MNers who are in a truly happy marriage - please tell me what it's like?

[DreamingOfMicronesia]

What's it like to be loved and respected so much?

What is your marriage like - for instance, does your DH kiss you goodbye every morning? Do you have little in-jokes? Do you cuddle and have a regular healthy sex life? Does he respect your opinions and not talk down to you?

I don't think I have ever had a non-dysfunctional relationship in my life (I'm 24) and I really want to know what it's like to be in the ultimate commitment.

(incredibly nosey question and absolutely none of my business, so feel free not to answer )

[MarcusAurelius]

Oh Minion. How heartbreaking for you.

[heyho1985]

Ah Minion that's lovely, sorry to hear you have lost your husband

[flipchart]

My DH is 52.

He loves me to bits. I guess sometimes we both take each other for granted at times but I know I can rely on him to make my life easy and as fun as possible.

I work shifts and we both pick up what needs doing whether its helping the kids with homework, shopping, washing tidying etc.

We have a peck kiss everytime one of us leaves the house or returns.

We ave our daft jokes which make each.other laugh.

Even when we have had arguments not once has he said anything nasty or abusive and I'm shocked by some of the things women have been called by their partners that have been posted.

I have complete freedom to come and go as I please. No controlling issues. My friends have known him a long time and love him to bits.

His main fault is that he puts everybody first ( especially me ) when I would love him to take time out to relax and enjoy himself more.
We have been together nearly 25 years.

[Shlurpbop]

Minion, you've made me cry. So sorry that you've lost your DH x

[flipchart]

I'm sorry about your DH minion.

Mental illness is a truly terrible condition.

[pointythings]

Minion that's so sad. It's a battle, and sometimes we lose. I have a happy marriage, but I'm fighting that battle right now - my DH is being treated for depression and we are now tackling his alcohol misuse together. So far so good (3 weeks in), but I am under no illusion that it's going to be easy. Fortunately he is already seeing the benefits - more energy, his skin tone is better, his sleep has improved now that he is using a nature sounds MP3 to help him sleep instead of copious amounts of alcohol.

OP, I think you would really benefit from spending a decent amount of time as a single person. Use that time to do things you want to do, find out what you want out of life and convince yourself that you deserve better than some manchild.

[IrianofWay]

Funnily enough we have and almost always have had all the things that you mention in your OP, but we are currently reconciling after his affair

So I don't think I am a good judge of what a 'happy marriage' looks like. I think that we did have for sure for many many years, then things went a bit pear-shaped and it wasn't so happy but I assumed we'd recover from that bad patch ...and he cheated. We are trying to get back to happy now.

Good luck OP x I view the world and the way people tick very differently from the way I did before. I am far more cynical but I know there are some decent sorts out there - I've even met a few

[SizzlesSit]

Some very good advice here.

My marriage is lovely and very happy. The big difference between DH and my exes is that with DH I do not have to change who I am in the slightest. I dont walk on eggshells around his mood, I dont censor what I say, I dont apologise for things I dont need to apologise for.

We are very comfortable together. We kiss goodbye, we have random hugs, we talk as much as we can. We have a non-sleeping toddler but despite extreme tiredness we dont take it out on each other.

We support each other with work issues, when we want to do sport, family problems, everything really. I feel very lucky and so does he.

[Minion100]

Thank you to all of you

Hang in there pointythings xx

I loved what you said Sizzlessit

he big difference between DH and my exes is that with DH I do not have to change who I am in the slightest. I dont walk on eggshells around his mood, I dont censor what I say, I dont apologise for things I dont need to apologise for.

that sums it up! Everyone should look for a spouse they feel that way with.

[Madratlady]

I'm 24 bit married to a man 9 years older, I agree about many men around my age still acting like teenagers! He kisses me goodbye every morning and kisses me goodnight, we giggle about silly things and do stuff together, often just watching a series on TV. He looks after 19wk old ds while I go out and do a hobby once a week and shares baby care 50/50 when he's not at work. We rarely argue and usually talk about things and sort out problems quickly. He treats me like an equal. And we have an excellent sex life. And for some reason he finds me attractive although I'm definitely nothing special. We've had some hard times such as financial trouble and him having mental health problems and both had periods of being unemployed but we stick together and get through it.

I feel lucky to have met the right man fairly early on in life. My ex was a lying, cheating twat which wasn't a great first serious relationship.

