Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
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

Original poster

be honest, were you madly in love with the father of your dcs or did you "settle"?

171 replies

redwhiteandblue · 11/12/2007 11:10

Done a name change here. I've been thinking about this a lot recently given unpleasant things going on in my life and friends' lives
I have some friends who married their dhs because they genuinely adored them, just like in the fairy tales. However, I have others who were in their mid thirties, wanted kids and decided to hitch their star to guys who - if we're honest - they would not have stood for a decade earlier. If I'm really truthful that goes for me as well, if I'd been with my dh aged 25, he would have got the boot after a couple of years, but because my clock was starting to tick I decided to stay with him and make the best of what we had and as a result we do have two beautiful dds whom I wouldn't be without for anything but I can't say we have the happiest marriage on the planet. But if I hadn't had babies with him I might have ended up like several of my friends who missed the boat entirely or are having IVF and are in a very bad place indeed. Plus, I've seen friends who married deeply in love become disillusioned over the years anyway and suffer terrible heartbreak when the man they married turned out to be not quite what they expected. Just wondering what anyone else thinks.

OP posts:
Brangelina · 12/12/2007 09:00

I was madly in love with DP when I first met him. However as the relationship developed we had a few differences of opinion and I began to "unlove" him. Before I discovered I was pg I had pretty much decided to leave. I stayed, we went through a particularly bad patch at the end of my pg and the first few months after the birth, but we'd bought a house by then so I stuck it out. We got over it and now bump along nicely, although I'm not sure I can say I love him anymore, I'm all loved out after some of his behaviour in our rough patch.

BTW I was 37 when I met him, I was seeing someone "dependable" before he came along but ditched him for my now DP, who was a decidedly less attractive prospect "on paper"

kama · 12/12/2007 09:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

sweetbean · 12/12/2007 09:10

Madly in love !!!

But having said that we have gone throw are rough patches like most couples the important thing for me is that i still love him !!!

DumbledoreWithBoughsOfHolly · 12/12/2007 09:12

Hmmm, I wouldn't say it was that easy to categorise in my case.

I did meet dh and fall madly in love and wanted to marry him and have children within months of meeting him. But he was younger than me and not ready to settle, so it took 4 years from first meeting to getting to the altar by which time my biological clock was definitely ticking. Also, by that time, I would say, the madly in love thing had calmed down, but I think that is just as well. It meant I did not marry dh because of a hot-headed passion but because I could see he would be the solid, dependable partner I wanted in my life.

I have certainly not had any regrets, and I hope he would say the same too.

shrinkingsagpuss · 12/12/2007 09:12

I settled. He was in love with me, did all the chasing. i was planning to move away, and suddenly I found myself in a relationship. Suddenly we were virtually living together and it felt comfortable. Then we were getting married, and now we have 2 children. As I went to walk down the aisle, I thought "My god, this is it, what am I doing".

i do love him, but it isn't wild and passionate. Its comfortable and safe. most of the time.

SantasGotABigFatEllieG · 12/12/2007 09:24

Madly in love.
Divorced the one I settled for as realised I didn't want to have children with him. Now with the man who I do wish to (and am).

themulledsnowmanneredjanitor · 12/12/2007 09:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mincepiedermama · 12/12/2007 09:28

Deeply, but not madly in love. I was married to him for eight years before we even started having kids.

I would say though that the happy, madly-in-love-throughout type marriage is a myth. Marriage is for the long haul and it's tough no matter how much you love each other. It takes work and struggle. I don't know anyone who doesn't struggle, to some degree from time to time, to make their marriage work.

bozza · 12/12/2007 09:29

I was 22 when I met DH and I was madly in love. I used to cry when I got back on the train to London and I remember standing in the freezing cold with snow on the ground in a public phone box (only not a box just a shelter type thing) so that I could speak to him in the days when I didn't have a mobile and lived in a bedsit without a landline.

I am not in love in that kind of way now, but I do still love him very much, fancy him, respect him as the father of my two children (and he only wanted one so allowing me my DD was a fantastic gift from him), and rely on his emotional constancy.

neighbour · 12/12/2007 09:32

Oh dear this is the sort of thread that makes me jealous!

I married dh to escape the grips of my parents. I loved him, but wasn't madly in love. I had all kinds of doubts even walking down the aisle. But I knew he'd make a good, caring, devoted husband. He works like a demon to support the family and also does 50% of the domestic work. He puts up with my mood swingswhich border on illnessand with my obsession with my art, because he's proud of me, and thinks what I do is important and lasting. He always lets me work, even if it's an inconvenient time. But our marriage is celibate, which was the case more or less even when we were first married (I can't believe we managed 2 children) and though I'd like to leave, he is basically willing to do anything for me to stay. Soas imperfect as this solution isI've had a boyfriend for 2 and a half years, whom i do love madly. I so wish I could have had a family with him, but things didn't work out that way, and won't. He's older, has grown children, and though he loves to have me around, he's another moody artist, and likes his space. I'm truly surprised by how many people say they are or were madly in love. You're lucky!

