How do you deal with being married to someone you’re not in love with but you get along great?
How do you deal with being married to someone you’re not in love with but you get along great?
r/AskWomen
How do you deal with being married to someone you’re not in love with but you get along great?
Comments
Do they love you?
Do you want to spend the rest of your life with someone you aren’t in love with?
I would recommend therapy. Love comes and goes. It’s more of an action than a feeling.
I…don’t think I’d stay married to them tbh.
Unless it became a marriage of convenience (for things like health insurance and stuff) and we both had outside relationship.
Does the other person know you’re not in love with them?
If the other person didn’t know then I think it would be quite unfair to them.
Why’d you get married?
There’s a high chance it’ll end on divorce as you may never love them.
I’m in this situation (arranged marriage). The worst part is he is in love and is getting frustrated that I am slow to catch up, I dunno how to get myself there. I’m worried that this is gonna lead to long term resentment on his part and I’m throwing away something special because of my stupid brain.
That sounds like a “tolerable level of permanent unhappiness” kind of relationship.
It depends on what you want. I’m in that situation and we both have our own hobbies, friends, etc. It works for us, but might not for everyone.
Why even get married if you don’t love the person? Isn’t the whole point to marry someone you’re in love with, not just someone you get along with?
If they’re your bestie and they feel same, it can work
You will ultimately get divorced or contemplate it. Or at least that’s what happens, from personal life experience.
My husband is my best friend first. I love him as well. But, if we were just friends I would still be happily married and recommend that being married to a friend is the most important part of a marriage
It’s unfair to your spouse. I would end the marriage, at least for their sake.
The definition of love varies from person to person and it changes its form with time. We don’t always feel head over heels in love with our partner and we also don’t want to be with them ALL THE TIME. The key to lasting marriage is commitment, and I don’t think you can commit to a marriage if there’s no love in it we just can’t see it sometimes.
Sometimes love is just remembering how they like their coffee, supporting each other financially when needed, offering help with chores and taking care of your partner when they get sick.
If it works for you both, then you already have your answer. But life is too short to settle for something less than you deserve.
I would like to say romantic feelings fade, but if there’s care and there’s at least effort to make life livable together, you’re good. There’s rarely a lifelong feeling, love grows and fades. Everything has its seasons.
Love is a verb. It’s an action verb. It’s not something you feel it’s something you DO. It’s a conscious choice you make every day, especially when it’s hard. And if you need help, it’s okay to ask for it. We think an annual physical is common sense. Do the same for your mental health. Get a therapist. Have periodic checkups. And when you don’t love your spouse (which happens to almost everyone at some point, even if it’s brief) get to your therapist for some help.
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As a child with parents like this, it’s fucked up my perception of love a little. They might have been at some point but no longer. I was in a relationship for the longest time with someone I was not in love with because of my parents relationship and how I thought being content was fine. I learned that it shouldn’t be like that.
I know so many couples that are not in love with each other or get along. But they’re staying together because it’s the culture.
I’m in the same boat.
My husband is amazing and I definitely love him, but he doesn’t give me a spark or butterflies. We have a bit of an open marriage with lots of boundaries and we communicate with each other all the time to make sure we’re both still good. Like I have an FWB who’s a good friend to us both who I make out with and cuddle whenever he visits, and my husband is cool with it. He knows he’s the one I will always put first, want to raise our family with, and is the only one I want to have true sex with.
I also remind myself how grateful I am to have a partner who is incredibly kind, understanding, takes good care of both himself and me, and I consistently remind myself that I’d much rather be married to someone who is smart and loves me than is very physically attractive and an idiot or abusive!
I contemplate if I even know what love is some days. I feel I love my spouse, but the only way I would ever know it’s not really love is if I had another relationship to compare to that made me feel love even stronger. I know I love him more than my past relationships.
But, he is my best friend and he’s a person who I don’t get tired of being around (except for times when I’d get tired of being around just anybody at all). So I think that counts for a lot, and I’d much prefer someone who I have a steady, reliable, and respectful companionship with than someone who gave me fireworks that came with equal low periods. Sometimes I think people are chasing those fireworks all the time, and I just don’t know if that’s an accurate definition of what love should be.
