Did you marry someone great but didn’t love as deeply as you thought you could?

[CallMeCarrie]

As the title really.

So many people I’ve met dating have been really great. Decent people who I could probably have fallen in love with over time, but I lost interest along the way and called it a day.

I want to feel like I really and truly adore someone. By this I don’t mean a fairytale romance with constant butterflies, amazing sex and no arguments. I’m very much aware that’s not realistic. I mean your own feelings about someone...that they may irritate you and you may have your rows but you just love the bones of them. Or did you settle with someone you liked, maybe even loved, but weren’t totally and completely ‘in love with’?

I can’t imagine marrying someone I didn’t feel I loved through and through. But the only men I meet are ones that I know I would love but in a less deep way. Not sure if this even makes sense but interested in views!! I’m not getting any younger!!! (35).

I'm the same age as you and suspect, if I don't want to miss out on having kids, I'm going to have settle for a decent person who I get on well with but that perhaps the "in love" feelings and the romantic moments are not there with.

I think you have to be careful and make sure that it is a good enough relationship and also be considerate of the other person's feelings. I mean if they are head over heels in love and you aren't at all that is pretty unfair. But if they are of a similar mindset of wanting to settle down and seeing you as a good match to co-pareny and build a future with then why not?

I agree namechange

I’m not sure what it is I’m waiting for really. Maybe the feeling really in love isn’t actually that common. I’m happy on my own and so it is really easy for me to just cut off dating with someone if I don’t feel it.

But I don’t want to live my life alone either

Yes I did. We're now divorced.

tis have you met someone who you do love deeply? Different to your ex?

If the meter is running and you are in a rush to start a family, then yes you probably will find that you have to 'settle'.

It's probably 'easy' for me to say this because I am some who has been fortunate enough to be with my DH for a long time and have a family. But my love for my DH grew over time. It's developed and changes as we grow and develop ourselves over the years. It's only been with time that my love for DH grew. I really don't believe in the idea of love at first sight and knowing that you want to spend your life with the same person within months of meeting because I don't believe you can truly know someone within that time.

If you are keen to have a family soon, I just don't think you have the same kind of opportunity and time for a relationship to truly flourish. So you just have to make the best of what you do have.

Yes but it's been complicated! I can't regret marrying my ex - we have gorgeous amazing children together and it was obviously what was right at the right time but I'm now with someone who is the literal other half of me and I know I should have been with them all along.

tis that’s my worry...that there is the right person there somewhere. If you know you know and all that bullshit! Haha.

Yeah I settled at nearly 37. My bio clock was ticking and I was fed up with not being able to afford normal adult things like buying a house because it’s not affordable on a single salary. Plus I was aware that my parents wouldn’t last forever and I had no other family to be there if I needed them.

Now I have a house, a child and a dog. I have someone to watch the telly with on an evening and company on holidays like Christmas. If I’m ill there’s someone to pick up the slack. DH is a decent respectable guy. We aren’t madly in love but we’re family and I’m not alone.

Truthfully I ache for love and romance. I feel sad for the lack of it in my life. But it’s not like I had the option anyway - it wasn’t available so I took the next best thing. I wanted a home, kids and love, and I got 2/3 which is better than 0/3.

@CallMeCarrie My right person was an ex. Turns out we both knew that things weren't "right" but were too far down the line and not at the same place at the same time. My ex DH was great and I loved him, but this is a very very different kind of love.

I absolutely love the socks off my dh. I love him more now, a decade in, than the day we got married. He's really truly great and I can't imagine ever being able to love anyone as much as I do him.

But at the same time, I absolutely did not have any inkling I would feel this way when we were dating. I thought he was fun and we had lots to talk about and I generally sensed that he was a good, respectable, caring person, but that really and truly was it. Being deeply in love with someone takes time. The first probably 6 months, maybe longer, of us dating, I truly expected that one day we'd go our separate ways (we lived in the same city but both as expats from different home countries, we knew we'd eventually return home when our contracts were finished). I hoped we'd be Facebook friends and keep in touch because he was so nice and I could see us being friends.

I totally had no idea where life would take us. We went from dating, sort of being 'boyfriend and girlfriend' for 6 ish months, to realising that our contracts were ending and we had to make a decision what happened next, to sitting down talking about it and realising we both actually saw a future, to starting to plan a life together, talking of children and marriage very quickly. So when I finally opened my eyes and knew, I knew, but up until that 6 month mark or so, I just thought he was a fun guy and I enjoyed being around him. I'd never even pondered whether I was 'in love' with him.

So really that's just to say that someone may be absolutely great for you and you may come to love them with every bone in your body, but you may have no idea to start. If someone is fun and caring and makes you laugh and you like spending time with them, there is no reason not to see what happens.

Why have you dumped the people you’ve dated?

“Loving the bones” of someone isn’t going to help if they’re emotionally abusive, a cocklodger, want to move abroad or whatever.

