It just dawned on me for the first time today. This man gets out of prison and does so many wonderful things with his second chance at life that we never see him do the most obvious thing. He never finds romantic love the way his adopted daughter does. Hell, he never even attempts to seek it out. He's never smitten by anybody and it's never implied that he had a previous romantic partner. His connection to Fantine seems entirely platonic and proper, at least in the musical.

But I haven't read the book. Is this also true in the book that he was never mentioned to be in any relationship or want for that sort of thing?

The man could have died a lifelong virgin for all I know. I realize that's not the point and his life in the story is to be celebrated. It's almost as if finding love would have been too selfish an endeavor for him. He was always too busy trying to do right by other people. He only briefly complains of loneliness at the very end of the play as he waits to die. Even then it's mostly just implied he misses Cozette while she is getting married.

The beauty, pain and torment of romantic love, unrequited or otherwise, is such a crucial reoccurring theme for the musical and I would assume, in the book, yet it's main character never partakes in any of it.