To think my friend should set her standards higher?

[Nobivucy]

She is mid 30s and child free. She has been sleeping with the same man on and off for around 15 years. He has never wanted a relationship.

She has had a couple of short lived relationships in that time, and he’s had a few dates and one night stands. About four years ago she met a (I thought) nice man who wanted a proper relationship, and told the other man she wasn’t going to be seeing him any more. After about three months she ended it with the boyfriend, got back in touch immediately with the other man, and resumed things with him.

They now see each other every couple of weeks. Always at his house. Always to play darts or pool and have a drink. They text numerous times a day. He doesn’t want a relationship, but she says she’s made it clear that if he slept with another woman, or was speaking to one with that intention, she’d be done and he’d be blocked. Neither of them have slept with anyone else for years. They’ve booked a weekend away and she’s really excited, as if he’s proposed.

AIBU to think she’s wasting her best years with him, he’ll never commit, and she’s wasting the chance to find someone to settle down properly with? I have told her this but she laughs and says he ‘makes her laugh and is good in bed’. I just think it’s a bit pathetic and am worried she’ll end up 50 and alone when he meets someone he’s actually serious about.

It’s actually rather disappointing that there are still women out there that think a woman’s best years are the years she is deemed most attractive to men (as judged by men).

Ask a woman of any age which her best years were and what it was that made them her best years. You may be surprised.

Then get a grip of yourself as a you say, happily married woman in your 50s and stop projecting your opinions on other peoples lives.

And it's not 'crumbs' if as you say, he's been honest about not wanting a relationship for 15 years. In those circumstances, it's literally just a holiday.

You need to step away and enjoy the fantastic marriage that you claim to be having

And don't judge people who are honest about not wanting that

Very strange and manipulative that you've been talking about affairs in people who aren't in committed relationships BTW

Can you please point me to where the OPs friend made that clear.

And not OP saying 'I think..'

It's really important in life that we don't assume other peoples thoughts and feelings based on what other people think and say

Especially when we don't know either parties

Actually OP has said her friend rarely complains about him, and doesn’t want to see him midweek either (it’s OP that thinks her friend should be demanding more time of him). I think a lot of OPs ‘concern’ is her own projection on what she think a relationship should be of women of a certain age. It’s coming through time and time again that it’s not actually what her friend has said. There is every possibility OP has read the situation wrong based on her own ideas of relationships.

And even if she hasn’t, I think starting a thread with the title ‘should my friend set her standards higher’ and not ‘I’m worried for my friend’ is not actually that polite of her. It’s judgemental.

The OP wasn't about the friend having an affair with a married man because the OPs friend isn't having an affair with a married man.

The OP was being criticised for her attitude about women 'wasting their best years on men who don't want to commit' so decided she'd try to find some supporters by saying her friend in a consensual adult relationship with someone who has always said they don't want to be in a relationship, is the same as a woman 'wasting their best years' in an extra-marital affair with a man who says he'd want to be with the affair partner if not for his wife causing problems with finances the DC or other reasons.

Reading all of OPs posts would have prevented you from getting the wrong end of the stick and wasting your time on an irrelevant post but maybe OP was hoping for that.

Well thanks everyone for their views. I won’t say anything directly about him to her but will keep gently encouraging her to keep an eye out for other men. It can’t harm to keep looking in case someone better comes along.

She is invited to a wedding with a +1 but of course he would never go to anything with her like that. I would normally point out that decent men would want to go along and make her happy and spend time with her friends but I will try and resist as a result of this thread.

Indeed.

And disappointing that there are still women who think men use women for sex for years then settle down with someone younger and 'better'

TBH he sounds like the sort of bloke who for X years ‘isn’t into commitment’ - until he finds someone he does want to commit to, and before you know what he’s married with a baby on the way.
I dare say quite a few of us will have known of at least one such.

It won’t be any good telling your friend, though. She won’t want to hear it.

Men do do this though.

This is exactly what I’ve been trying to say but apparently it’s misogynistic even though it happens all of the time.

You’ll just have to settle yourself not to say ‘told you so’ if and when it happens - 🤞 maybe not. I know someone who was devastated after 9 years with a ‘it’s just a piece of paper’ bloke - who then found someone else he felt like committing to.

It’s nine if your business. They’re both adults and you’re not the one having sex with them.

People can care a lot about each other without wanting to do these things.
People can make each other’s lives very miserable and do these things together because they think they should.

Do they?

Or is it possible that like in all things in life, people change, their opinions change, what they want out of life changes?

I mean, there are lots of people male and female who have affairs and leave their spouse because they met someone else who they felt was better suited to them, or they loved more or was their 'soul mate'.

It doesn't mean it's some plot to string anyone along.

I have friends who were in a couple for 30 years, never wanted to get married, thought it was 'just a piece of paper' and they didn't need it to be committed, and had kids together who decided to get married. Because they changed and their opinions changed.

I know another couple married for years who vehemently didn't want DC, always said how they hated children, tried to get the chap a vasectomy they were so sure and were turned down for one on the NHS, turned 40 and had 2 kids in 3 years who are now their reason for living.

Someone not wanting a committed relationship then finding someone that changes their mind doesn't mean they were lying for years or stringing anyone along, it just means they changed their mind.

The men want to sow their wild oats with anyone that will shag them then will settle down with a girl who is 'marriage material' idea went out with the ark.

Oh well if you know two couples who don’t fit this pattern then case closed.

Ultimately anyway his intention isn’t really what matters here. Maybe he thinks at the moment he will always be happy with a casual relationship, maybe he doesn’t think he will change his mind later with someone else. Whether he does or whether he doesn’t, what matters is that he isn’t giving OP’s friend what she wants in the here and now, and it isn’t particularly sensible for her or anyone to hang on for years in a situation they’re not happy with, in the hope but without much evidence that things will change.

No, he isn't giving the OPs friend what the OP thinks she wants or thinks she should want.

OPs friend hasn't told her she's unhappy, wants more, that he isn't giving her what she wants or that she's waiting around hoping he'll commit.

They're all OPs opinions.

Maybe that’s the sort of relationship she wants - that either consciously or unconsciously she doesn’t want commitment either?

Or maybe not, but surely she’s an adult with the ability to make her own choices?

It’s only a low standard if she’s unhappy.

It does happen of course! But difficult to know on here for your friend’s “bloke” is going to do this.

OP’s friend has never told her she wants commitment from him. OP believes that’s what she secretly wants because apparently that’s what everyone ‘should’ want. She can’t conceive that anyone could want differently, so therefore it must be the case that her friend is just pretending to be happy with the situation being what it is, and that he’s just stringing her along.

Yup.

I mean, by that logic everyone ‘uses’ those they choose not to marry.

This man hasn’t promised your friend any more than what he’s given and is giving. Your friend hasn’t said she wants any more either, or that she wants what you think she should at all. She’s a grown woman that is fully aware that she is capable of finding someone that would offer her the ‘traditional’ set up if she wanted it, but she doesn’t. She’s experienced it and actively rejected it, in fact.

These are two grown ass people with equal agency, and both are responsible for their own choices. Neither of them owe a commitment they’ve never offered, and if either want something different at any point they’re totally free to walk away and find it.

💯

I think the OP is itching to say I told you so.

No,Im not. I want her to be happy and settled.

Why not just happy?

It's you who seems to have the obsession with her being settled and what you think that should mean, not her.