Can't get attached to girlfriends....

LegacyUser

Hi, I find I can't get attached to or fall in love with any girlfriends i've had, I can get on fine with them in every respect but just can't seem to fall in love with them, is this normal? It's wrecking my head to be honest or is it some kind of safety valve to protect myself, I just don't know. Any help would be appreciated.

Wibbs

TBH I was kinda like that at first too. I liked them, enjoyed being around them and looked forward to meeting them. I was "in Fond" to varying degrees. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Then I fell in love. Different set of feelings going on. Well defo more than just fondness. Don't sweat it, chances are very high it'll happen and so long as you treat these women right and don't lead them up the garden path then its just part of growing up(at any age).

LegacyUser

Thanks for the reply, the problem is i'm 43 and i'm no better off now than I've ever been!! I've had three serious relationships but never been in love so to speak, just got on really well and to be honest the reason I broke up the relationships is because of the way I feel and don't think it fair to proceed any further.

A.Partridge

You haven't met 'the one' yet.

That's all.

Perfectly normal.

Wibbs

Help_me! wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, the problem is i'm 43 and i'm no better off now than I've ever been!! I've had three serious relationships but never been in love so to speak, just got on really well and to be honest the reason I broke up the relationships is because of the way I feel and don't think it fair to proceed any further.

Well Im the same age and how many times have I been in love? Twice. That's my lot and there was a good ten odd years between those two. And I'm a social slut who has met a lot of people in my life.

Now it is possible that this is as high a level of "in love" you will ever feel. You know what? Thats not the end of the world either. There are many a married coupe out there that luuuurved each other like the worst excesses ever printed in a Hallmark Valentines card and can barely tolerate each other a few years in. If you can keep "getting on really well" over the lifetime of a relationship or even over a lifetime itself, you're well ahead of many many couples out there.

LegacyUser

Sounds to me like you just havn't met the right person yet. Having said that, love is a terribly subjective and complex thing. Not to mention that the English language uses the word in so many different ways.

What is it exactly that you feel has been missing from your past relationships? Was it the sexual attraction or lust? Intimacy? Or...for want of a better word...just that fuzzy feeling?! Or did you just not feel any deep connection in your previous relationships?

As you point out, it could be that you aren't allowing yourself to develop strong feelings in order to protect yourself. Were you ever burned in the past? Lots of people, having been badly hurt in relationships, never allow themselves to love again...

And as Wibbs has rightly pointed out, getting along well and still being to have great conversations after many years in a relationship is probably one of the highest forms of love of all.

LegacyUser

Thanks for the advice but I still feel bad about it.

Wibbs

Maybe you're over comparing to a romantic ideal thats current? And it is current. In the past and not so long ago and still in some parts of the world, arranged marriages were the norm. Romantic love as a driver of relationships was further down the list under the wishes of the respective families, politics and basic compatibility. It may sound like madness to most today who expect to fall in love(tm) and use that as a basis for a lifetime commitment. Great if that works out, but a lot of the time it doesnt. A helluva lot of people are together out there to varying degrees of success after a drunken randy and random snog in a nightclub. If one was to design a method to ascertain compatibility you would likely avoid that way.

There is also the simple fact that people vary. Some can fall in love at the drop of a hat(or knickers). I know a woman who has fallen madly in love about once a year, completely forgetting about the previous love she had along the way. She was in love with being in love. Others take a lot more time. Myself and a couple of other men and women I know would be like this. And some may never fall in love in that heady "moon in june" manner. Most are somewhere in the middle.

You may just be one of those at the lot more time/not so OTT end of the spectrum. IMHO there is nothing wrong with that either. That woman I mentioned who fell in love all the time? She married one of them. She's fallen out of love with him. Not so good.

Looking back over the years and thinking on the most successful couples I know I would see a couple of general patterns. People who are with each others first love seem to keep the passion alive for much longer than those with more love mileage under their belts. Lack of cynicism I suppose. Its still "pure" for them. The other group would be those where there was genuine affection and compatibility but the mad crazy passion was much less. Their freindship and life goals were well ahead of the in love part.

So IMHO you should relax about this, stop comparing yourself to others and Hallmark valentines cards and what you ought to be feeling. Then you may well see who is right for you and you will fall in love. Your kind of in love.

metrovelvet

^That post was really pretty.

Nevyn

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Emme

A.Partridge wrote: »

You haven't met 'the one' yet.

That's all.

Perfectly normal.

"The One" is an illusion, just like Santa Claus. Relationships are about compromise on both sides, and the less clout you have in the dating market the more you have to compromise.

However, the news is good for a 43 year old male - if you're in fairly good shape you probably have more clout in the dating market than anybody!

You would be amazed at the amount of women who marry men they're not in love with and in some cases don't even like all that much :eek:, just because they don't want to be left on the shelf. Some men want to settle down and start a family at a certain stage of their lives and when they meet a girl who fits what they're looking for they marry her. Love may or may not be part of the picture.