Are you married to the love of your life?

[GoldenGirl85]

There’s been lots of discussion around whether men actually marry the women they love or whether they marry the person who‘s in the picture when they’re ready to marry/good for marriage and I wanted to see if it’s the same for women.

How many of us would actually say we’re married to the love of their lives? Or maybe you don’t believe in the love of your life but you are deeply in love with the person you’ve married.

I’ll go first. I’m happily married but my husband is not the loml. I’ve had two great loves but neither of them would have been good for marriage. The first one, cheated relentlessly but other than that major flaw our relationship was wonderful and the second, we would have had serious financial issues. This guy was always investing in some get rich quick scheme and never wanted to work a proper job. He was lots of fun but could never offer stability.

I’m not married but I feel I have been with the love of my life for the last 14 years. I was only 22 when we got together so hadn’t had many relationships beforehand. We knew each other for a year before we got together and i think I fell in love with him in tha year (he felt the same luckily). I do think there’s something to be said for men marrying the woman he’s with when he’s ready to settle down, I’ve seen it so many times with male friends

I am

I don't believe in soulmates or that there's one right person or anything like that. But I am married to the man I have loved most in my life (by a long way!).

I have been for 28 years....I still look forward to him walking through the door each night.

I am. I know I’m in the minority and that I’m very very lucky.

Yes!! Wouldn’t have it any other way!! Actually he’s saved as “[name] LOML” in my phone haha. Marriage (well, kids, financial stressors etc) is hard enough even with someone you absolutely adore and admire. Couldn’t imagine doing it with someone you were just “ok” with.
Interestingly DH definitely got with his ex at the time he felt he needed to settle down (and had one child) but their relationship was so bad that he called it off after about 4-5 years.
I guess otherwise neither of us would be with our LOMLs…

26 years here. …. Same

I am. We’ve been together 11 years, married for 3 and I still get butterflies when his name pops up on my phone.
There’s nobody else I’d rather do anything with than him.
I’m 100% myself with him and enjoy every second we’re together.
He gets on my nerves sometimes….leaves dirty socks on the floor, kitchen cupboards open, wet towels on the bed etc, but other than that he’s everything I could ever wish for 😊

Yes me too. I had dreadful taste in boyfriends in my twenties, but thankfully finally got my act together when I met my DH! A diamond of a man.

Yes, consider myself very lucky as is he!! Compared to exes right from when we first met it felt like we were a team and lift each other up and bring the best out in each other. 15 years together, 11 married and 2 kids.

Absolutly

I was. We didn't get together until we were in our forties, but she was worth the wait. I had lived on my own for twenty five years, so was perfectly capable of cooking, cleaning, etc.

I married her because I loved her. She enhanced my life in ways I couldn't possibly describe. Unfortunately fate had other plans, so we only had twelve years together until her death parted us, but I wouldn't change anything for all the tea in China (apart from cancer, that can fuck right off).

Yes

Yes, our second date was 37 years ago next week. Haven't been much apart since.

Yes.

I've never loved another man other than my DH. I've had other boyfriends before him but I was never in love until I met him. So yes he is the love of my life.

I often wonder if people who pine after someone else really did love the other person more or if its all mixed up with wounded pride from getting rejected or similar? It also depends on what we mean by love? Are people recalling the heady days of infatuation which might be all the experienced with one person vs the experience of love in a long marriage?

I think everyone has the capacity to love more than once, personally I would say I have been deeply in love three times.
I married only one of them. Who knows, had I married anyone else if I would have been as happy, sad, with as many ups and downs, but still together and loving decades later.

All of this here too 😊

I am, he is my all.

I am. I wouldn't have bothered getting married if I wasn't.

This is interesting. I am with the LOML and have been for 4 years now. I knew instantly he was “the one” but he’s absolutely not marriage material. He’s not a stable person and after experiencing the stress of living with him then the relief of him moving into his own place I know that we may not be together forever. I want to settle down and be married again. I have been married. I knew he wasn’t the LOML. But he was marriage material (at the time) and we had kids together. It was what I wanted at the time. We managed 14 years. It didn’t last though because in reality as much as we were good together without that proper love the marriage just want sustainable. I feel like I’ll know when it’s time to move on from where I am now though and it’s not quite yet. Love and relationships are really very complicated things.

Broadly speaking, yes, but not in a tick-every-box-perfect kind of way. I've had better mental/emotional connections (important to me), and better sex, in other relationships. But outside of fairy tales it's extremely rare to find absolutely everything you want from a partner in one package, and DH is totally the person I love and want to spend the rest of my life with.

I think "the love of your life" is kind of a meaningless phrase really.

What's the definition? A lot of people like to think that there's some kind of destiny or fate involved in finding someone to spend your life with, but personally I think that's a load of rubbish. Most people have millions of potential partners out there, and it's just a case of finding one who's not a dickhead who turns up at about the right time.

DP is the love of my life, because we've spent 20 years together and raised a human to adulthood together. But that love exists because we built it, not because of some connection that popped into existence the moment we first met.

But it wouldn't have taken much for that love to never have existed. Neither of us were particularly looking for a serious relationship when we got together, and had DP not gotten pregnant 2 months in, neither of us probably would have grown up enough to make the relationship work long term.

Equally, maybe I'd have spent my life with my second girlfriend, had she not gotten a job half way across the world.

Anyone can say "Oh, my ex was the love of my life", but you have no way of knowing that. Had you actually spent your lives together, you may have ended up hating him for his drinking problem, or his skidmarks in the toilet, or his crappy jokes.

Love isn't something that just exists, there isn't one "right" person out there. Love is something you build, with someone you liked who was in the right place at the right time. And you just have to hope it doesn't get torn down by circumstances beyond control or your own stupid decisions.

Im recently divorced so definitely not married to my LOML. At the weekend I went to hen do and felt quite sad hearing the other women talking about their 'wonderful ' husbands and partners. I mentioned this to my family member who is married to one of the women and they said its all bullshit, none of them are actually happy and regularly moan/cheat/shirk responsibility. It just made me think that I wonder if anyone is actually happily married 🤔
Ive never been happier without a man and id never live with one again.
Also, ive never been slimmer, fitter and generally more attractive. I don't know if Loves of our lives actually exist in reality.

We are a good match. But DH is hard work. It may not last…

I really loved the guy who dumped me mid-20s. I would have married him. I had several options of marrying, before I met my DH. All good men. But I wasn’t interested. Also had a good few hot & heavy bad boys. Fun while it lasted… Some absolute bastards, too! All married now, of course! The one that had it all was an American guy I dated in my Paris days. He’s the only one I think of now, really. The one that got away!