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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

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Original poster

I'm not The One

43 replies

sparklesq · 13/01/2019 20:47

I got with my DH many years ago, just after he'd had a messy break up with his ex and had his heart broken. He would talk longingly and lovingly about her, wax lyrical about how much she meant to him and how he'd known she was The One and everything. I thought it was wonderful how romantic he was and hoped when we got further into our relationship that he'd feel that about me. I worried I was rebound but hoped not. To me, he was everything. I knew from the minute I saw him that I wanted to marry him and grow old with him.

Now, nearly a decade on, married with 2 children, I feel the same way. But he is.. happy. He's perfectly happy but he's never spoken about me or to me the way he did before. I know he loves me, but I worry he's not in love with me. If I ever ask him what I mean to him he'll say things like "your great" or if I ask does he think we were made for each other he'll say he doesn't believe in that rubbish. But he did.

I'm worried I'm not the one he was meant to be with, or at least he doesn't feel like I am. I think he settled for me. I don't think he'll leave me as he's one for the easy life and it's easier to stay married to me and not have to sell the house and everything, so I know he won't go anywhere. But I'm worried I'll have to live forever knowing I care far more about him than he ever will about me. Has anyone else been in this situation? Or been on the other side of it and can make me feel a little better? Is this something too trivial to even be upset over? Please go easy, this is hard for me.

OP posts:

Musti · 14/01/2019 08:10

I've felt absolutely and obsessively in love with 'the one ' about 6 times in my life. Now I couldn't imagine being with any of them. I'm now in love with another 'The one'.

I completely understand how you feel the way you do but I don't think you need to worry about it. He married and had kids with you. You don't know what he was like when he was with her. If he didn't want to break up then his feelings will have been exaggerated but she obviously wasn't the one because it ended.

Original poster

sparklesq · 14/01/2019 08:21

Thank you all for your comments. They all help.

I understand that he might have thought she was The One at the time and that now we have a secure grown up relationship he knows she wasn't. It's just the fact he won't tell me that hurts! I might be needy but if your husband can't tell you you're the most amazing person in the world, then who can?! I know me and him are in a good place and he plans ahead with me, but I just want to know that his love for me is as all-consuming as mine for him! And I know he's well past his ex, I didn't mention her to say I thought he still feels for her or anything, just to show that he CAN talk romantically and express his love as I've heard him do it in the past! Why can't he for me?

I guess my biggest worry is that he just loves me comfortably. Puts up with me as it's easier. He knows I'm right for him, I've never given him a day's worry, never strayed, look after him well, but I really don't think I excite him. But maybe some of that problem is I've been SO safe that he's never had to think of his life without me like he did with her. I think some of you are right when you say if I left he might suddenly decide I was The One after all.

OP posts:

Littlelambpeep · 14/01/2019 08:27

I totally understand this. Buy I wonder have you got enough to be proud of outside the home (could you look at career, hobbies etc) also maybe don't be always there! Can you go away for a night or go out for longer days. I am feeling very much like this at the moment and it's very sad.

NotTheFordType · 14/01/2019 08:38

I think you need to have a cards on the table talk and explain to him how his professed immature love for his ex at the beginning of your relationship (WhyTF did you stick around anyway? Another conversation) is really affecting your security now.

But really. His immature, manipulative bullshit has got him the prize of you, right? Someone who worships the ground he walks on, who's volunteered to wreck their vagina to have his children, someone who washes his pants.

Ask yourself this: if you hadn't been chasing after someone emotionally unavailable at the start of your relationship, would you still be with him now?

Musti · 14/01/2019 08:55

Op conversely, I've also had those type of passionate speeches from exes and you know the one who was most true and who showed me he loved me the most? The one who was the least flowery in his language. Words are easy, it's what they do and how they show their love that really counts.

ravenmum · 14/01/2019 09:02

"I know he won't go anywhere", really? Do you? You sound a little complacent. Do you really believe your husband is so unimaginative and lazy that he would spend his entire life with someone who was just OK for him? Do you really have such little respect for him as a complex, intelligent adult human being?

MMmomDD · 14/01/2019 09:06

OP - have you not wondered what is going on with you and why after 10years of marriage and seemingly happy family life you started looking for reasons to be unhappy?
Looking for confirmation of his ‘all-consuming love’ for you?

