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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Where is this heading?

10 replies

ElizabethX · 18/06/2013 19:49

So I have been with this bloke for about a year and in almost every way I am very happy. He is solvent, tidy, thoughtful, affectionate, calls when he says he will but without being clingy. Everyone I have introduced him to has liked him, he is good with nephew and niece and so on. The sex is constant and is so out of this world it makes me cry sometimes.

He doesn't drink or play golf or watch football, he will sit through almost anything I want entertainment wise, he is massively chilled out and I have never seen him get up tight about anything.

This leads me to the catch, a few months after we hooked up he was emptying stuff out of boxes and among the stuff was a photograph of a woman. She was his wife, he is a widower. He just said "she's dead now", put the photo away, said a bit more and it hasn't really come up again.

I think the catch is that the completely chilled out persona I adore is because compared to losing his wife, absolutely nothing seems that important to him. And I think this would include splitting up with me, ie if it happened he'd get over it because he's trained himself.

This is not the same as grieving, I don't think, or is it? You'd not expect someone to get over this in six months but for him it's been five or six years. I am thinking the grieving is past but there's a change in personality effect. Is that possible?

I've been with men before where you could tell that you weren't as important to them as Chelsea of whatever. He's not like that, it's not that there's something that engages him and it's not me. I feel I have his undivided attention and I matter, but I feel sort of wounded that if I ended it he would just, I don't know, recover.

It's hard to talk to him about, not because he doesn't communicate but because what the hell do you say? "If I left would you miss me?" - stupid question.

What would you do?

OP posts:
Januarymadness · 18/06/2013 19:51

Has he actually said that to you? Maybe he was like that with his wife too?

Leverette · 18/06/2013 19:54

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ImperialBlether · 18/06/2013 19:54

Has he spoken to you about his relationship with his wife? Was her death sudden or due to a serious illness?

ElizabethX · 18/06/2013 19:57

What I have established is that they met when they were 16, got married at 26, she died around 30. This is from his brother and sister mostly. She says her friends always fancied him but he was always attached.

They think he has changed. Impossible to say what he was like with her, I guess only he knows.

OP posts:
Leithlurker · 18/06/2013 20:00

His wife died, he found he was able to cope with that and not be an emotional blubbering shell, and you feel that this means that he is not committed to you! My first ever grip, go and use it in health and happiness!

wordyBird · 18/06/2013 20:03

Are you wondering if he's massively chilled out, or is just not affected by anything - and never has been?

Or are you wondering if he's not through the grieving, but rather has numbed himself to the point of near indifference, maybe to protect himself?

wordyBird · 18/06/2013 20:04

...maybe his family can tell you a bit more?

betterthanever · 18/06/2013 20:09

Love what is, he sounds great. He has been through a lot and you should just enjoy your time together. As the death of his wife proved, we just never know how long we have. I really don't think this matters.

runningonwillpower · 18/06/2013 20:12

I'm not sure I understand the problem

He's got over the death of his wife and is therefore heartless?

Or, he has not got over the death of his wife and has thus rendered himself heartless?

Sounds like the plot from Rebecca.

He is who he is. And he is a widower who once loved his wife. You can't change that.

Wouldn't it be a shame to spoil a good relationship because of past events that you can't change?

LemonPeculiarJones · 18/06/2013 20:19

I think you're getting a bit of a hard time OP!

I kind of know what you mean. Will you ever be as important to him as he could be to you? Is that even possible for him? Has his heart broken, never to be fully healed - meaning you may never have the deep connection we all want from our partners?

But.

He has been through such trauma emotionally, is living his life, and being a positive partner to you. His stance is to be respected.

Give him time. You will have to assess how you feel as things continue to develop.

It's ok to ask your partner how important you are to them. Just don't ask if he loves you as much as he did his wife. He is a different person now, obviously - and had to change in order to survive.

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