Do you love - I mean REALLY love - your spouse?

In My Humble Opinion
1

… and does it matter?

You know the kind of love I’m talking about. The kind that Hollywood obsesses over. The kind that is supposed to be the be-all, end-all of our existence.

I’ll fess up right now. I love my wife dearly, but I’m not in love with her. Never have been really … well, a little bit when we were dating. I think I can say with confidence that she would say the same about her feelings towards me. We got married because we liked each other, we wanted to have a family and we were tired of waiting for Mr. / Miss Perfect.

Still, we have been married 12 years and are going strong, while many of our friends who had that passionate, Harlequin Romance love have long since split.

So what’s your story? Do you love your spouse? Did you love your spouse when you were first married? If so how long did it last, or how long has it lasted?

2

Loved her then. Love her now, 18 years later. Love her more now; love her more all the time. Believe she’d say the same; heck, she did, recently.

But it isn’t Hollywood style, if that’s what you mean. We have a satisfying and often wonderful sex life, but we;re not all over each other all the time, although we can indeed be quite physical. We’re best friends. Our souls connect. Couldn’t ask for more.

Since you asked…

3

You betcha on all counts! My husband and I fell in love 12 years ago, and remain IN love still today. He is truly my soul mate and the most marvelous human being on this earth. Unfortunately, I think there are more people with bad relationships than good ones. At least I hear more about people that aren’t in love with their spouse than those that are.

4

I love my wife more than words can tell. We will have been married 9 years in October, and I still can’t believe how lucky I am to have her. She is my best friend and I can’t picture my life without her in it.

5

No one else I wanna come home to at night; no one else I wanna wake up next to in the morning. I love him a whole freakin’ lot. Yes, yes, yes.

6

Yes, for nigh on 10 years.

Of course, we don’t always get to act all Hollywood like on a daily basis-- but that’s because we work too much.

7

I am absolutely crazy about her–nobody in the world knows me better or loves me more. She looks out for me (& vice versa) and constantly challenges me to be and do more than I ever thought I was capable. There’s no one else I need besides her and we never get tired of each other. She’s been my best friend for seven years and my wife for two. I love her more every day and swell up with passion and devotion whenever she’s near. In other words, really, really.

8

Yes, I do. Six years and counting, and growing every day.

But “Hollywood style”? Please. Hollywood’s idea of romance is such crap. Love is caring about another person day in and day out, understanding one another, recognizing that you’re a better person when the other is around and that the reverse is true as well. Love like that grows day by day.

If you feel that Hollywood-style romantic moments are important to you, then arrange some with your spouse. Surprise her with a romantic gesture, a spontaneous evening out, perhaps. You reap what you sow…and carefully tend to.

9

Yep. By the time we got married, I thought it wasn’t possible for one person to love another any more than I loved him. Now, I love him a zillion times more than that. I love him. I’m in love with him. I’m crazy about him. I adore him. Etc., etc., etc.

Hollywood style? Eh, see the above comments.

10

Yup, ‘deeply in love’ here checking in.

I’d say the relationship has evolved though, becoming broader as well as deeper.

She still surprises me every now and again, even after 9 years there are still new things to discover about each other.

11

my husband was my best friend and drinking buddy before we started dating, and then we just realized that we were absolutely in love with each other (I noticed it first of course)

And seven years later, here we are, drinkin’, watchin’ baseball, laughing, having a great time as best friends and ALSO being in love.

He’s so great! MY BOY! I love him so.

jarbaby

12

After being together 11 years and going to be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary in Dec. I still love him. It has changed from the “can’t keep our hands off each other” stage, though we still get ocassional bouts of that. As for being in love, I don’t think I ever knew what in love meant until the first time we kissed. He’s my best friend, and I don’t want to imagine him not being a large part of my life. I love listening to him talk to other people, talking to him or simply being next to him. I never wanted a perfect guy, but damned if I didn’t find the one guy who is perfect for me. The little things he did way back when that would amuse me still amuse me. Like cursing in traffic or the way he becomes the mighty hunter while going after a fly in the house.
Why do I have this sudden urge to ask him to slow dance with me now?

13

Love is how you act, not how you feel. I’ve known people who have really, sincerley had all kinds of emotions towards thier spouse, but treated them like shit. That’s not love. My husband, on the other hand, has never said he loves me, and, in fact, will deny it if asked point blank. But he never fails to treat me with kindness and consideration, he puts my needs and wants ahead of his own more often than not, he takes pleasure in my company, and he sticks by me in bad times as well as good. That’s love.

The idea that love = chemicals swirling around in your brain is fanatically encouraged by the media because people looking for the high of “falling in love” buy the most products.

14

Wow! You people…fantastic!!! It does my old heart so much good to hear all this. Bless you.

15

I have never “Hollywood loved” my wife in the stereotypical sense – the ones with the deep, swooning gazes, satisfied smiles across the dinner table, and wild, animalistic sex every night. But then, I think that kind of love is all make-believe and sets people up for unrealistic expectations anyway.

On the other hand, I do love my wife in the sense that she is the person I want to spend my free time with, confide in, and build a life with. Sure, she can drive me crazy with her assorted personality quirks (most notably a hair-trigger temper), but she puts up with my quirks, and in the end we still respect, support, and nurture each other. We save the “Hollywood-style love” for the movies.

16

Hell yeah! I love my wife sooo much. We’ve been together for almost 5 years now (married for 1 come Sept 2) and I still can’t wait for her to come home from work or wake up with her in the morning.

