Married 40 years

Good grief. I think he is a selfish ass for telling that after that long - best not to say anything I guess.... Did this happen to you Jodie? Did he say why he felt he needed to share that information after all that time? Is he trying to get out of the marriage now?

wait..

he said that ON the wedding day 40 years ago?

Or he is saying it now?

either way, after 40 years with someone, to say you dont love them at all is a sign of someone really out of touch with themselves .
After that long, why say anything at all.
And , if someone is old enough to have been married for 40 years barring that they married before the age of 15, children should not be a new plan....

yea, the rational thing to do is keep you mouth shut and live with your long-term mistake.

Why after 40 years? It sounds to me that he is recently unhappy. And it sounds like he was trying to hurt her by telling her all of that. No reason to dredge all of that up if he is just wanting out of the marriage. Regardless , he is a selfish ass one way or another because his thoughts were only for himself when he married her - and apparently nothing has changed after 40 years. I would hope most men would reveal that little secreat long before 40 years have passed. Or keep their mouths shut and just leave. My sympathies lie with her. She was the one under false pretense.

edit: Of course all of this is just guessing...hard enough to understand someone's motives even when all the facts are known at times. These are just my gut reactions after reading the initial post. Could be totally different getting all sides of the story.

How would I feel?
Homicidal.

What did he say after dropping that little bombshell?

mismi, "Recently unhappy" doesn't sound rational to me.

well...not 40 years worth of unhappy. Why would you stick with someone that long and then all of a sudden decide to unload all of that unless you were trying to hurt them and get out of the marriage? I can't imagine that he was miserable the entire 40 years. I don't know any men that long suffering to be honest - or many women this day and age. He might not have been thrilled but he was not miserable...or he would have found a way to get out long before 40 years.

But what would I know? I have only been married 12 and I can't imagine marrying anyone I didn't love. Call me a romantic

Wait a second...Jodie never said he was miserable. He did not say he wanted out. Maybe he just shared that he did not initially want to be married and now it's forty years later and he is actually happy about it. Maybe he did come to love in spite of not being in love initially. That is very possible isn't it? That is not so bad...though I probably could have done without the details myself. A bit of a shock after 40 years.

anyway - I don't claim to always be rational or logical...I tend to react from the gut. Men love that about me.

Okay, I love you too!

No, he did not tell me this on my wedding day. He told me today that he did not love me on our wedding day. He said the reason he married me was because he was getting older and wanted to have children. We attended a marriage seminar last evening I guess this is what brought this out in the open. He said he loves me now and could not imagine being without me. I wish I would have known his feelings before we got married. Is that a slap in the face or what.

Love, such as it ever was, on the wedding day, does not always last. Sometimes it evaporates in a flume quickly, and sometimes, at whatever spark level, it grows, in the way of real love, not infatuation.

I'm not so sure you should be all so hurt, Jodie, from what I read. Of course, I don't know you two or your marriage.
Many of us have loved people over twenty years and had the mate say, "I don't love you anymore", and leave.
Some of us have found out we don't love someone anymore, if indeed we ever did.
You have a guy saying how much he loves you now.
Geez, quit beefing and love him back.

Osso is absolutely right Jodie - it sounds to me as if he were trying to be honest. And he has stuck with you the 40 years and loves you! That - is a wonderful thing. When I kind of realized what he might have been saying - albeit it sounds awkward and I can see how it was a bit of a shocker for you - I thought it would not be such a terrible thing as my thought processes were taking me at first.....but to think that he has grown to love you and wants you now is the MOST important thing. He loves you and I would absolutely look beyond how it began and focus on what it is right now.

And actually - I find it rather sweet. He probably thinks it is an amazing thing that he didn't love you initially but your love and care of him has changed him and made him love you - that is pretty sweet if you ask me.

Enjoy it!

I agree.
In all fair honesty, I did not love my husband at the time we met either.
In fact , I did not LOVE him until later on. Much later.
I did not move to be with him for 'love' either. It was.. lust..it was.. daring.. it was.. anything but the idea of love.
Now, I love him yes. But, even that has changed.

Though I do understand houw you feel. Even if he was trying to express how much he has come to love you, saying that he did not at one point hurts, no matter his intentions..

Yeh, shewolf, no argument that there is hurt, especially as we seem to concrete-ize old memories. But life is thicker than the starter sequence.

thank goodness for that !

Why?

You've spent 40 years with a man who loves you deeply and can't imagine being without you. Is that a bad thing?