This is the man you chose to marry. Right? So - try to remember how you made that decision back then.
If his love was sufficient back then - then it’s not him that’s an issue. It’s somethinng in you.

What changed in your life now? Do you have kids? Have they grown up a bit and need you less and you are - like many women I know in that life phase - questioning life a little. Sort of a mid life crisis, maybe?

Butterymuffin · 14/01/2019 09:12

I would ask him to do the list of things he loves about you as Haggis did. Don't make it about the ex - I agree that she probably wasn't 'the one' until they split up, and you would be 'the one' if you two did. But it's ok to ask people to articulate their love for you.

ravenmum · 14/01/2019 09:15

If I was asked to write a list, personally that would feel like a test I was being set up to fail. I would hate it. (I'd happily write one of my own accord.)

Original poster

sparklesq · 14/01/2019 11:44

His love was sufficient for me when I married him and still is! I'm not questioning he loves me, I just want to hear it, and want to hear why! Why did he pick me over all the women in the world? I wanna hear what makes me special for him, not just that I was the only one who would marry him lol. God I'm so needy, and fully aware this might well be my issue and not his :)

@ravenmum - ok you've gone a bit deep I think. Of course I have respect for my husband as a complex, intelligent adult human being and no of course I can't ever say he won't go anywhere. He may well do! But if I came on here saying I thought he was going to leave because he hadn't professed his undying love I'd get bashed for being paranoid and doubting. I'll rephrase it then - I'd be very surprised if he left me but i'm fully aware he may do as he's a grown man with his own thoughts and feelings.

Thank you for all the replies. It's given me much food for thought

OP posts:

ravenmum · 14/01/2019 12:07

Sorry, might have been abit harsh! Actually I was assuming that in fact you do respect him as an intelligent man: and in that case, this idea that he's settled doesn't really make sense. If you said "He doesn't think too hard about anything and avoids any effort", then saying that he'd settled would make more sense to me.

oofadoofa · 14/01/2019 17:01

Hi OP,

Nothing really constructive to add, just wanted to say that all I could think about when reading your post was this poem:

m.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/more-loving-one

BunnyColvin · 14/01/2019 17:27

He would talk longingly and lovingly about her, wax lyrical about how much she meant to him and how he'd known she was The One and everything

I'm puzzled that you got with him at all in view of this stuff? In all honesty, that would've put me off a bit. Do I think he thinks she's The One That Got Away? Yes, from what you've said.

Maybe it's like someone said above, that two people are rarely equal in a relationship. You sound like you're mad about him but it sounds as though he got with you because he didn't get with the one that got away.

But also, that doesn't mean his relationship with you isn't better, objectively. I'd go so far as to say that if you split up, maybe he'd realise that you were the better fit for him.

Anyway it's hard to know without actually bringing it up, and that's something you may not want to do.

Another thing, what do you think would happen if the ex came back on the scene?

Bluntness100 · 14/01/2019 17:33

Ach op, dump him and break his heart. He will be waxing lyrical about you and crying as he does it within five mins.

Let it go, you're in a good place, it's just the way he is. I doubt he told her either. Could even have been his way of pulling you. Some blokes are weird,

MMmomDD · 14/01/2019 18:09

“God I'm so needy, and fully aware this might well be my issue and not his”

Ok, there is hope for you yet!

Thingsdogetbetter · 14/01/2019 19:24

God, I look back at the romanic shite i used to waffle on about my first love and cringe! Lol. I was young and naive and totally wrapped up in the idea of the one. Love was new to me and i couldn't see it ever ending. It did, thank God because my romantic image of him had fuck all to do with the reality of him.

Talking about an ex is sign of a rebound, but marraige, kids and 10 years of happiness shows that turned into true love.

I believe my dh loves me totally. He treats me with love and respect. Is supportive, caring and thoughtful. But if I ask him what he loves about me, he looks like rabbit in the headlights and says "your boobs". And then we laugh and carry on being happily in love.

CraftyYankee · 14/01/2019 22:33

Thingsdogetbetter that's priceless. 🤣

toddman70 · 15/01/2019 14:37

My two cents worth is the same as a PP be careful what you ask for, but if you really what to know/ "hear" what he loves about you, why not write him a letter stating what you love about him, and finish it by asking for a letter in return. Maybe his words will flow more easily if he doesn't have to say them directly to you, but again be warned, there is not guarantee you'll like his answer, if you get one.

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