Does anyone think they are not cut out for relationships?

[whatsthehurry]

Are they just too much hard work and compromise - have you become resentful that you have changed so much, that you no longer feel you are being yourself?
Do you really just long for your own space and to do what you want?
If you have done it, did it work out?

[sadwidow28]

I have been widowed for over 11 years. I did try another relationship about 1 year after my hubby died and I attracted the wrong sort of person. (I was physically abused - and it took 3 experiences of DV before I left and reported him. I was simply too vulnerable to engage in any relationship so I took the crumbs off a table.)

My life is now happy and fulfilled without a partner-relationship. I have a dog who supports me in my independence, I have friends I see frequently. I have holidays in hotels, B&B's and cottages that accept my dog as my best friend.

Just recently WTH, I asked myself the same question as you are doing. I am so happy with my own company, I don't want anyone to invade my space on a permanent basis. I have accepted that I am on my own for ever to the end of my days and it really doesn't fill me with dread.

There is a difference between 'alone' and 'lonely'. I am the former.

[LittleSugaPlum]

Before i met DH over a year ago, i was in my early twenties, living with my parents, had own car and worked full time.

I was very much carefree, and would happily meet men off the internet for carefree sex, sometimes i had 4-5 "fuck buddies" on the go at the same time.

I had an attitute of "what littlesugaplum wants, she gets" and i always got what i wanted (men wise). However after afew years of doing this, i felt unfulfilled. Like something was missing, and i missed the connection that you feel when in a proper relationship. So when i met DH i promised myself that i was going to change. I ve never cheated on DH, never felt the urge to, even though i do sometimes think back an reminice to myself about my carefree fuck buddy days.

But im not resentful that i ve changed at all, as my life is completley different now, and im expecting a baby in 5 weeks.

But im pleased i ve got a past were i can say "i remember when i did this etc"

And i do feel that i really enjoyed my late teen and early twentys.

[ShIne0ncrazydiamond]

Are you writing an article?

[Offred]

Yes, feeling that way just now!

[sadwidow28]

Confused!

Who is suspected of writing an article?

[akaemmafrost]

I love your post sadwidow I think that's what I will be like. I've been married twice, I have no desire to do it again.

[whatsthehurry]

Shineon - no, just wondering if anyone else is feeling like me, and if there is any light at the end of the tunnel.
Others experiences most welcome!

[BertieBotts]

I have been in a relationship where I felt like that, yes I left and it's so much better. So worth it. I got to a point where I was happy just being single on my own and then I found a new relationship where I didn't have to change, I can just be me etc.

If you are having to change who you are to fit into a relationship then it's not right for you. I'm not talking circumstances, babies etc.

It's possible to have a relationship and space to develop as a person within that, you just have to be with the right person.

[swallowedAfly]

i've spent most of my adult life single now - lots of relationships when i was younger and a serial monogamist in my teens and early 20's but always left because i started to feel cramped or like life was calling me onward on my own path and i wasn't ready to sacrifice that.

perhaps if i still met lots of lovely, good looking people i'd still be doing that but in my mid thirties with a five year old child and living in a village outside a market town i don't meet interesting good looking single people so i don't fall into relationships and i haven't bothered going out actively looking for them.

i don't know if i'm 'not cut out for' long term romantic relationships or just not that bothered about them. as a kid looking around there didn't seem to be much good in being married and the women didn't seem very fulfilled or individual or.... to have much spark or life in them. no doubt that will have influenced me and i haven't seen much to contradict that perspective.

the last person i was with was when i was overseas and we had a lovely few months of fantastic sex and lots of easy company and fun but he was brazilian with no desire to be in the uk and i knew i would have to come back to the uk to get ds into school so it had no future obviously.

i think for me it's that the kind of people who have made me want to actually be with them have been very rare and special and not of the kind that you don't find hanging around these parts and i've never felt so desperate for a relationship that i'd make myself be with someone that didn't make me feel like that.

sounds likely i shall end up alone or meet someone lovely in my older years when i'm freer to travel and be in more interesting streams of people.

