Vanilla partner for an easy life?

[littlepieces]

Did anyone here actively choose a 'vanilla' partner mainly for a simple, stable life? How did it go?

My first boyfriend was a bit of a lad and it set the pattern for a string of unsuitable men, ending with my STBXH who was erratic, abusive and loved a good fight. It was hard work trying to avoid provoking him so sometimes I didn’t bother when the effort made me want to scream.

Current DP is steady and calm but lots of fun and the sex is great!

He never rushes headlong into anything but can be spontaneous. It’s so much less exhausting being with him than any of my previous partners 😊

@littlepieces

Yes, I suppose I mean both ordinary and safe.

No. I probably should have done. Married someone who was 'exciting' rather than a safe, IT guy I was introduced to at a party (with matching sports car etc) - I dated the IT guy for approx 10 months whereon he proposed to me (too soon I know!) but I just felt bored with him and met my exciting DH not long after.

After years of dating creative, troubled, complicated, exciting dickheads I am now married to a decent, hardworking, intelligent, family-orientated, reliable DH and it is wonderful. To be honest, having children removed a lot of the opportunities to do the spontaneous crazy things I found attractive in my 20s anyway and I'm pretty sure 'vanilla' partners make better fathers than bad boys.

Conventional men still cheat, lie etc. they just do it with less flair so I don’t think vanilla is a necessarily safe.

My current partner is far more conventional than any of my previous partners. It makes me more accountable for my own behaviour which I like. In previous relationships my partners were so off the rails it gave me a free pass to do whatever I wanted. So to a small extent I use my partner to regulate my own unconventional behaviour.

@PussGirl

My first boyfriend was a bit of a lad and it set the pattern for a string of unsuitable men, ending with my STBXH who was erratic, abusive and loved a good fight. It was hard work trying to avoid provoking him so sometimes I didn’t bother when the effort made me want to scream.

Current DP is steady and calm but lots of fun and the sex is great!

He never rushes headlong into anything but can be spontaneous. It’s so much less exhausting being with him than any of my previous partners 😊

Your first boyfriend and the others sounds like one of mine (see other thread) - a bit of a lad and loved a good fight.

We had a fairly good relationship but he liked to tell me what to do and it constantly meant we scrapped like kids and it was exhausting like you said with your STBXH.

At the end of our 2 year relationship I asked him why he was like this and he said "I liked the fact you stood up for yourself but I didn't like being wrong". No shit Sherlock!

I've had what I would call three proper partners, the first was vanilla but a bit too vanilla, bored the crap out of me.
I left him for a wild artist in a band who was the hottest thing on two legs but was so self obsessed and rude to me, I left him.

Now I'm with a err what would you call it maybe mint and chocolate chip flavour person? Not as wild as chilli and caramel ice cream but a good middle ground.

He's interesting and a strong individual but not too crazy, not too plain. Definitely the right one. We made babies.

OP. Don't do a typical rebound thing and leave your nice but dull fella for an attractive and exciting but selfish person.

@littlepieces

Thank you *@theuncles* that's interesting.

I think you hit the nail on the head - DP isn't someone I'd pick OLD at all based on looks and what his bio might say, but we get on really well. I just wonder if that's OK because I feel a bit bad about it!

I "picked" my current partner on OLD but thinking that it wouldn't last five minutes as we were so different. He came across as being far more of a rebel than me; has been to all sorts of places, had more partners, is more outspoken and daring. I would never have gone for such a colourful character before, but following my divorce I was looking for some short-term fun.

Before him I was married for a long time to someone I thought would be a dependable, reliable family man. He was also good fun and attractive, but definitely not daring and bold.

I am clearly a shit judge of character.

After 4 years, rebel bf turns out to be highly reliable and dependable: if he says he's going to be somewhere, he is there. Vanilla exh turned into that guy that is reliably late for everything. Rebel bf hates to let me down; vanilla exh would leave me stranded and then be annoyed if I complained. Rebel bf compromises in an argument; vanilla exh sulked until he got his way. Vanilla exh hated being the bad guy, so didn't want to be the one to end our marriage even when it became clear he was having an affair. I don't think rebel bf would be quite so cowardly (fingers crossed).

So my prejudices about what a "rebel" is like were totally naive...

Maybe if you get on well with this guy, it's because he's a great guy and not some wishy-washy borefest. Maybe it's the vanilla-coloured blinkers on your eyes that are the issue.

