To never tell partner I love him?

[Takinitgottobserd]

Is it weird? I have never told him I love him, and he's never told me he loves me. I do love him, completely. My parents never told me they loved me growing up, and I never told them, but there was absolutely no doubt that we all did.

I spoke to him yesterday and a friend commented that she always told her DH she loved him every time she said bye, and did I not do the same. I said I’d never said it and nor had my DP, and she found it mind blowing.

Is it that strange?

Married happily for 25 years and it's not something we ever say either. We write it in cards sometimes! I love him and he loves me. We know this. It's obvious from the way we behave and treat each other. But when we said it out loud it was a bit awkward so we didn't try agan very often!

Same here. I don't think it is that unusual.

Not saying it regularly or even remotely regularly is surely a little different to literally never ever having said it to someone?

The same thing happened in that other thread this week op, where the op of that thread refused to believe anyone could be really happy or that a relationship is a real relationship if it didn't fit her pattern of what a real relationship was mean to be. Your relationship clearly works for you, so that's great. But those of us who don't want the traditional "settled down" typical relationship, and have something less common face these kind of questions all the time.

Im probably worse op i dont believe in love.
True love solemates whatever you want to call it.
I dont believe in any of it.

What’s you relationship status? And history? I’m guessing…. Unhappy

I don’t believe in soulmates but I do feel the emotion of love.

Oooh, this sounds infuriating. Therefore I must read it. Do you remember the thread title, by any chance?

My parents were born in the 1930s and have always said they love me; frequently, always have done and still do. So I'm not sure what what decade you were born in has to do with it except that people are more likely to ask other families if they say it or not on social media.

Dh parents never said it to him. I find that weird and it feels cold to me but I don't doubt they loved him.

I have no kids my choice.
Im very happy thank you.
But i just dont feel that connection of love with people.
I mean i like them but not the i couldn't live without you thing.
I must be married etc.
We are all different.

I didn’t ask about children

are you in a relationship? If so, happy?
have you ever been in a happy healthy relationship?

No im single and love it.
I have had relationships but i felt so tied down having to reassure that person of how much i like them.
Id rather be single and travel.

8 years in. We first said it after 5 years. Now we say it every now and again. We don't live together but spend most of the week at my or his place. We have joint pension plans, socialise with each other's families, are close to each other's families, we have a joint bank account, etc. Both divorced and no plans to get married again. No kids on either side.

We have very busy lives (independently and together) and we have no doubt we love each other. We have shared interests, laugh a lot together, and generally have a very happy relationship. I'm quite sure that the key to it is that we spend part of the week apart.

There is no tried and tested format for a happy relationship - but I have no doubt I'm in a committed, loving, happy one.

@Fingerpie you seem quite het up about this almost as if you are trying to prove something to yourself

So you have never loved anyone
Prob why you don’t believe in it!
how old are you?
presume your parents didn’t have a happy marriage?

Oh heavens no, sorry

genuinely curious because it is truly alien to me

Those I love, I tell them.

Those that love me, they tell me.

it is just part of the fabric of our relationship. And so I’m curious about those that are so different. Nothing more nothing less

I don't think it matters as long as you're both happy with your relationship, however you live/communicate/what you plan for the future! It'd be unusual for my relationship and probably many others but that's not relevant. And agreed that it's far more important to show someone they're loved than it is to say it.

You are weirdly insistent about this @Fingerpie

My parents never said they loved me (I'm a child of the 80s); and neither did most of my friends' parents.

They did love me, and I knew that.

Once I had my own children, I told them I loved them, from their earliest days and regularly but it didn't make me think my own parents were strange / cold - just that it was a different time, and they weren't especially unusual, even though I'm sure there were other parents at the time who did say that. In the same way, their parenting style was broadly very different to mine (and most people I know), lots of practical support but little in the way of emotional support, and broadly autocratic in style. I don't think that's great parenting but I recognise it as the product of its time.

Similarly, I think telling your DC you love them is important but the fact that my parents didn't doesn't seem either perplexing or cold or any of the other adjectives you used. Because I understand the context of the time and what was fairly usual then.

I never ever said “cold”

I said whether you find it perplexing having had parents that never said I love you and now that you’re a parent

you have explained 🤷‍♀️

im a child of the late seventies
my dad was a much older dad
I was told I was loved freely and liberally
I really don’t think telling your children is a generational thing if you were born this side of the 2WW!

Weell there is several posters saying the same thing so its not unusual
Does it really matter as long as people know they were loved,?

Sounds like you want to know to much about me.
How i am has nothing to do with my parents.
Its like any religion you either believe in it or you dont.

Broadly speaking, it is generational.

Currently, it's atypical not to tell your DC you love them; in 1980s Ireland it was quite typical not to stay 'I love you'. This doesn't mean, like in your case, that families / parents do so, but based on my own experience of being with friends, I can't ever really remember hearing it said and know from conversations that it wasn't.

You have been really directly questioning OP and quite specifically saying that it's 'certainly not normal' (that it wasn't said to her by her parents).

I can relate OP, my husband and I have said I love you, but it's really not something we say regularly. My parents have never said it to me, but I've always felt very loved by my mumand we are very close, difficult relationship with my dad but i don't doubt he loves me. DH's mum said it alot, but she was abusive and manipulative, so his experience of hearing it wasn't very positive. We have children, I do tell them I love them but it's not an everyday thing, and doesn't come easily to me in the way that showing love by caring for them does.

I don't think the words matter as much as your overall behaviour and relationship, which you both seem happy with - i can see it causing problems if you were with someone who needed to hear the words daily, but it sounds like neither of you do. I have been in relationships in the past where my partner told he me loved me but was abusive, or told me he loved me and cheated. The words mean nothing without actions.l, and for me (not everyone, which just shows we're all different) the actions alone are enough.

It wouldn't be for me OP as I an completely in love with the idea of love. DS on the other hand (who I tell all the time) says 'you only need to tell me once and then I know forever.' I think some people are very romantic and some people are just much more practical.

Are you romantic in other ways?