[swallowedAfly]

realistically the alternative is be with some aging divorcee and all their baggage and financial commitments etc or start dating younger guys who wouldn't be a match really as they need to be up and off and doing stuff if they've got any spirit about them and i can't because ds is in school now and i've accepted this needs to be a settled patch.

i'm kind of in betweeny. i'm settled and live a settled life out of necessity but it's not 'who i am' or where i intend to end up. that has an impact on this stuff as the people i'd be interested aren't here and the people who are here i'm not interested in. hope that makes sense.

[sadwidow28]

I do think that over the years I have allowed myself to love my own company. (With the canine companion of course)

I am not the dizzy 20 year old who needed a boyfriend to validate herself. After 25 years with a wonderful husband (with all the rocky patches and up and downs of course) I simply don't need anyone else in my life now. If anyone arrives without telling me they are coming, I actually feel I am 'invaded'.

Maybe I am wrong and simply self-centred. But I am happy and content.

[solidgoldbrass]

I worked out roughly 20 years ago that heteromonogamy is just not for me. I don't like it, I get bored rapidly with one person and I like a lot of my own space.
I have had a few flings since then and one semi-serious (but not monogamous) relationship but I really haven't been bothered since having DS. His dad and I are on friendly terms though Not A Couple.

It suits me very well to be single and it always will.

[whatsthehurry]

Thank you all - simiilar feelings in lots of areas - have felt unsettled for some time, but now, can't even look forward to the future with the situation as it is - Christmas is looming and I'm dreading it - more of the same.
I empathise with the first sentence of solidgolds comment - "I don't like it, I get..........". I really don't like the creeping change that sets in when you live with someone - you feel you want to be with them all the time, and if you could see ahead, you would perhaps realise that it might be better to resist and both have your own space. I also think women have change thrust upon them as they are now trying to be everything to that person - housekeeper, chef, best friend - not to mention sex.
Then you wake up one day, and it hits you - I am no longer myself with my own agenda, beliefs, needs and desires.

[newmum001]

Im with LittleSugaPlum. Ive had a very colourful past and loved every minute of it. But ive been with dp for nearly 5 years never cheated and never wanted to. I do look back from time to time and remember how much fun i had in my early 20's and i don't regret a single moment of it but im in a different place now and just as happy.

My mum on the other hand just isn't built for relationships. Married 3 times and was the one who ended all of them. She's just much happier on her own. She admits that she just doesn't seem programmed to want what other women want.

[ClippedPhoenix]

Another serial monogomist here. I used to want the whole thing before I had my son and in hindsight I never really even wanted longterm with his father, he was what I would honestly call more of a sperm donor. I had my son late-ish in those days, I was 35 and knew time was running out.

I also get very bored/feel suffocated.

My current boyfriend has lasted nearly 3 years but I think that is purely because we live apart and only see each other 2/3 times a week on average.

Another factor is I don't know of one friend that doesn't do the lions share of household duties etc, which is not for me one tiny bit.

Maybe when my boyfriends kids and my son are grown up we may consider living together for our twilight years, who knows.

[Mumsyblouse]

I found settling down very difficult as I had a long time not married (either single, having short-term relationships, no living together relationships). I enjoyed that time, til my early-thirties.

In all honesty, I still don't enjoy the domestic sharing part of a relationship. However, I do enjoy the romance, companionship, the fun, the good bits. So, for me, it's a compromise. I also can't give up being me completely, or my goals or values, so although I have modified them a little, I still feel like myself and am doing pretty much what I would have done had I not got married and had kids, work-wise and socially, just with a bit less time and looking ragged around the edges.

[KellyElly]

I feel this way. I just am attracted to people that are wrong for me - not necessarily bad people just not what I'm looking for in a relationship - they either should be a fling or just a friend. I think in my case I need quite a few years alone to concentrate on myself and my DD before I can even contemplate being with anyone. I feel like I really need to know myself before I can share my life with someone and being in serious relationships all through my twenties meant I didn't really get to know who I was at all. Have been on my own for a year and a half now and I am not open to finding someone at all. I might feel like this forever, who knows. I just don't miss it at all.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

"I also think women have change thrust upon them as they are now trying to be everything to that person - housekeeper, chef, best friend - not to mention sex." Maybe this is a key part of it? I have mixed feeling about relationships but I certainly don't feel the need to become an all-round catering/entertainment service to the bloke.

