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Relationships

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Original poster

Did you fall in love with your partner?

65 replies

ThinkIlikeit · 08/08/2017 21:38

I am thinking of the relationships I have had over the years and I can only remember actually falling in love with one of them. I grew fond of the others, maybe even felt love, but not that overwhelming powerful in love feeling, not even with the man I married.

I think you can probably have a good relationship without it but wondering how many of you are with someone you fell in love with and how important you think it is.

OP posts:

WinnieTheMe · 09/08/2017 05:30

I fell madly in love with DH. Had never felt anything like it before, from moment of first kiss onwards. And I still feel like that.

JetBoyJetGirl · 09/08/2017 06:12

thestamp, I am aware of stockholm syndrome, what it is, and how it comes about. But it still describes an 'attachment' that is not 'love'. The article you linked to doesn't describe it as love either. It is used to explain 'attachments' that develop between abusers and their victims, but that is not 'love'.

We are encouraged in our society to talk about 'love' and 'being in love' so that is how we interpret those strong feelings. But I don't believe they are the same as 'love'.

Having been brought up in an abusive relationship and having had them as a result, I don't think of 'love' as simply attachment/bonding.

They can coexist in a relationship but, having now experienced both, I don't think they are the same thing.

I also believe that it is using 'love' and 'attachment' interchangeably that leads to women staying in abusive relationships far longer than they would otherwise if we didn't use 'love' as the only descriptor of those strong feelings.

If we learnt to replace "but I love him!" with "but I'm strongly emotionally attached to him and fearful" then we might start to see things differently and people might find themselves able to leave unsatisfactory relationships sooner because they weren't misinterpretting them as the golden chalice of 'love'.

user1497997754 · 09/08/2017 06:43

I fell in love with my now DH when I was on holiday by myself....he ran after my tesco bag which I was using as my beach bag as it had blown away on the beach in the wind and brought it over to me saying I believe this is yours. He still 12 years later helps me carry the tesco bags from the tesco supermarket to the car lol....

Sluttybartfast · 09/08/2017 06:45

I'm slightly gobsmacked by how many people have married people they weren't in love with.

I've been in love twice, once with an ex and once with DH. With the ex it was the heady, all-consuming, totally head over heels kind, but it wasn't built on anything real. We had some fun, but once I was out of love I saw him for what he was, a man I didn't even like very much. The way I felt about him wasn't healthy or sustainable. It was a fun experience to have had in my life, but it was hormones, not destiny.

Then I fell in love with DH - totally wrapped up in each other, walking on air, losing track of time love, and this time it was real from the start. It wasn't quite as fizzy and intoxicating, but it was secure and something that made us both stronger. It has changed, of course, but I still adore him, and still look at him thinking 'damn you are one handsome man'. It has made me believe in love as a verb, and love as a choice. We love each other in part because we choose to be loving to each other every day, and we choose to be together every day as well, because we want to. Love as a lightning bolt can be OK as a start point, but what gets you through the years, IMO, is the love that you build together.

nowaynoway · 09/08/2017 06:45

I know I didn't love my ex (dd's dad) especially if I compare it to the relationship I'm in now.

Oh and I don't have a perfect relationship but we talk about things, we enjoy each other's company, we have a healthy sex life and we help each other. He treats me with the respect I deserve and doesn't lie to me.

Lenl · 09/08/2017 06:54

I've been in lust and in love. I think many people confuse lust with love - but that can't stop thinking about them/must be near them feeling has to settle eventually, and I think settles into love or it doesn't.

I love my DP. 10 years and I love him all the more. It's rather pathetic but I love reminiscing over when I first met him. It was the strangest thing, I was drawn to him so strongly and contrived to speak to him as soon as I could. He is good looking but it wasn't his looks, there were more traditionally attractive men there. It was something deeper, it felt like a need to get to know him. It felt different to crushes/relationships that started full of love. When I met him I was due to move abroad for a job a few weeks later and I cancelled my flights and found a job here. Everyone thought I was mental to 'give it up for a man' but I knew I couldn't let what we were starting go.

Lenl · 09/08/2017 06:55

Started full of lust that should say!

Bubwiser · 09/08/2017 08:22

I didn't fall in love with DH but grew to love him over the years. We have been together for 12 years and married for 8. I trust him explicitly, and he would do anything for me. I have been infatuated with other people before but have never dated anyone besides DH. I feel very lucky to be with him.

daisymai08 · 09/08/2017 08:39

I'm 42 and fell in love in February it's absolutely taken my breath away! I can't believe I've never experienced it before although I knew I'd only loved my husband previously....
I really believe so many people don't experience it... I'm so grateful I have

livelyredjellybean · 09/08/2017 08:44

I remember the exact moment I fell in love with my fiancee... He was sat on my bed, forehead to forehead with my dog. (My dog for what it's worth was not good with strangers but took to my DP instantly!) I knew then that he had my heart. Fast forward to now, we have an 8 month DD, 8 dogs together and I still have that stomach lurching, all encompassing feeling of love when I look at him. (Especially when he is with the dogs or my horse and of course playing and laughing with our gorgeous DD.)

BackInTheRoom · 09/08/2017 09:04

I think we forget over time what the 'love' feeling felt like. For example if time is a healer, then this suggests feelings subside so then presumably so does the feeling of love? We simply forget how love feels?

Eolian · 09/08/2017 09:10

I don't really believe in it. In the sense that I think what people call 'falling in love' is just a combination of physical attraction, personality attraction and a bit of luck/circumstance thrown in. Love exists, but the falling in love feeling is a biological/evolutionary hormone rush to get us to reproduce.