Does it matter? If your DH gives you stability, predictability and support then that is fantastic. No one is tethered at the hip. If you also crave excitement, more thrilling conversation, travel, then you can have that too. You have family, you have friends. It is all about balance. My DH is content to stay home, I love to travel and have a drink now and then. I can do both. He is happy when I go off on holiday with others in my family or my friends. I am happy when he goes out to do his hobbies.

@SteveArnottsCodeine Your post is brilliant.

Actually DP is a really funny, intelligent man. We have a lot of laughs, he doesn't take life too seriously. He's really kind and gentle. He's got lots of good friends, all different kinds of people. I am attracted to him although he's not conventionally good looking. He's just not very adventurous in life, I guess that's what it boils down to. I wouldnt say I've done anything incredible, but I've been to uni, travelled a lot, lived abroad, have tried/done lots of things and want to do more and challenge myself. I'm not keen on the marriage and kids in suburbia life. He does come along and do things with me, but he'd probably be content to spend every weekend of the rest of his life watching football and visiting his family.

Vanilla in the sense that he is stable, moral and a provider and not a bad boy? Then yes, I did. That doesn't make him boring and I think that says I'm good at choosing a good life partner. 35 years of marriage says I'm right.

I love your post @Cowbells, I can relate hugely. I had similar parents and I definitely have the "gene" and some tendencies which I fight against. I crave to be happy, normal, simple pleasures and my partner is the same and I'm so happy with that. I think your partner sounds perfect OP

@BigFatLiar sounds perfect to me!

I fell in love with someone who definitely seemed vanilla compared to the exes: the beautiful, autistic musician, the alcoholic aristo, the complex and unfaithful journalist etc etc.

The man I fell in love with is perhaps not rock & roll, but he is a very grounded adult human being, an excellent father with an absolutely sound moral compass and I wouldn't change him for anything. I'll be happy tending the veg patch with him into my twilight years.

Interesting thread.

A very good friend of mine married someone who one might term vanilla. She is so smart, clever and funny and he is very kind and dependable but, to be brutally honest, a bit dull. There wasn't much physical spark between them and I was a bit concerned that a few years down the line she might really miss having a partner who 'got' her sense of humour and was a bit more intellectually compatible with her. But actually it has worked really really well and I'm so happy for her that it has. She has a very demanding job while he was a stay at home dad for a while when the kids were small and then got a flexible job that allowed him to work around school times. They seem very happy and I have a huge amount of respect for him and am grateful that he's been such a supportive partner to her.

I, on the other hand, did the opposite, I married someone who had a reputation for being somewhat tempestuous and difficult. I had other much more vanilla boyfriends in my 20s who were keen to marry and I'm sure many of my friends and family wished I'd married one of them instead and expected it not to work out with DH and I. However, DH has calmed down A LOT and, though we've had our ups and downs, I think we've rubbed off on each other in a very good way. We've been married 15 years and we are pretty happy overall. We do pull in different directions on some stuff (e.g. politics!!) but overall it works out in and I'm grateful for how much we enjoy each other's company and laugh at the same things. I never doubt for a minute that he loves me and cares about me.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that you just never know. Vanilla can work well and so can the opposite. I think you always take a bit of a gamble when you get married.

DP was definitely not the “safe” option on paper. When we first met he was working weekends in a bar, in an open relationship with someone else, ambivalent about the idea of kids, smoked like a chimney. We got together and 4 months later we found out I was pregnant with DD.

Anyway, he’s been an entirely loving, stable, dependable partner and a great dad. He quit smoking, got a more stable job and has been there for us ever since.

Like pp have said if you mean 'vanilla' as a derogatory term and that you feel that you are settling for him and you could be off doing better with someone who likes to travel etc, it's very unfair of you to continue on and maybe let someone who accepts him and wants a similar life style, to avoid dislike and contempt emerging in your relationship.

He's just not very adventurous in life, I guess that's what it boils down to. I wouldnt say I've done anything incredible, but I've been to uni, travelled a lot, lived abroad, have tried/done lots of things and want to do more and challenge myself. I'm not keen on the marriage and kids in suburbia life. He does come along and do things with me, but he'd probably be content to spend every weekend of the rest of his life watching football and visiting his family.

Honestly, OP, that sounds doomed to me. You want different things out of life.

It reminds me of another recent post (it wasn't you, was it?) by someone who lived very happily with her DP of a few years in London. Now that they were both released to work remotely, post-Covid, they wanted to leave London and it turned out that they had completely opposite ideas about how they wanted their lives to be.

She wanted to move to the north of England to somewhere they could lead the kind of outdoorsy life he apparently liked as much as she did, and for him to consider living in NZ with her for a (finite) period, whereas he was absolutely adamant that all he wanted to do was to buy a house close to his parents in Sussex and spend all his free time with his childhood friends and family and play for his local football team and never leave again.

