what about chemistry?

[nightowl]

idle question really...say you had a partner that was good looking, good company, reasonably funny and treated you well but there just wasnt that "spark", would you be with them? (especially after being treated horribly by a couple of previous partners) is this the most sensible thing to do instead of waiting around for "the one" who may never exist...or is it just settling for something thats probably going to all go to pot in future because you dont have the feelings you should? ok...its SORT of an idle question but ive been here before trying desperately to care about someone for years because he was a good person....it only led to tears, a break up and a complete waste of his time and mine also....dont really want to start off down this path again with someone else. am i incredibly selfish?

I think you need that spark to get the relationship off the ground with a bit of oomf.I know plenty of people who have all the qualities you have mentioned but I wouldn't necessarily want to spend the rest of my life with them. I don't think you are being selfish at all.Better not to go down that road than to do it and it all end in heartbreak.However I do think you need the spark, plus the qualities mentioned! If all that's there is spark, that can be equally disastrous iyswim!!

I think this is a really difficult question. First of all, you are not selfish, it is exactly the sort of thing you need to think about. The reason I think this is difficult is that I have been married for 10 years to the sort of person you describe (ie your partner). I would say that up until 6 months ago we were extremely happy together. I would also say that up to this very day he is still extremely happy with me. My problem is that 6 months ago, I met sopmeone with whom I have a tremendous spark (which is reciprocated). I know from previous threads that this sort of admission is greeted with howls of criticism, but I'm sorry to say that 'it happens' from time to time and logic, sensible behaviour and doing the right thing go out of the window.

Having found 'the spark', 'the one' whatever you want to call him, I find myself wishing that I had waited, but that is with the enormous benefit of hindsight. Who is to say that had we met eachother 15 years ago, which is what we now wish, things would have worked out anyway? The best thing about 'if only' is that you can write the future the way you want it to have turned out which may not bear any relation to how it would in fact have been.
The reality of life is that you (one, I mean) could wait for ever and still not find it and in the mean time miss out on a genuinely happy, contented life with someone like my Dh who is a good man in all respects.
My personal belief is that some people meet and marry 'the spark'. Many other people meet and s**g 'the spark' and, realising that in other areas they may be deficient for building a complete life with, actually marry the sort of partner you (and I) have got.
This is a hugely rambly mesasge but what I mean in essence is, don't necessarily wait for 'the one' - he might not exist. Do not assume that everyone else is happily esconced with their 'the one' - most of us if we are honest (which many people aren't all of the time)are not either - possibly because we haven't met him yet or because we didn't meet him at the right time.

Fisticuffs, just curious here - I thought your response made a lot of sense but am wondering, does that mean you plan to keep your "spark" on the side and remain with DH? If so, how does "Spark" feel about it?

Don't have a big spark with DH myself and some time ago was in a spark-wth-someone-else situation too - got fingers burnt and am concentrating hard now on trying to build things with DH in the way you describe. Just interested in how other people in similar situations feel.

Thank you for not judging lulupop! For the time being, terrible though I know this is, Spark and I will continue to see eachother. He feels very much as I do in that he too is married with children and has no wish, or intention, of breaking up his family. We know it will not, & cannot, last forever, but at the moment, stupid as this sounds we just can't give eachother up. We feel our 'real' relationships have undoubtedely been damaged by meeting eachother and realising, perhaps, what might have been, but recognise that it is only that, ie what MIGHT have been. Unfortunately, much as we wish we'd met eachother first, we didn't, and that is the real situation within which we are operating now.
Sorry to go on so much, but I have not discussed this situation with anyone else apart from Spark and sort of feel the need to splurge!

When you say you got your fingers burnt, what happened (can I ask)? How easy are you finding it to rebuild with your DH? Does he know about you and your spark?