I love my husband very much (it's our wedding anniversary today actually), but we're not great romantics.

9toenails · 09/08/2017 09:27

Yes I did. Long, long ago. I thought I'd been in love before, then we met and, as well as the physical attraction and the sex, we just got on so well we were both taken aback. Couldn't stop talking, laughing ... clicking. Days, weeks, months, turned into years, then decades; children, then grandchildren. Now we still love each other, albeit those first heady times are memories; maybe not in love now?

Don't get me wrong. We've had hard times along the way and it's taken hard work on both our parts to stay together through them. But knowing how we were in those first days and months has surely helped us when times got tough.

We were lucky to meet. And, as I carefully explain to children, there are surely many different ways of living a happy, fulfilled life. Falling in love when relatively young and working out a relationship with a (chance-met) lover, though, is surely one such way.

Emboo19 · 09/08/2017 09:30

I agree with BrainSaysNo
I remember asking my mum how you know and she said 'you just do' at the time I'd been with my high school boyfriend over a year, and I wasn't sure what I felt.
We broke up and my now bf asked me on a date, I already knew him and definitely fancied him. By the end of the first date I knew it was most definitely different with him, full blown butterflies when we kissed and all that. But it was later, a few months in and we weren't doing anything particularly special, I just looked at him and had this feeling and was like 'yep that's it'.

I'm not a slushy romantic I don't go in for that can't live without someone or soul mate rubbish.
I'm most definitely in love though!!

demirose87 · 09/08/2017 09:38

I am in love with my partner and knew not long after meeting. I've cared about people in the past but I don't think it was love now I know what it feels like.

Notmyrealname85 · 09/08/2017 09:45

Oh gosh these posts are warming my heart! Rain lashing down outside and reading such lovely posts

I fell in love at 21 with someone who turned out to be awful, a cheat and gaslighter. I felt literally torn up inside when we abruptly broke up after a few years and I've never felt that connection since - maybe I just don't let myself! Maybe I would feel that or more for someone else if I'd never had the betrayal (poor young heart!). Not to sound dramatic! Lots of nice enough guys since then at least.

Now with someone very suitable on paper but we also didn't meet in a romantic way (online) and I don't know if that's taken away from the heart singing potential. Hmm. Also had parents with very tumultuous marriage so honestly I wouldn't mind "settling" if it meant any DC had a more stable upbringing

2tiredtothinkofausername · 09/08/2017 09:47

I'm definitely in love with my husband. He drives me nuts but every other man is inadequate in that they are just not him iyswim.

0ccamsRazor · 09/08/2017 10:04

I love my dh deeply and am totally in love with him, I can not imagine life without him. Every day I thank the universe for bringing us together. I remember so well our first kiss, I knew then that we would be together, he brings peace and joy to my heart.

maras2 · 09/08/2017 11:00

Fell in love in September 1968.
Fortunately he did too.
Still here, still in love and still at it like < sorry TMI >

AVY1 · 09/08/2017 11:01

Yes. Twice. You just know, I think.

With DH (though God knows he's tested that recently and that bond is what has got us through) but also years ago with someone who never really knew (we dated briefly and then became great friends). I rarely see him now but that inexplicable bond I feel with him is still there but would no longer describe as in love at all. I'm glad I had experienced it though, it changed my expectations for relationships moving forward.

My two LTR relationships i loved them but am under no illusions and know I was never in love, nor them with me.

Postagestamppat · 09/08/2017 11:18

I've been in love four times as in the teenage soul-mate moony eyed love. And it was reciprocated Although now I think part of it was being in love the whole emotion itself. All before 25!

Then nothing until I met dh, which was more of slow burn, but I do think I did love him. 10 years' of marriage and I don't believe he ever truly loved me. He is one of those people that has never experienced "proper" love and was content with convenience and companionship. We are in the process of splitting up. Take from that what you will. It's too depressing for me to figure out.

pongoismyhero · 09/08/2017 11:48

I have loved four men.

The two I felt head over heels for ended badly.

One of the others I was good friends with first, felt lots of affection for while we were in a relationship with and certainly loved - but I am not sure I was ever IN love with him.

DH I certainly felt very in love for about the first 18 months, then DS was born and currently we are in small child and mortgage domestic over familiar state of tedium but yes I do love him. I do miss the heady feeling of a new relationship but I know they all settle down like this eventually.

I'm confident when DS is a bit older we'll get a bit of it back.

Original poster

ThinkIlikeit · 09/08/2017 15:52

Lovely to hear stories where the in love feeling has lasted.

OP posts:

MurrayMoo · 09/08/2017 16:25

I think being truly in love is rare and the exception to the rule with marriage, not everyone gets it and many people grow to love each other and have satisfying relationships but never experience 'true love'. I am in love with my DH and I think what makes it love/true love is that he feels the same about me. We feel like we're soulmates and feel so lucky to have found each other (disgusting I know 😬 ). I never had any doubts about him and he with me, there were no games like who texts who, waiting too long to text back any of that stuff, it was just so easy and clear from the very beginning.
I also fell in love with him at first sight (when I was 15) but we didn't get together until nearly 5 years later, having spent years dreaming about each other (literally) it all felt like a fairytale and still doesn't sometimes. We are married and expecting our first baby.
What I'm trying to say is that I think true love has to be two sided otherwise it's not being 'in love' when one partner doesn't feel as strongly as the other x

corythatwas · 09/08/2017 19:35

I don't think I'd have bothered getting in a relationship if I hadn't been in love. Not because I have any strong ideas about what every relationship has got to look like, but simply because being in a relationship for the sake of it never seemed that important to me; I could have been single quite happily.

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