Maybe you need to expect more of the person you're in a relationship with. The practical side of caring needs to go both ways, for me anyway. Why would you worry about being his chef and housekeeper and best friend - is he worrying about getting your dinner ready and clearing up your messes and hearing all about your work troubles too? if not, why not?

Wifework

[Helltotheno]

I do think childhood experiences are important and major issues from childhood, in my opinion, need to be resolved as much as possible on your own before inflicting yourself and your issues on another person.

I know myself I definitely don't need a relationship, although I like the one I'm in. I do get bored sexually with the same person, and would love to just be with other people sometimes but for us, that wouldn't be compatible with stability for the kids etc. When they're older, we might decide amicably to be on our own, or not, it depends, but I know if DH died, there would be no cohabiting or marriage for me, that's for sure.

I admire people who who are on their own, either periodically or all the time, and are happy with the status quo of their lives. Of the many people I know in couples, I know very very few who are in a relationship of equals, rather than dependence, co-dependence etc, or to put it another way, very few who would 'sell' the idea of cohabiting coupledom.

[KirstyWirsty]

I have had two failed marriages and 9 months down the line from the discovery of my 2nd H's affair I am not interested in a relationship again (so far - that may change).

I don't ever see myself living with anyone again - just don't want to think of the next 40 years without ever having a snog or a shag again

[gettingeasier]

This reminds me a bit of a recent thread asking if it was weird to want to be alone and it touched on relationships

I spent the majority of my life with boyfriends then my XH until he left when I was almost 44 yo.

It took some time to fully wake up to the realisation that I had bent myself out of shape over the years in an attempt to be what he wanted and how from the smallest to the largest of issues I put him first. Not because he or his predecessors demanded it particularly but because I chose to and wanted to.

Now, nigh on 3 years single ,its not so much that I dont think I am cut out for relationships but that I am not prepared to give up how I live my life in order to be part of one. Having experienced this time alone here is a brief list of what I couldnt go back to

The need to take into consideration/consult someone else over stuff eg food we eat, where we are going on saturday etc

The feeling of some responsibility for someone elses happiness

The noise and physicality of someone around all the time

Sharing a bed

I agree with who said upthread - show me a relationship where the woman doesnt have the lions share of responsibility for DC and house and it isnt until you start looking into that from outside you see how pervasive that is. Also it seems men tend to have the last word on how money is spent in the household.

All in all I struggle to imagine myself in a live in relationship and wonder if I will ever want to again which sometimes worries me slightly but mostly leaves me feeling quite serene about my future

Just as well really as there are no men beating a path to my door

[KellyElly]

Kirsty you can have that any time without the complications of a relationship

[swallowedAfly]

another thing is i really, really like how i parent and how mine and ds's relationship is and i really think that's because it's just him and me and always has been. we amble along quite nicely and i cannot imagine trying to fit another person into our dynamic or home or finances or anything really.

in the evening when ds goes to bed i tend to come into my own bedroom with a cup of tea and lay in bed and watch something on the laptop that i've been saving and chat to friends and quietly unwind towards sleeping. where does a bloke fit in that? are you meant sit with them and watch tv together or sit down and eat something you don't fancy at a time you don't fancy because that's what you do? it's the little things that i think of like having to share a bed so when does the light go out?

i think it would be quite nice to have someone who pops round sometimes after ds is in bed and is very, very easy going and chilled and great in bed obviously - that would be nice tbf but that would be enough i think. but looking back that level of simplicity was never possible for long and it always got more pickled and headfucky in the end.

[GentleLentilWeaver]

Oh my goodness, swallowed are you me? Everything you have written I could have posted, apart from I am a few years younger. I have a very similar evening routine and I always objected to sharing it with anyone. Once DS is in bed the evenings are MINE and I relish and adore the peace and quiet. And not having to share a bed.
I don't know how much I could compromise to be in a relationship TBH. I hope I will meet someone similar one day so we respect each others needs, and then it will just be the hassle of having to have someone always getting underfoot all the time... Right now I love how quiet my house is and have no especial desire to share my space. I expect if I fell in love that might change but they would have to be fucking AMAZING and be good in bed as well as doing the housework and cooking half the time.

[swallowedAfly]

more than half surely! i'd need them to do ALL the cooking, ALL the laundry and virtually all the work in bed to make it worthwhile