Well Fisticuffs, it was all a bit predictable really. I found becoming a mum, stopping working and moving to a new area where we knew no one all at the same time left me feeling a bit lacking in identity. Like all I was was a mother and housewife. At the same time DH was totally preoccupied with work and really took me for granted. Sex life was zero as he wasn'nt interested. An old acquaintance from my working days got in touch with me - we'd always had a bit of a spark and we'd kissed once, but nothing else - and said he was coming down to my area and cld he visit? He turned up and the attraction was still there, so strong, and the way he was with me made me feel like a real woman again. Nothing really happened that day and he went away again but then we texted every day for ages and I engineered a situation where I cld meet him again some weeks later. It was all quite frantic by then, and things with my DH had gone from bad to worse - naturally, as all I was thinking about was this other fellow. Anyway when I finally did see him (he was single) we were both so consumed with guilt about the fact that I was married with a child that it was a total non-event. I came home feeling massively deflated - because I knew it was all over. I felt I had nothing with my DH, and that I would never feel desirable and sexy in my own right again, as I couldn't pursue something elsewhere.

After all that, DH read my mobile phone bill, put 2 and 2 together, and then the shit really hit the fan. We had a horrendous few weeks. It was ironic how vile DH was at times, since he himself had left his first wife for someone else (not me) and had always made a big deal of never judging other people who were unfaithful. I guess his own wife doing it was a little too close to home. Anyway, I decided that I didn't want to leave DH as I felt, like you, I couldn't break up our family for my own selfish reasons. I hoped that DH and I cld rebuild things.

ANyway that was over a year ago now and we are putting it all back together and I think it will be OK. But it does take time for the hurt (on both sides) to pass and I think in many ways what I did, though it forced us to look at our relationship, obscured the real issues between us, IYSWIM.

Must go, but do be careful you don't get caught if you are going to carry this on - I understand where you are now, but the pain all round will just be so horrible if your respective other halves get wind of your affair.

It is easy to say .... wait for the person who gives you the spark ... he is out there somewhere etc. But what if you never meet him? and if you did what if he treated you like shit?( and what if you lose the spark after a while anyway?) There are a lot of really good men out there and sometimes the spark comes when you get to know someone over a longer period of time.

I've always thought that if there ever was any chemistry then you can always get it back if it wanes but you're unlikely to be able to if it was never there in the first place. I do feel I've met and am with 'The One' though and we still have great chemistry (but have only been together 4.5yrs, I know it isn't long) and he was worth waiting for.

It's difficult to write this without seeming smug, so apologies if that's the way it comes across.I am definitely with the one.We've been together 12 years, and when we met the chemistry was ssooo strong! I think we spent practically the whole first year of our relationship in bed!
And now, we are boring marrieds with kids and we have our up's and downs, and bad times.And we don't spend enough time alone together and we certainly don't spend enough time " together" if you get my drift, but he still makes me laugh and I still think he's dishy, and I think the spark is still there! BUT, if he'd been a shit and treated me really badly etc then the spark wouldn't have been enough.You have to live from day to day through good and bad so you need someone nice and responsible and kind too. Sorry if this is waffle.

I think you've answered your own question - its fine for a while but then your own feelings take over - quite naturally!

You're not selfish at all - by 'settling' your being unkind to both yourself AND your partner.

so next question...ive already told him im not going to rush into anything....is it ok to go out, have a laugh and a drink as long as im not leading him on in any way? as long as i tell him where he stands and we take it for what it is? is that ok...or should i just not bother at all? he seems absolutely fine with it so what next...who knows...we may both decide that we just want to be friends? i have to add that ive only been with him for about 6 weeks and theres been no mention of feelings anywhere but he is good to me. maybe my post seems a bit premature but i wanted to prevent the same thing happening all over again if i could....so far its kind of a replay and knowing myself if there was a spark it would have shown itself by now. if that makes any sense.