TrinityTheRedNosedRhino · 12/12/2007 09:32

madly in love
been through some hard shit
hated him sometimes (but because of stress and being exhausted and depressed)
I alwasy come out of it knowing I still am head over heels in love with him
He rocks my world

Mincepiedermama · 12/12/2007 09:35

neighbour. That's quite an amazing tale. Sorry you yearn for more but I can understand how much you appreciate what he can and does give you.

DumbledoreWithBoughsOfHolly · 12/12/2007 09:38

Bozza, I had to smile wryly at your description of standing in a freezing telephone booth to speak to your dh and then saying you do not love him in that kind of way now.

My dh and I spent 3 of the 4 years we were together before marriage at opposite ends of the country. He would come and spend every weekend with me (I occasionally went to him). We would speak on the phone every Tuesday and Thursday without fail. Now we live with each other, we sometimes communicate less, despite seeing each other every day, than we did in those days of living apart. And if the only way to speak to him would be in a freezing phone booth, then I don't think we would know each other at all!

But anyone here who says marriage is a series of ups and downs is right. Even when we are on a down, I don't think this is the end, only how do we get back up from here?

electra · 12/12/2007 09:41

I was in love. He wasn't someone I settled with. However, 7 years down the line and it's all gone tits up anyway

Heathcliffscathy · 12/12/2007 09:45

ahem. olive, at what age would you say the young children stress disappates?

DumbledoreWithBoughsOfHolly · 12/12/2007 09:48

I am not olive, but I would say when they are about school age. That was how it was for dh and me anyway.

Trouble is, we now have one bordering on teenage and he is beginning to give us some angst. At the moment though, it isn't driving a wedge between us.

OComeOLIVEfaithfOIL · 12/12/2007 10:15

Sophable - well I am trying to think back

with dd1 the first few months were a blur, but it was quite 'easy' in comparison with dd2's arrival, going from 1 to 2 was horrible tbh

that was quite stressful - she was (is!) a crap sleeper, we didn't have time for ourselves, only 22 month gap so lots of juggling 2 babies really blah blah blah

arguements galore, in fact I think I did a thread saying would you be together if you didn't have children as we really were NOT getting on

but we knew that the reason we were NOT getting on was because of the children iyswim, so we staggered on

she is now 3.3yrs and we have been getting on a lot better this year so maybe first 2 years?

that sounds bad doesn't it, but it wasn't ALL bad, just a uphill struggle at times

you just have to wait for the fog to lift and it does

OComeOLIVEfaithfOIL · 12/12/2007 10:20

just done a quick search and my thread was June 05 so dd2 would have been 10 months old

Baffy · 12/12/2007 11:04

Madly in love. Soul mate. Together for 14 years. Had ds.
And now he has literally broken my heart and left us.

Next time... will I 'settle'?... Perhaps not settle as such. But I will be looking for a lot more. Someone who shares the same values, has the same hopes and dreams. That will be most important to me.
Plus someone who is mature enough to understand the true value of marriage and how important it is to be a good parent and never let your children down.

If that means I have to do without the lust/madly in love thing, then so be it.

(If there is a 'next time'!)

OhGiveUsAPruniPudding · 12/12/2007 11:19

Fell madly in love but after 14 years and in the throes of a small child and trying (trying, trying...) to have another, it is hard to remember that!
We are definitely on something like the same wavelength, we laugh a lot, we love each other...I didn't settle. But 'madly in love' is not quite how it is!

Indith · 12/12/2007 11:28

Does anyone really stay 'madly' in love?

We spend from August to the following June in different countires before ds was born (he was conceived during that time) in different countries, only meeting up for a few dys every few months. During that time the love was definitely of the mad variety. Intense days of shagging . These days I love him all the more but it has turned into a more sedate love. But when he goes away I miss him and every night when we go to bed we have a cuddle before going to sleep and I don't think I could ever replace that small moment of rightness at the end of the day. Even if we have been sniping at each other all day, it never matters at that point.

ib · 12/12/2007 11:32

Madly in love. Were still teenagers, got married at uni. Didn't want kids initially, were then told we couldn't have them. 15 years later along came ds regardless. We are still madly in love, just very very tired.

OrmIrian · 12/12/2007 12:03

I'm not madly in love (thank the lord!) but I couldn't imagine life without him. Which is just as it should be afaic. I don't want madness in my life but I do want happiness and stability.

becklesparkle · 12/12/2007 12:23

I was all prepared to'settle' for bloke I was with before DH, nice man but no real spark or connection between us. Then I m/c our first child and realised life was far too short to be unhappy (and I had been for some time) and so left.

Then met DH, fell madly in love (still am 9 years on) and we are expecting our third baby in a couple of weeks. I would say our marriage is a happy one, lots of give and take on both sides and hopefully if we keep working at it we will still be happy in 10, 20, etc years time.

If I had been older when I was with my ex then I may well have stayed with him so I coof babies though.

becklesparkle · 12/12/2007 12:24

coof babies???

could have!!!