You sound similar in that you don't want a life of washing your car, mowing the lawn and ferrying children to sports -- he does. The kind of life he wants will not fulfil you, and you'll blame him for not wanting to travel or otherwise move out of his comfort zone.

I married a vanilla guy. Kind, intelligent, stable. Good job. Own home. Would never cheat or treat me badly. He was my best friend. I just didn't fancy him much.

I remember thinking that I was settling for 9 out of 10 and could sacrifice that desire and passion for a great family man. And besides... there's no such thing as a 10...

We went on to have 2 children and stayed together for 20 years. But we'd built an entire life on a unstable foundation.

The lack of sex and intimacy destroyed us. We were just friends. I got resentful and restless. He appeared dull and unadventurous to me. No motivation, no get up and go... just a boring middle aged couch potato. I wanted to socialise, dine out, travel... he wanted to watch tv and eat takeaway.

We split a couple of years ago. He is still my best friend and I love him dearly. I don't regret a moment of our life together. It was the best decision I made. But I'm enjoying tasting all the other flavours on offer!

Ok - based on your last post, I'd say you do have good reason to question your relationship then. If you're already a little bored by the idea of the kind of life he wants, that's only likely to get worse with time, and it will get harder and harder to break away. The deciding factor is sometimes how desperate you are not to be single, I think. But staying in a relationship just because you're worried you wouldn't find a better one isn't the basis for happiness!

I think when you say vanilla, you mean boring. It's really just a nice way of saying that?

I empathise.

But if I'm right, don't settle for someone is boring. And that does not mean you are after the bad boy, there are people in between. It's not one extreme or the other.

I’m going to sit right on the fence and say you just never know. It’s always a risk. Exciting, adventure guy could end up vanilla and boring as hell after a few years. Vanilla guy could treat you like shit. Whatever path you choose, there will always the path not taken at the back of your mind.

You have to trust your gut, not your heart or your head and do what it tells you.

That being said:

I'm not keen on the marriage and kids in suburbia life. does he want kids? Have you talked about this?

@SteveArnottsCodeine

My first big love was Ghost Chilli flavoured. If you look up the word “intense” in the dictionary there’s a photo of him (he’s also featured next to “prick” and “lying, despicable cunt”, I believe). He fucked me up good and proper, so I very actively went for vanilla when I was on the rebound from Mr. GC.

Mr. Vanilla was nice and reliable and sweet and just the most boring man on Earth. I didn’t love him, but I wanted to. Not least because I knew he would be loyal and never leave me (as Mr. Ghost Chilli had). When Mr. Vanilla proposed (with the most vanilla ring, in the most vanilla proposal of all time) the thought that went through my head was immediately “oh well, I don’t really want this but at least I know that he won’t ever leave me”.

And he didn’t. But I did eventually leave him after a few years when I met and quickly fell in love with someone who was a bit more flavourful.

I ended up marrying the new guy and we’ve been together for a couple of decades now, happily with a couple of kids and a couple of cats. He’s lovely. He’s not Ghost Chilli, but neither is he vanilla. He’s a very tasty flavour that’s kind to my metaphorical taste buds but not boring to them either. He’s a nice coconut or an interesting mint choc chip, if you will.

As someone who’s lived it, this is my assessment: There’s nothing wrong with vanilla if you’re going with vanilla because you genuinely like it. If you’re going with vanilla and can taste all of the nuances of it, vanilla might just be the flavour for you. But If you’re going for vanilla just because it’s not Ghost Chilli? That won’t work. You’ll just end up resenting vanilla for not being interesting enough a flavour, which isn’t fair because it’s not vanillas fault that it tastes like vanilla.

I hope that I’ve not lost you in the flavour metaphor there.... There’s plenty to be said for vanilla in life, but not if you’re going for vanilla as a reaction to another bad flavour experience.

Such a good post

Yeah. Excellent post!

I chose a bad man who came from a dysfunctional family and he abused me so badly I thought I was going to die..if my faith in men was every to be resurrected, I'd choose vanilla I think.

My DH is extremely straightforward, uncomplicated and reliable. But he's also highly intelligent and up for adventure. Definitely not boring as far as I'm concerned.

Interestingly, as I get older, the more intolerant I am of anything even approaching a dangerous or 'bad boy' type vibe, or anyone who seems to find themselves more fascinating than anyone else. Whereas when I was younger I might have felt myself drawn to a good looking 'player' despite my better judgement, I now find it deeply unattractive and a genuine turn off.