[Miggsie]

My advice to find a good man would be:
Stop dating
Like yourself
Read Lundy Bancroft's book "why does he do that?" from cover to cover
Find a new hobby/interest that you really enjoy
Start doing exercise - feel better about yourself physically, any martial art will boost your confidence - Nia Shanks has a great website about being awesome as a woman - which does not involve a man!!!!
Don't accept anyone treating you like a disposable/forgettable item
Don't define yourself by male values or companionship

My DH:
respects me
is my best friend
has similar interests
lets me do my thing when I want to
shares housework
buys me nice presents
does a lot of child rearing
does most of the cooking
drives me round the bend with his forgetfulness
didn't leave me when I became disabled even when his "friends" told him to

[grumpasaur]

I am in a happy marriage also, and agree that it comes down to respect, communication, and for us, laughter.

However I also kissed a lot of frogs before meeting 'my prince', and believe me, he is a prince in a very different package than I originally imaged! There is no fairy tale. He snores, I can hear him trumping from the other side of the house (like a ship coming into dock), he fannies around the cat like a vagina with legs, and I SWEAR he is incapable of pulling up his trousers. But he does kiss me every morning and tells me he love sme every day and we have good sex (not quite enough for me, but once or twice a week), and we do laugh together, a lot.

I also agree with the advice to give yourself a break from twunt men and spend time getting to know yourself for a bit. Spend time with girlfriends who make you laugh and flirt and feel attractive but go home alone!

Your snoring ape will be along soon enough ;-)

[morethanpotatoprints]

Hello OP

I think its important to be realistic in terms of expectancies of your relationship.
Me and dh have been married 22 years and together 25, we have had trying and testing times, it hasn't always been a bed of roses.
However, when the chips are down we are there for each other, respect each other and go out of our way to meet each others needs.
We are best friends and have our own jokes, that maybe some people wouldn't understand.
Our sex life is good, but obviously we have seen changes over the years sometimes with more or less than is usual for us.
I always see him off for work if I am here, a kiss and cuddle definitely.

[beccajoh]

We respect each other, value opinions, discuss the important things as equals, he would go to the end of the earth for me and the kids, he does more than his fair share of kid-stuff and more importantly he WANTS to do it, we apologise when we get things wrong, we tell each other when one of us is being a nob, we talk about problems in a civilised fashion rather than arguing, we don't shout at each other.

He snores so I whack him over the head with a pillow. He gets up at night with the kids when I'm exhausted even if he has to go to work the next day (I'm a SAHM).

I wouldn't swap him for anyone else.

[DenzelWashington]

OP, just because your choices have turned out horribly doesn't mean you are horrible. Please remember that.

And even the happiest of marriages are not overtly, consciously happy all the time, because that is not possible.

A couple of things about mine, which is happy: we do listen to each other, and that includes listening to each other's anger and hurt, however difficult it is. Not perfect at it, we've done our share of shuffly, eyes- downcast apologies rather too long after the fact, but broadly we do. That's very important. Too often women's feelings get dismissed, belittled and mocked.

Don't expect the Hollywood romance. That's actually a very odd and unrealistic way of relating to each other, but it's pushed at us all the time. And men who sweep you off your feet are often quite bad news. Our romance has been unconventional in lots of ways, no flowers, few grand gestures. Lots of small ones though. And a strong sense of being in it together. Feeling you can get through stuff (lack of money, bereavement, the trench warfare of bringing up small children) because you have each other.

I find it is the small, daily acts of kindness that mean much more than big presents and public displays of anything. Being nice to each other. Carrying the other person when they need it, rather than disappearing or petulantly insisting on rigid equality all the time. Trusting that you will be carried for a while when you need it.

[thegreylady]

You are so young love. I have been married 3 times, divorced once and widowed once ;but now I have been married for 25 years to the best husband anyone could have. Its all the little things that everyone else has said, cuddles, cups of tea in bed, doing crosswords together, having supper in the garden in Summer etc but most of all I feel as if I can always be myself with him. That is the most important thing of all- no pretence or deceit just knowing we love each other faults and all. When I am with him I am home.

[beanid]

I do not have to change who I am in the slightest. I dont walk on eggshells around his mood, I dont censor what I say, I dont apologise for things I dont need to apologise for

YY sizzles it's this. exactly this

[struggling100]

Dreaming - you are so young! Far too young to be worrying about this, if you don't mind me saying.

