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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

DH has never told me he loves me.......

42 replies

Unlovable · 03/05/2020 13:56

We’ve been together 26 years! He has said it in response to me asking him if he loves me with ‘yes, of course’ but he’s never actually said ‘ I love you’. Not even when he proposed or on our wedding day. He even just signs cards with his name. No ‘love from’. I had never really noticed it until recently. I have often said it to him many times him over the years totally unprompted because I do!

I come from an abusive family where I was never shown any affection, certainly was not told I was loved, nor did I feel it and I’m coming to middle age now and the realisation that I have never felt loved by anybody in my whole life really (discounting DCs as I mean feeling loved for being me rather than being Mum).

I’ve brought it up with him a few times over the years but he’s always said I was being ‘silly’ apart from one occasion after a row where he quite candidly told me that he never planned to be with me permanently when we got together and was planning to break up with me just before we found out I was pregnant with DC1 and because of that he couldn’t. We had been together for over 2 years, living together for 18 months and he knew I wanted DC with him as were not using contraception at that point. This was said 17 years later but he did ‘care’ about me. He did apologise much— later and said he didn’t mean it but you can’t take something back like that can you? After that I kind of feel he married me under false pretences and I am very resentful of him as it makes me feel like he is just putting up with me for the DC.

I just feel that I want to experience feeling loved for once in my life and he can’t/won’t give me that.

It feels like I’m humiliating myself being with someone I love but who doesn’t feel the same way about me.

Is that a selfish reason for breaking up a family? TBH I thought I’d be the last person to consider divorce after going through it with my own parents and then being NC with my father so effectively losing him, but I am seriously considering it.

OP posts:

ChrisPrattsFace · 03/05/2020 18:56

From your recent update it sounds like you’re friends who raised children together.
I think I’d leave, I would need to be loved the way I love someone and to me it sounds like he doesn’t even care.

MashedPotatoBrainz · 03/05/2020 19:02

Jesus. Quit with the autism stuff. We autistic people are incredibly capable of loving people. And non-autistic people are incredibly capable of being assholes like this.

This^ Absolutely. My autistic husband is the most loving man I have ever met. He tells me he loves me all the time.

Forgivenandsetfree · 03/05/2020 19:02

I too, feel your need to deserve something better..I'm currently in the thick of it, it's been a week and I must say, I feel quite free x you're definitely well within your rights, we weren't happy and it's affected the whole family, although more 'dramatically' I suppose x definitely something to consider x

Puds11 · 03/05/2020 19:07

My Ex would never say he loved me. He also told me I was meant to be a fling but that I trapped him by getting pregnant.

I listened, left and am now married to someone who does tell me they love me and does want to be married to me.

Who cares if he meets someone else and you’re on your own. At least you won’t have to question why you’re not good enough all the time.

winterchills · 03/05/2020 19:13

How awfully sad for you.

user1635482648 · 03/05/2020 19:23

I don't see how you're not alone already really.

TheMotherofAllDilemmas · 03/05/2020 19:26

Jesus. Quit with the autism stuff. We autistic people are incredibly capable of loving people. And non-autistic people are incredibly capable of being assholes like this.

Absolutely, my aspie ExH was all flowers, candle lit dinners, affectionate nicknames and always (always) woke me up with a cup of coffee, but towards the end of our marriage we couldn’t even remember why did we marry each other

People change, relationships die and you do not need to put up with a person that doesn’t make you happy but I disagree about the idea that you can find someone better, it is a big bet, some people do, some people don’t, some people stay single forever, so if you decide you want to leave, leave because all what is wrong in your relationship not because there is some hypothetical better man out there (I found mine eventually, so there is hope, but it took a lot of effort, courage to walk away when needed, the skin of a rhino and more than everything, good luck)

SandyY2K · 03/05/2020 19:39

But it's his problem, not yours

No...it's a problem for the OP.

Maybe he wanted a child with you at some point, but I would absolutely believe him saying he was about to end it, but you fell pregnant.

He should have been honest back then, but he probably felt guilty about leaving you.

The motivation to leave this marriage, would be your DD. She knows it's not right. It's like he's ashamed of you in relationship to the FB stuff.

I'd rather be on my own, than with a man who stayed out of guilt.

Fidgety31 · 03/05/2020 19:43

OP - my boyfriend is like this - but we’ve only been together four years .
He has issues with intimacy and hasn’t ever said he loves me .
He shows it in other ways though.
Maybe your husband is the same ?

NoMoreDickheads · 03/05/2020 20:09

Not Aspergers. We have a DC with ASD though.

I think he has ASD or at least ASD traits hun. It is sometimes hereditary. I have ASD traits myself so I'm not saying that in a bad way- one way or another we have problems relating to people and that's what he's displaying. Yes some/most of us are warm and friendly, some are notoriously detached and unable to grasp what others need them to demonstrate, and say tactless things.

Anyway, I'm not saying that to justify or excuse his behaviour. It's up to you whether you can live this way, but it's bizarre and unpleasant.

Don't put up with this from a partner again- you shouldn't have to drag declarations of affection from a partner.

bembridge11 · 03/05/2020 20:19

Have an affair - you deserve more in life lovely

OldWomanSaysThis · 03/05/2020 20:23

As compelling as sourcing wipes for you is - this does not sound like a case where he just doesn't express his feelings but he does love you. This sounds like he doesn't love you, never has loved you and he won't even fake it for the audience.

I would move on if I were you.
Of course he will find a new woman - men usually do.

myangelalex · 03/05/2020 20:33

My first husband always made me feel I was second best and unloved. He said he only told me he loved me so that I'd sleep with him. Only married me because he felt guilty stringing me along for 2 years. It's clear he never loved me in hindsight. I was single for a long time after the divorce but so much happier.

Original poster

Unlovable · 03/05/2020 20:34

I get what you’re saying NoMore but I think DS’s ASD comes from my side rather than DH’s. DS also has learning difficulties but I have relatives who are I think are definitely on the high functioning spectrum from the knowledge I have now, especially my father. DH is tactile, shows affection (not to me), is very popular at work, with family and friends, can be flirty too. None of the social interaction or anxiety that DS has. I used to think it was cultural (he’s from Southern Europe) but I don’t think it is. He used to jokingly say he wished he’d married a woman from his country as I have never waited on him hand and foot like they would have.

OP posts:

VettiyaIruken · 03/05/2020 20:39

It certainly doesn't sound like he loves you.
You deserve better.
You've wasted 26 years of your life on him. Don't waste any more

SandyY2K · 03/05/2020 20:48

@Fidgety31

Read all the OPs posts...this is not an intimacy issue.

SandyY2K · 03/05/2020 21:00

This is nothing to do with aspergers or any other condition. It's quite clear he stayed out of responsibility when you fell pregnant.

He had to be pushed to by you flowers on 2 recent occasions. Maybe he just felt, he had made his bed and had to stick with the situation.

He did apologise much— later

Why did it take him so long to apologise? Probably because he didn't mean it, but he knew it was very hurtful.

Your self esteem will get worse as long as you're with him.

He insisted on taking about 6 pictures until he looked just right in it hmm and then put a banner over it for something totally unrelated!

Your invisible from his FB account and where he could have said something about your anniversary, he couldn't bring himself to do that.

It sounds like a stranger looking at his account, or someone who didn't know your family, wouldn't know he was married or of your existence.

It's definitely not a selfish idea to end the marriage over. I agree that he married you under false pretences.

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