Love?

I was married for 54 years and we were really in love. He was briefly attracted to someone at his work who was 18 years younger. I was briefly attracted t o a handsome man I met at an OU course. In neither case did anything physical come of it. My husband told me about the girl at work and I was upset. I never told him about the man on the course, as I did not want to hurt him. As one of my friends put it, "Married, but not paralysed." You can be attracted to somebody else occasionally.
Once those things were out of the way we realised that we still loved each other and it lasted all the years until his severe dementia which tested my love for him... he was so changed.
Love lasts, physical attraction doesn't.

My feelings are the same as Doodle's and Paddyann.

youtu.be/h_y9F5St4j0
MOnica I'm a bit of a loner too, needing unusually long stretches of time on my own.

I know exactly what you mean , watching them sitting in chair , no conversation . You begin to wonder if this is all there is to life . The thought of actually going on holiday with my husband , feels me with dread . I look forward to him going out , for some peace . which is a bit mad being there's no conversation . would I be without him , I don't know . You know what they say , they are like a old pair of slippers . which you don't want to swap because the new pair might pinch . Good luck.

Katherine is available on Audible you can also buy the Audible version from Amazon

Like faith, love is a decision for many of us.

And no one likes to admit they were wrong. So, stick with it and find new ways to demonstrate your love. It may even be reciprocated but that is not the reason we decide to love.

littleflo

Love is such a difficult word to define. I have been with DH 54 years and some might say that we are in love. I don’t think I would call it love.

I certain did not love him when I married him. I married because my lovely dad was dying and I needed to escape from my mother. Over the years I had times when I was very fond of him, times when I wished I was not married and now I think we are friends.

I think I am too much of a realist for love. I can recognise that the problems of our marriage were the fault of both of us a different times. The strength of the marriage is because we respect each other. On the surface we seem compatible but deep down he is a very cold person and that is hard for me sometimes.

Rereading my post's of last night, when I was tired and not fully over the lurgy, I realise what I wrote made my own marriage, sound very ho-hum. It isn't.

It is just I was born with feet of very soggy clay and I have always been uneasy about the way people bandy emotional language around with no real thought or consideration of what they mean exactly. I have, over the years on GN queried what exactly words like 'forgiveness' or 'guilt' mean - and I am still none the wiser.

What I am trying to get to is the solid residuum under all the high flown emotional language. Surely emotions have roots in something. I just struggle to work out what it is.

I too loved Katherine!

We have been married 48 years a and I still get a thrill when DH comes home when he has been out.

I am always shocked to realise how long we have been together. DH proposed after 6 weeks and we married after 10 months. I just wonder where all the years have gone.

We are very lucky that we have grown together and supported each other over the years. We have had awful times as well as good times. We have had some dreadful arguments but always know that we are meant to be together.

We are very lucky.

'Katherine' the novel is just that - a novel. Read Alison Weir's 'Katherine Swynford, for the real story - and her very thoughtful comments about the novel.

I am deeply suspicious of historical novels. I have both Katherine and Desiree (another 'romance' of the same period) on my bookshelves. I have recently read a biography of General Bernadotte, whom Desiree married and, again, reality is very different to fiction.

Sometimes the mundane gets in the way if the real way we should be living our lives.we accept that we've been together a long time and spjust muster along.mive been married the same time as you and we're still working hard and life somehow seems to be slipping by not having enough time together is our problem.

merlotgran, I read 'Katherine' as a young woman which then prompted me to read Seton's other books. You are spot on about the similarity to Charles and Camilla, who'd have thought that all those years ago.
We've been married 42 years in July and have had our ups and downs. We have always had a sense of humour which continues to sustain us. I still love the man I married but I like him a lot.

merlotgran I have recently been trying to find an audio version of the classic, Katherine' but it seems no such thing exists. Such a wonderful writer deserves to have all her books recorded.

merlot, Anya Seton's 'Katherine' is one of my favourite novels of all time and one of only a handful that I have re-read several times.

hasty google …..

Jalima, I often liken Prince Charles and Camilla's relationship and eventual marriage to that of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford.

But then maybe I read far too many historical romance novels in my teens.

Well we all know what prince charles’ idea of love was don’t we ?
Yes, we do, because he never stopped loving his one true love and is now married to her.

Unfortunately he was bullied into marrying someone more 'suitable'.

* LEMON* not just deep affection in our case ,I still get butterflies when he walks in the room ,we still have a passionate relationship ..we dont argue ..ever.Are on the same wavelength about most things and couldn't imagine a life without each other .Its certainly a lot more than affection .When my cousin stayed with us acoupel of years ago he remarked that we were like newly weds and to be honest thats how we feel .

But Princes Charles said it at the start of the relationship, which is a very different thing

I could not spend all day every day with my DH, or anybody else. I have a strong element of the loner in me that requires solitude and time to myself. DH is much the same, although he would never admit it.

I think if your relationship is close and has been effective for decades your lives are so entwined, you are quite unaware of it, until one goes and then you realise the loss.

The first time I heard the extract from Captain Corelli's Mandolin that grannyactivist mentioned was at a niece's wedding. It prompted me to read the book.

It was so lovely there was much dabbing of eyes.

The happy couple who were childhood sweethearts then walked out to the theme from the Muppets Show.

When you first marry, you're so besotted with each other and have such intense feelings that I think it's almost impossible for that level to be sustained for the rest of your lives together. But if those feelings can mellow into a steady, deep affection; caring about each other through the good times and the bad; and even when the bad times are bloody hard and difficult and you could throttle each other, you still care; if you can still make each other laugh, then, to me that's real love. I didn't manage it but I know many who have.

If I say I love you spontaneously, from my heart, without feeling it's expected or anything less than a pure reaction to a genuine feeling from inside, I believe that is love.

I am so sorry merlotgran (just read your post elsewhere)

We have been married for nearly 51 years with all the ups and downs that marriage brings. We're not and never have been a lovey-dovey couple - our close relationship is built on mutual support during whatever challenges life throws at you. We are a team.

I posted on the 'Lent' thread about a heartbreaking crisis which is pushing us to the limits but deep down we both know that whatever happens we will prop eachother up, relying on the foundation of a long marriage to sustain us.

That's love.