Honestly, most long-term relationships end up like this. Love shifts. My idea of it did, at least. I used to believe in the whole fairytale thing, passion, deep connection, and intensity. And I really felt that for years. I gave everything. Fully invested. Eyes closed, heart wide open. Now It changed
I still care, but it’s quiet. He feels more like a familiar presence than a soulmate. We function well, we laugh, we coexist peacefully. There’s no fire anymore, but there’s no chaos either. And I’ve learned to settle for that.
I don’t expect much. Not effort, not loyalty, not even emotional availability. If it’s there, nice. If not, I don’t flinch. I’ve stopped needing the fairytale type of love.
What’s funny is, I’m at a point where if either of us ever wanted more, I’d be fine opening the relationship. A while back that would’ve crushed me. Now? It wouldn’t even sting. It doesn’t feel like betrayal to me anymore, more like a realistic path.
Because here’s the truth the spark you’re chasing in someone new it fades. The butterflies die. People confuse routine for failure, but most of the time, it’s just the reality of being human.
So you either keep chasing a high you’ll never sustain, or you accept the comfort of what’s left.
Disclaimer: Take my perspective with a grain of salt. Every relationship is different. If things hadn’t unfolded the way they did in my case, maybe I’d still be that girl who believed in soulmates. Who looked at him like he hung the moon. But life happens. People change. And sometimes, that’s okay too it’s up to you to choose your path.
I’m kind of aromantic. I don’t fall in love, but for me, love is a decision I make and actions that I take. I am very happily married 🙂
“Getting along great” sounds perfect for me. If you expect more, I would recommend to find out if it’s the “butterfly feeling” from the start of relationships that you miss (I don’t know anything about this feeling because as I said, I don’t fall in love). You can’t have that feeling forever, it only lasts for very few years. After that, love is work.
It’s fairly recent in the history of humans that people married for love. Often, people who married for practical reasons fell in love, but many never did. Research shows that arranged marriages tend to have a much higher satisfaction level than those who chose their own spouses, presumably, mostly for love.
So, the answer for you is to focus on making the marriage work, and to love your spouse as a verb, as in show love in action, not the eros kind of fluttery love that’s a feeling.
I think I’d at least give some consideration to my expectations, and what I think of as “love.”
I’m not saying this applies to you in particular, but I find a lot of people expect that the butterflies, the passion, the “in love” feeling of an early relationship is love. It isn’t — that’s infatuation and / or a new relationship dopamine rush. When that inevitably fades, as it does for the vast majority of people, they think they aren’t “in love” anymore, and that there’s something else better out there.
Thing is: often, there isn’t something else better. To me — and part of this is just getting older, and gaining some perspective — that “in love” stuff is a lot of fun, but it isn’t actual love, and it isn’t the foundation of a good relationship.
To me now, real love is like a cozy warm fire. You don’t always notice it or think about it when it’s going, but life would be much colder if it vanished. It’s doing life with a partner who’s your friend, who you can share life with, share space with, get along with, just have someone in your corner, and you in theirs.
If it’s the physical spark that’s missing, there are things you can do to ignite or reignite that. With a partner who you otherwise get along great with, that can be worth the investment.
Divorce was my answer. We married when I was around 19 and divorced after approx 8 years of that marriage – more than 5 of which were spent living as though we were only roommates. If we’d been older, smarter, and better experienced, maybe we would have recognized our deep incompatibilities earlier and those numbers would have been lower all around.
We were perfectly good friends and roommates, but nothing more than that. The divorce was absolutely the right choice.
Edited to add: Currently married to a different partner. We have been wildly in love for every moment of our more than 20 years together so far, and our marriage is incredible. You don’t have to settle for a life and love that doesn’t fulfill you. My life is amazing, and I would never have had this if I’d been too afraid to leave my prior marriage.
Honestly, I just buried the idea of romance and focused on the partnership. We raise kids, laugh, and live well together. But I do wonder sometimes if I’m missing out on something deeper.