My DH didn't meet until we were 37 & 39 and we just knew straight away that it was meant to be.

I had pretty much given up on ever getting that feeling with someone but we just clicked like I never have before.

We just got married in September and are 39 & 41 and are currently TTC (we experienced a loss earlier this year and what we went through pulled us closer together).

I can't tell you not to just settle but instead I'm hoping that our story might be encouragement that it's not too late.

I settled for someone I loved but not as deeply as I knew I could, we’ve been married 6 years now and truthfully I am regretting it. Not fully because I have beautiful children and we have had a nice life together so far but I ache for proper love and passion for someone, there is a void in my life without it. I guess you never really know what is the right choice as I wouldn’t be without my children for the world and I’m so glad I have them, but now I carry awful guilt that I might have to break up their happy family in order to find fulfilment myself. It feels very selfish but it’s also hard to plod on living with someone I’m not in love with (although very fond of and he is a great person). At the time when I married him I thought I knew the sacrifice I was making and I could live with it, but a few years down the line it is getting harder. I do think it’s hard to find someone that you have a true connection with though and feel deep love for, I’m very jealous of those who have it!

I settled at an early age to a man who rescued me from a disfunctional family.

I ended up divorcing him as he wanted kids and I didn't. (And never had done all my life).

I then met DH and fell head over heels. Immediately wanted his babies. Couldn't explain it and it really pissed off exH as he wanted children and felt very sad I didn't.

DH and I have rows and sometimes he drives me mad but I love him so much it's ridiculous.

So no I wouldn't settle for less.

The thing is, I have a good life for a single person...by that I mean I don’t struggle with paying for things (mostly anyway!). I don’t live a glamorous lifestyle but I do more or less what I want. For that reason, as a poster said above, I don’t feel I need someone to join forces to get what I want materially from life. That said, it’s shit when the boiler goes or you have to pay a premium on holidays because there’s no splitting the cost of a room.

These reasons, while they seem very superficial, are still reasons. And now and then I do think, just enjoy someone’s company and do life with them, even if you’re not thinking they’re the bees knees. That’s the dilemma.

I’ve ended it with men that I find a bit boring really. Or men I can’t have a proper conversation with, I like talking with someone who is educated and interested in the world around them. That’s not everything, I know, but I just can’t seem to settle for someone who doesn’t challenge me intellectually.

I don't think you should settle for someone who bores you. There was a physically attractive man who wanted to marry me and start a family with me just a couple of years ago when I'd already started of thinking of "settling". He bored me stiff, I couldn't talk to him about anything that interested me at all, he just droned on at me about trains and his minimalistic philosophy on life. He had never once made me even smile let alone laugh. I actually cried once after spending time with him because he'd monologued at me for over an hour about the most boring stuff. I was well aware that he could be my only chance of a biological child. Still, I knew it wasn't worth it. I didn't have much in the way of feelings for him so it wasnt fair to him. It wasn't fair on a child to have a miserable, resentful mother. Maybe the child would have been bored stiff too. Maybe we would have married and been unable to conceive. What a disaster that would have been.

Settling is not about tying yourself down to a boring person. Definitely don't do that!

Yeah, I’m all for being rational and practical LT relationships, but being bored in someone’s company isn’t any kind of basis for a relationship, or even a friendship!

I tried twice. I have my DC and DGC and I'm grateful for that.
I keep hoping there is someone out there who would just accept me for me and not try to change me. At my age, I don't see it happening.

Maybe you need to be more discerning in how you date? Are you OLD? What sites do you use?

So an example would be that if you use POF and OKCupid switch to Guardian Soulmates and Elite Singles or join hobbies which would be more likely to bring you into contact with clever, intellectually stimulating men.

That’s lovely tice

26 years with my first boyfriend and now husband.
I waited for the right person before I had sex ,I dated men but they never became my boyfriend,I always new it didn’t feel right after the second date .
We were engaged before we slept together,he had already asked me to marry him and bought my ring
We were dating 6 months before sex ,before I was sure he was the one.
We married after children.
It’s not been a bed of roses as we have 2 disabled children
We are still in love .im glad I waited for the right person.
My daughter has done the same as me ,she’s 22 with her first boyfriend,planning marriage.

Stick with great.

Great gets you though everything.

I adored the love of my life and after 25 years he had a temper tantrum about getting old and threw his family away for strange.

Here is the kicker: looking back? It was there all along. He was never great. He was always self absorbed and selfish and when he decided I was a drag to his exciting new adventures ... that, as they say, was that.

It sounds like Op hasn’t actually dated anyone “great”.

Maybe I have but I’ve not been patient enough

Well it comes back to why you dumped them. If after a date, or six, or a few months, you found them dull or conversation between you didn’t flow, fair enough!

DH has a handsome friend who I find dull company, his wife presumably finds him interesting. And he may find me dull!