This may seem silly but the other night I was watching Good Will Hunting with my partner and I realised that the way that Robin Williams' character pines for his wife after her death as she was clearly the love of his life, is not a way that I would ever imagine my DP being with or about me. We met in our early-mid 30s having both previously had one main long term relationship, and have been together 5 years, have 2 beautiful children together. I would say we have a good relationship, we have faced very difficult times whilst together and have been able to support each other through them. He is a good father and loving towards the children and me, he is caring and thoughtful (usually, sometimes can be slightly thoughtless but always takes things on board when I raise it with him), however I have always had this sense that I can't explain of him being slightly detached.
I grew up surrounded by men who absolutely adored their wives, I genuinely worry about something happening to my mum before my dad because I honestly don't think he would cope without her; when my grandmother died it was like my grandfather lost a piece of himself, he was relatively young (in their 50s) when she died but he would never ever even have considered meeting anyone else. It was like my gran was his person and once he lost her there was no one else, I think that my dad would be the same.
I know that DP loves me but I just don't feel like it is that kind of love where he couldn't be without me. Sure, he would be sad if something happened to me but I know he would move on easily enough. I wondered if this is because we met when we were older and so we already spent so long without each other. I asked him tonight what he thought and his response kind of confirmed the sense of detachment I often feel from him- he said that his parents (who had an extremely violent relationship which DP had to unfortunately witness) split when he was young, his only sibling died when he was 10 and then he had a big and quite traumatic break up with his long term ex before me (they were together from when he was 17, she was 21), his job involves working away from home for significant periods of time (offshore) and so now he doesn't tend to get those kind of deep attachments.
It saddens me. Our life together is good, I know that he has that kind of attachment with our children, they are irreplaceable to him, and while I know he loves me I just sometimes feel like I'm replaceable.
Does anyone else get this? Am I looking for something I see in films or is this kind of attachment something that he might develop over time? Or do I just need to resign myself to the fact that this is as much as he is able to give to me?