I get home from work about 5:15, she about 5:30 – 6PM. I ALWAYS have dinner on the go (and its usually damn good!) not because I feel like I should, but because I want to. I don’t think my wife should have to do that. She supports me in everything that I do and she’s extremely intelligent too (an Engineer). We even have talks that would bore almost anyone else… like about airplanes and space stuff. The only thing she doesn’t really care for are video games (other than Tetris or bust-a-move). I know she appreciates everything I do for her too. That means a lot to me.

I am sooo turned on by her too. I mean when I see her small little butt that each cheek fits in a hand and when her shirt comes off and I see that rock hard flat tummy … Hmmmm… I’m getting a little excited just writing this :wink:

So, to answer your question, you bet. Wouldn’t trade her for Venus herself. I’m married to the best woman on the planet and she’s drop dead gorgeous to boot.

17

Count me in the ‘hit by a speeding train’ kind of love category. The kind you didn’t hear coming, and you can’t escape - okay, without the massive bodily trauma. :wink:

On a daily-grind basis, it is not quite like that. More the best friends, soul-mates, parents together, mutual respect, occasional grumping, plus some general hubba-hubba commentary despite neither of us looking a lot like we did a decade ago - the daily life stuff. Pretty often, add in the deep gratitude and sense of wonder for having found him and being with him. And give me even half a chance, and the speeding train version shows up just fine… for example, my heart still skips a beat (HARD) when I catch a glimpse of epeepunk unexpectedly (like this morning, when he took our son to summer care, and I went to work, and we both ended up at the same gas station on the way - I didn’t know he was there until I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and THUMP goes my heart, I break a sweat, butterflies in my stomach, my whole day looks brighter - the whole ‘ideal’ deal!) (though maybe the butterflies might have been the baby kicking me…)

No swooning, though, unless you count the fact that I first really got a glimpse of why I’d love him so after passing out from physical trauma/pain (severed a nerve in my foot, he was amazingly emotionally honest with me about his reaction). And meaningful glances are, these days, more related to ‘it’s YOUR turn to take care of the poopy potty seat’ than anything animalistic in bed… not that I’ve any compaints in that department, either! :smiley:

Honestly, I never thought this kind of love existed, I figured it was all Hollywood and fairy tales, a sales pitch for an impossible dream. I’d had plenty of experience with love, I knew what it felt like, it was pretty potent stuff even if not ‘Hollywood’ version… And then I got hit by this here train…

(Been together 11 years, married for eight.)

18

Yeah, I’m all over her at any moment, and for no reason. Yeah, she’s all over me, too. Sure, I buy her flowers and stuffed animals on no provocation. Sure we sit snuggled together on the couch watching movies and rubbing each others backs. That doesn’t even close to the addressing the depth of our love. She loves me when I forget to take out the trash. I love her when she wakes me up at 2 am to help her recover her stash of equipment after she gets wasted in Diablo II. Even when we’re both as annoying as we each can be, we love each other. She’ll stop in the middle of a quietly furious reproach to slap a deep, romantic kiss on me, only to return to her tirade a moment later. It’s common for me to rub the knots out of her shoulders even as I’m chewing her out her for the fortieth time over letting our daughter run rough-shod over her.

It’s moments when I’m caught off-guard, when looking at her can break my heart with joy, pride, and delight, when her sneaky sense of humor finds it’s mark in my psyche, when she astounds me all over again (Trust me guys, that’s not easy to do, but she does it!) that it really comes home to me, how much I love her. I don’t know what I did right, but by God, I’m getting all the reward I could ever want for whatever it was. I hope she feels even half as strongly towards me.

It’s unconditional, and deeper than anything I know, except, perhaps, my love for my daughter.

19

I’m like snac and rjung.

I have had romances (pre-marriage, of course) that were hit-by-a-train types of affairs. Completely swept away, could hardly believe the energy and romance, obsessive thoughts, hot monkey sex. But they never lasted. It was all chemistry, no compatability. Or I didn’t have the energy to sustain that kind of breathlessness. Something.

But with Mr. Cranky, I had (and have) a deep, comfortable love and affection. He’s my best friend and soulmate. He loves me more completely and realistically than any man I’ve ever known. He never stops surprising me or making me laugh. I have confidence that what we have together should only get deeper and better, instead of cooling off. I’m really happy with that. The hollywood portrayal of romance bugs me. I guess it’s possible that some married couples have that, lifelong, but the good marriages I know of firsthand are more like mine: Respectful, happy, companionable, loyal, loving.

It was weird for me at one point to think “Jeez, I’m getting married to someone that I didn’t have the hit-by-a-train thing for. Is this a good thing?” Then I thought about those crazy breathless romances and how they turned out for me, how my image of the person fell so short of reality, and I thought “Yup.”

20

After slightly more than a year of marriage, and three years of knowing each other, I answer with an unequivocal YES!!!

With us, it was not love at first sight – it took four hours to get to that conclusion. But when he looked at me, turned white and said “My God, this is actually happening!” and I turned white and replied “I know…I feel the same way!” The universe clicked into place.

We are alike in all the right ways, and different in complimentary ways as well. He gives me grounding – I tend to be flighty – I give him wings – he tends to be a sitck-in-the-mud. Granted, our love has evolved and deepened in various ways. At first, it was fireworks, sparklers, then turned into a raging forest fire, which has become a comfortable bonfire now – less heat but more light, more comfort. We are at ease with each other, and have learned to accept those traits that originally distressed us – we accept the fact that the other isn’t perfect, but heck, neither are we. Mostly, we still marvel at the fact the other wants to be with us always.

Our friends still say we are very good for each other. I hope that never changes.