When my husband died, it felt as though my life had come to an end.

NoBinturongsHereMate · 17/02/2024 01:16

Wednesdaysotherchild · 16/02/2024 17:25

Neither of them are my emotional centre! I am my own emotional centre. Thanks to therapy.

DP is autistic so can’t, parents both immature & self-centred.

I'm glad someone else said this. I was beginning to think I was odd. My emotional centre/sense of home lies within.

As for whether I love parents or partner more - well, it's a bit like asking whether apricots are better than bicycles. Totally different things, with different purposes; too different to compare.

Being born into a linguistinc environment that has umpteen words for types of precipitation but only 1 for love makes it difficult to discuss the distinctions of storge, philia and eros - but they are not interchangeable just because we lack individual words.

scaredofff · 17/02/2024 04:38

My mum has recently been diagnosed with cancer and the fear of possibly losing her has made me realise how much I love her and you only get one. Once she's gone that's it. Awful

Yanbu - I love them both very very differently and couldn't be without either for different reasons. They both (and ds/dgp) are pieces of a jigsaw that make up my heart

mrlistersgelfbride · 17/02/2024 08:57

It sounds awful but the love for either of them is nothing compared to how I feel about DD. I love her the most, more than anyone.

I would say actually I love my brother 2nd most. We are very close.
Then it's my mum.

My dad and partner are further down the list. I have a difficult relationship with dad, always have. He's very short tempered and intolerant. It's hard to be around him.
And me and partner are mostly together for DD, unfortunately.