I didn't meet DH until I was 30. Even then, the early years of our relationship were tough - he is older than me, and had come out of an extremely dysfunctional relationship, and had all kinds of baggage associated with that. He actually asked me to marry him, and then had a total panic about the commitment - we had to cancel the wedding. I stayed with him because I thought he was wonderful, and because I could see clearly that he was suffering from a bout of anxiety so serious that it definitely qualified as a mental illness. He went to counselling and sorted himself out - he became not a different person, but a different and more confident version of himself. Last year we even managed to get all the way through a wedding without incident .

Despite this rocky and unpropitious start, we are really happy, in the sense that I honestly believe there is nothing either of us would rather do than spend time with the other. He tells me he loves me five or six times a day, we're physically and emotionally close, and we write together, which is an intimacy that I think probably involves quite a bit more trust and synchronicity than sex in some ways.

The day before I got married, a lady in a shop who had been married for 50 years told me 'It's great, but you have to work at it'. She was right- a relationship is like a creation that you continue to build every single day, and it's the little gestures, not the big things that really matter. Refusing to allow hostility, anger, resentment or contempt to creep into any corner of everyday life is important. I also think that healthy trust is something you live, not something like faith that you place in an abstract - it's about having the humility to realise that you are not perfect, and that temptation is not something to be trifled with. Our email accounts, phones, letters are all completely open to each other - and this doesn't feel like a constraint, it's just normal. If I were ever to feel that I couldn't show DH something, if I needed to go behind his back, that would be a massive red flag. We also socialize a lot together, rather than going out a great deal with separate groups of friends in single-sex groups, and we don't bitch about each other in private to friends.

[bragmatic]

I've always, always felt that I'd be just fine on my own, thanks very much. That's the first step to maintaining a healthy relationship imo, knowing you'd be ok without one.

[PoundingTheStreets]

My relationship is too new to use for this post, so suffice it to say that for the first time in my adult life I have a relationship that I feel could mirror that of my beloved parents (both long dead) who had a wonderfully happy marriage.

They got married when my mum was 21. She had me when she was 30. As a teenager (so by this point they had been together some 25 years) I remember them kissing each other hello and goodbye and holding each other's hands when walking down the street together. They weren't particularly romantic but the affection and enjoyment of each other was very obvious. Although I remember them disagreeing over things, I don't recall any rows, and although they could occasionally be a bit ubrupt with each other I can't think of any instance where either one of them called the other a name or behaved in an unacceptable manner.

The key ingredient was that they each liked themselves and each other and thoroughly respected each other. Although they had a fairly traditional relationship (DF breadwinner, DM SAHM while we were pre-schoolers, then PTWOHM, on to FT once teens), each recognised that neither of them could live the life they had without the other doing their bit.

[PoundingTheStreets]

bragmatic - I think that's important too. Both my DM and DF knew that the other could cope without them and would do so rather than put up with being treated badly. Again, it comes down to respect.

Knowing you can be perfectly content on your own is very liberating for relationships - takes the pressure off IMO.

[LuluJakey1]

You're only 24. I was there at your age- bet lots of us were. At 29 I thought I would never meet anyone I could trust who loved and respected me. I think you have to go through it so you know when it's right.

Had about 6 months to myself then met DH just out of the blue , didn't know him before at all. He didn't live anywhere near me- 130 miles away. Pretty instant really for both of us. Married a year later, 4 years ago. Drives me mad at times with trivialities but loves me, respects me, does lots of lovely things, completely unselfish with me, romantic in his own way, totally decent person, makes me laugh like no one ever has and he quietly amuses me with his ways. Always on my side.

[waterlego6064]

Minion and Churlston, I'm so sorry to read that you have both lost someone so precious. It's a great reminder to us all to appreciate what we have.

I am happily married, and grateful to be. I have been with my OH for 16 years, and we've been married for 10. We are best friends. We laugh a lot, and sing a lot of the time (it's absurd really, but we just conduct a lot of our day-to-day conversations that way. That sounds insane written down, so I hope we're not the only ones ) We respect each other and give each other space to be the individuals we are. We fancy each other and sometimes remember to flirt with each other. We have a similar outlook, and want the same things from life and our future. We have very similar views on how to raise our children. We are both quite good communicators, and good at compromise too, I think.

The years when the children were tiny were very hard going. As were the times when money was tight, and the time when my MH wasn't so good, and the times when OH lost his job. We had to really grit our teeth to get through some of that, but we managed it. No doubt there will be other tough times still to come.

We are both lucky enough to have parents who have long and happy marriages. Grandparents too. We took our marriage vows very seriously. We've known each other since we were children, so I think there's a certain amount of luck involved: that our upbringing was similar, and we have a lot of shared history which makes things easier.