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.

Yes she is completely wasting her time long-term. But she isn't looking at it like that.

The friend doesn't say the man is her partner in life.

In any way.

From the OP initial post.

She say she knows ,"he doesn't want a relationship but 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'

So they're in a situationship. Which the OPs friend is well aware of and has never considered him to be her partner so what OP thinks he should do or what she thinks her friend should want as a relationship are irrelevant.

He's been clear, and the OPs friend knows that.

It's the OP wanting to project her ideas on the relationship which is problematic.

He's never pretended to be a partner or has the OPs friend expected him to be.

The OP thinks it's pathetic that the friend seems to be happy or at least accepting the relationship that she was aware of from day 1.

Nope. Saying that I have personal experience of feeling differently at 39 than I did at 35 is not the same as saying that I disbelieve her now, or at all. And I agree she can’t make a decision based on hypothetical future feelings. You’re arguing with the air honestly, I haven’t made any argument about what she should do other than be realistic that women’s situations change as they get older, and that no amount of branding biological reality as sexist will change that fact. I’m sorry you don’t like it. I don’t particularly like it either.

Yeah I’m bored of recapping OP’s posts now so I won’t be doing that any more. They’re freely available if you want to read them.

You said pathetic in your OP.

"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"

After saying he'd told your friend he didn't want a relationship and never would.

So what were you saying was pathetic if not her and her involvement in a relationship with a man who has been clear from the start that he doesn't want to be in a relationship?

Yes, it must be troubling for you when your lack of comprehension is highlighted.

The OP literally says that the man doesn't want to be in a relationship with anyone.

And has not led the OPs friend into thinking in any way, that they are in a relationship. The opposite in fact..

Yet you said the OPs friend had an "upsetting abortion where her male partner left her in the lurch"

What do you think you're reading? Because it's not on the posts on this thread?

I think it’s pathetic that he’s refusing to take her on dates, commit to a relationship etc.

That is in this thread. I’ve said a couple of times that he basically abandoned her. He didn’t go to any of her appointments until she became upset and angry about it before the last one. He then wouldn’t talk about it when she was having a bit of a breakdown and needed to discuss it. It was me and another of her close friends who were there for her but she was very angry at him about the whole situation.

Why?

He doesn't want a commited relationship.

Not just with your friend, from your OP. You said he has 'never wanted a relationship"

What's 'pathetic" about an adult not wanting a romantically commited relationship?

And he's been completely honest about that.

So what's 'pathetic' about someone not wanting that?

You do realise you don’t have to accept misogyny don’t you? It’s why some of us like to call it out rather than just sit back and accept it. Or repeat it. It’s why more and more women are standing up and saying they are happy being single. Or would rather be single than just ‘settle’. Even studies support single women are happier than married ones. Maybe OPs friend will feel like that eventually if she ever finds herself “dumped for a younger model” as you and OP see it.

Now it’s you projecting whilst previously accusing others of doing it.

She hasn’t accepted what it was from day one to be fair to her. There was a time they’d both go out with and sleep with other people. She’s made it clear she’s not okay with that now so things have progressed. They’d never have holidayed together once either. I think it’s these things that make her think that in time they’ll be together as a proper couple.

But she is single. She’s been single for years.

Except he’s in a romantic relationship where he’s being faithful to her. So why not call it a relationship and do more than sit in the house?

And? She can be single for the rest of her life if she chooses. It’s not a bad thing.

OP said her friend does not want children and he left her to deal with everything to so with the abortion herself.

She can but she doesn’t want to be. It’s why she left this man for a man offering her commitment.

You're the friend, aren't you? Are you seeking validation that your life choice is OK? Plenty of people have told you that's it's your choice, nothing to do with anyone else. Not that I expect an answer.

Im her friend, yes. I don’t need any validation that my life choices are okay, Im happy with my marriage.

Because he doesn't want to be in a commited relationship with all the expectations that YOU and others expect of that.

He doesn't want that.

He doesn't want to act like you expect as a partner because he's made it clear he doesn't want that kind of relationship.

He and anyone else, can choose to have exclusive sexual relationships without that meaning a commitment or that meaning they should 'show up" as a commited life partner in the other person's life.

Are you so narrow-minded that you can’t understand how people can have a relationship based on sex and fun and liking each other without being life partners?

And understanding how it's possible to want a relationship based on that and not more?

You can not want a commited life partner relationship and still only want to sleep with one person because you like them and enjoy the relationship

Your views on relationships are so strange and old-fashioned

If she doesn’t want kids then it doesn’t matter surely? What years is she wasting?
She can enjoy being with him now and then if it does finally end then she can meet someone else at 50 or whatever age.

Oh no apparently not. According to Op and others, if she hasn’t found someone by the time she’s 50 then that’s it. Her attractive years are gone and she’s destined for a lonely life with just a cat for company. There’s supposedly no decent single men left by this age, all taken I presume.

Maybe I am old fashioned. If I only wanted to sleep with one person and enjoyed their company then I’d want to share a life with them, not just one night every couple of weeks.

Well all the decent ones probably are!

So if you're not the friend, then I can only think you're envious of your friend's autonomous lifestyle. Nobody is this invested in somebody else's love life.

You can’t think of any reason why a decent man might be single in his 50s or 60s?