Nightowl - is he the same bloke that is good and helpful to you, but you feel smothered by on your other thread? Apologies if he's not - but if he is then surely that says it all.
If it's an entirely different person (apart from a juvenile sense of that you've got 2 men after you), I would say, sadly from experience, that if there's no chemistry to begin with, it's not going to suddenly appear. The one exception is if he's very, very funny - but even then I'm not sure if that's enough.
I would also suggest that if you do decide that there's really no future romantically, then you have to spell it out ever so plainly. I've been accused in the past of "leading men on" when i thought it was absolutely done and dusted that there was nothing on offer. Sexist of me, but it seems that they think continued friendship means they're still in with a chance.

no its not the same one turquoise. one is a friend ive known ten years this is a nice man i met six weeks ago. the other is a problem...this is perhaps me being cautious and perhaps it made me think because when i was with him the other week i bumped into an ex "spark"...and it just got me to thinking about why it wasnt the same and why that was. i do think about things too deeply but it doesnt help that i am still in love with the "spark"...and maybe i want to get him out of my head so that his "haunting" of me doesnt ruin the future? i just dont know really...its one of those situations where the past comes slap bang back at you i guess.

looking back at my last post i begin to wonder if the ex "spark" is the reason i dont feel this with someone else...or is it just the way things are? does the fact that i still care for the ex prevent me from feeling for someone else...or do i need that spark from someone else to be the thing that makes the ex in my head go away? [confused emoticon] ! i get these visions of being an old woman and saying to my grandkids..."well there was only ever one man i loved...and he wasnt your grandad" arrrrggghhh....need to go stick my head in the toilet until things make sense i reckon!!

nightowl - have changed name but just to say quickly - I know that feeling! Can't love anyone else until you get over ex-spark, can't get over ex-spark until you love anyone else... Talk about Catch-22.

Can you just be very very honest with this new guy? To be honest I would say that if it ain't there at the start (which should be the super-sparky time, after all!), it ain't ever going to be there and I would steer clear. But that's just me!

name change for this as well. would you consider a fling? Not something I would normally recommend and not with the person who's really into you, just someone you fancy? That would get get you thinking about the future and stop thinking about the spark.

Another name- change..
I met someone a few years ago who I thought was my soulmate. I fell head over heels and although I knew he was falling slower than I was, everything he said led me to believe that if he wasn't already feeling the way I did, he was well on the way. Anyway, it ended in disaster when he walked out of my house v. early one morning without a word, leaving a note, and refused to speak to or see me. I was completely devastated and thought I would never get over it, still believing that he would change his mind and come back. Anyway, 5 months later I met someone else. There was no initial spark although I liked him and I was extremely cautious to get involved. I can remember saying to a friend that although I liked him a lot I would never feel the same way that I did about the previous man. To cut a long story short, he persevered and wooed me like I've never been wooed before. This man is now my very very dear husband and I adore him. I realise now that the man I thought was "the one" would never have made me happy in the long term and there were aspects to the relationship that did not bode well even though I chose to ignore them at the time. Btw - to say that a spark has to be there from the start is wrong imo - my dh and I have a fantastic sex life and I fancy him to bits (I didn't fancy him at all when we first met). Having said all this, it does depend on how long you've been with someone - if it's months, you know them really well and there's still no spark then maybe it's not right for you.

wow! surpirsed at how many of you understand....just thought i was mad!! have been thinking about it today and decided that perhaps the reason i dont want to see him too much is that i wouldnt like it to get to the stage where if he went id be lonely...and if i dont like him too much then he wouldnt have the power to hurt my feelings...thats good for me but not very fair on him i would say.

i am such a prat...weve had our first row tonight...well actually i took something he said about my parenting skills in a serious way when it was a joke...sore subject but not his fault. we did make it up but actually i realised that he is a good kind man and i dont want to fall out. good sign? (i have been sitting here drowning my sorrows with chocolate sandwiches like a hormonal teenager also)!

Well that sounds good nightowl
Do you fancy him at all? I mean, maybe not the big spark, but still a bit of a rush?