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.

Same here.
I met my DH in 1990 and love him very much. We have a very happy marriage and hopefully after this length of time nothing's going to change dramatically.
But I don't believe that he's the only person in the world that I could possibly have been happy with. Had one of us declined when a mutual friend invited us both to the pub on the same night 36 years ago so that we'd never met, I doubt either of us would have remained single for the rest of our lives.
So I guess I am married to the love of my life in so far as I have loved DH for the majority of my life. But I don't believe that anyone only has one person that they could love for their whole lives, a lot of it is down to chance.

Glad you had a wonderful 25 years together. I’m so sorry for your loss

I think that the idea of someone being the love of your life is really complex tbh. I think a lot of times maybe we mistake an intense physical attraction as being the love of your life but tbh I think that proper love is something you chose. It's in the showing up for someone every day even when you dont really feel like it and making that commitment and I think someone becomes the love of your life when you both show up in that way with equal energy and commitment and make it last a lifetime.

I had a relationship with someone that was super intense and I did really love him but I wouldn't say he was the love of my life because he treated me badly and I refuse to accept that a genuine proper love would ever do that.

Interesting question.

There is a man whom I would have said was the love of my life, but he treated me quite shabbily in the end. If we would have met under slightly different circumstances, I think we would have been married, and happily.

My current fiancé is a wonderful person who has always treated me very, very well. I feel totally comfortable around him and I know that he will always have my back. I think he is the true love of my life.

I’m happy that they are happy, of course. But I really don’t think it’s a good idea for women to be fed Hallmark bullshit as reality.

I think you'll find that most women have the ability to make their own minds up on what to believe in or not.

When I met my DH we both realised that we were very compatible right away and we'd discussed marriage within a few weeks of meeting. We didn't actually get married for a couple of years but we did realise very quickly that we shared a lot of interests and values and that we were likely to have a lasting relationship. It was immediately obvious to me that he was likely to be a much better long term partner than anyone I'd had a relationship with before , and he felt the same, so I suppose we could be described as "soulmates". But I still don't think that either of us would have remained single for the rest of our lives had we not met. I'm sure that there are other women that DH would have been happy with and other men that would have been compatible with me had circumstances been different. The fact that we met and are still happy together is a mixture of luck and hard work, but not magic.
I don't think the concept of "the one" is helpful for most people as it can create unreasonable expectations and also cause pressure to be the perfect partner, which of course none of us is.

Yes

I don't believe we all have a single 'love of our lives' or soulmate. I believe people are compatible in degrees from not at all to very much, and you can be equally compatible with multiple people, but in different ways.

I love my husband and we are very compatible. There are a few ways in which I have been more compatible with others in the past, but many ways in which I am more compatible with my husband than any other people I've had past relationships with.

It's possible there are one or more people out there who I'd be even more compatible with, since, as I've mentioned, my husband doesn't tick every single box, but I'm not looking for anyone else.

I am. DH is away for 10 days right now, and just today I was thinking how glad I am I married him.

I was insanely in love with someone else but would have been desperately unhappy married to him and I knew it. He was insanely in love with me too, and I think he thought the same about me. Even at the height of it, I remember thinking: I can't do this forever, I want to be able to focus on my life, not on him all the time.

DH, by contrast, was so calm and dependable. Some people might think that means boring, but I came from an upbringing that wasn't calm or dependable, so it was very refreshing and new for me, to be with someone so reliable.

And we have similar sense of humour, lots of interests and tastes in common, so even after three decades together we still skip off all excited to go to a gig or exhibition.

Over all those decades, of course you see flaws in each other and in the marriage. But life and love are rarely perfect. If you are with someone you like and love and fancy, who feels the same about you, who you can talk with, make plans with, rely on, have a laugh with, do nothing with, have adventures with... then for me, that's ideal.

I am not saying that at all and I certainly don't have a deep psychological, or any other, need to believe it. I get why people who have not experienced it find it hard or impossible to believe it exists.....its not an arguable provable/disprovable point. Some things are. When I was a child, I was an eidetiker. I didn't even know what that was until about 5 years ago. People can't even agree on a definition of it, (and recently the definition seems to have changed) let alone on its existence or not. I can't prove it, didn't even tell other people about it at the time, but I was there and I know the truth of my experience.

I am, and his words and actions suggest he is too. It's a second marriage for both of us (plus he had a long term partner whom he lived with between being married and meeting me). I thin for both of us, there was a lot of learning done through our previous marriages, and a lot of understanding what we wanted from a relationship/partner as well as what we absolutely did not want. 12 years so far and we're still very much in love and incredibly happy.

I agree with this. DH and I have been together for more than 30 years and I love him to bits, but we would have no doubt married other people if we hadn't met and would also have been very happy with those hypothetical partners. Equally, there were a couple of boyfriends/girlfriends we each had that we would no doubt have been very happy with if circumstances were different. I'm very glad that Mr Chen is my husband 😊

I am, coming up to 20 years this summer. Feel very lucky that we found each other.

I think you'll find that a lot of people believe in a lot of ridiculous things, and it's just fine to point it out when this happens.

I get why people who have not experienced it find it hard or impossible to believe it exists

No, you don't.

If you take LSD and you see an angel, you don't start believing in angels.

If you understand probability and you feel love like you've never felt before, you don't start believing that you've actually met the person who you are most compatible with in the entire population of 8 billion people.

I was asked the question and I answered it. I stand by my response and my ensuing comments.

You think it's ridiculous. Doesn't make it ridiculous to everyone. I think lots of things are ridiculous but I respect people's right to believe in what they do.

You can point out anything you like, but it often just makes you sound negative.

One person's negative is another person's realistic. But anyway, I think we are agreed to disagree!

He is the man I have loved the most by far so is the love of my life but I find it difficult to tolerate men as romantic partners. Deep down I like to do what I want and partners impinge on my time. So maybe my love isn’t that great by romantic standards but it is for me.

I just couldn’t be bothered with another one if anything happened to DH. DH is a gentle soul that lives in his own head a lot and ponders so me going off without him suits him as well.

I really like the company of other women more than men especially one to one.

Yes. Married to the love of my life and I am the love of his. We’ve been together since we were 20, we’re each others first and only loves and it just gets better every year. I feel incredibly lucky because I see around me it’s not the same for many couples.

I believe I am. I love spending time together alone and knowing he does too. We have always had 1 week holiday with just us. DC have gone to GP for a week each year. Then we all have 2 weeks holiday together GP included.

My sister is the same, they've been together since early 20s, no one previously for either of them. Married a few years now.

However, from the outside, they don't appear healthy. We might be wrong but no one in our family believes they will go the distance. There's a number of reasons for this but the main one is that they're now mid 30s and still very immature about a lot of things.

If you asked either of them they'd say the same as you, but it never appears that way to them outside of their relationship.

My sister once told me she was sad I'd had to have a few boyfriends before I found my "one". I'm not. I knew what I very much didn't want and I know DH is it, and he says the same. My parents told me they have never had the same worries about us as they do about her and her husband.

I think if you're VERY lucky then you meet your one as your first love, but often it isn't right, and both parties are just a bit blinded by "how lucky are we that it's only each other".

Hopefully you are a lucky one.

I truly think I am. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t piss me off at time but this man is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I don’t think I’d ever find what I have with him, with anyone else.

I do have some friends though despite being happy, they aren’t married to the love of their lives. They’ve picked a good man and settled down with them but the “spark” was never there. There’s always a little something in the back of their minds but they have good lives and their husbands treat them well so that’s enough for them.

I just think perpetuating the myth that you are “settlIng” if you don’t connect with the one person in eight billion who is the love of your life is very destructive.