To persevere with this relationship?

[BeMoreSoThen]

I have posted about this before under a different name but it is my birthday next month and I suppose it is making me reflect on what I want in life.

In my early 20s I had a very good male friend with whom I had no romantic relationship at all. By my mid 20s, that had changed and after night outs we would often end up going home together, but it was all very casual and we were both single. We both would see other people too.

In our late 20s we had a pregnancy scared and got much closer. He then text me one day to say he was going on a date with someone else and I ended it. I knew I liked him, and he knew it too, and I was not interested in sharing him with anyone. We didn’t speak for a while after this.

During this time, I met someone who I thought I would end up marrying. I thought he was perfect. And then he cheated on me and finished it to be with his affair partner. Upset and drunk, I got in touch again with the first man.

We gradually started seeing each other again but it was never serious. I again met someone else, and told him about it. I gave him every opportunity to say he’d prefer we were together and I didn’t see this other man, but he was clearly not bothered so I ended things and gave it a whirl with the other man.

That lasted just a few months and I felt suffocated and unhappy. I hated how often he wanted to see me and stay at mine, and the expectations placed on me, and ended it. I went back to the first man again.

This was five years ago. We agreed a long time ago that we are monogamous. We speak all day every day, and holiday together a couple of times a year. But we only see each other every couple of weeks, despite living five minutes away from each other.

I sometimes wonder if I’m ‘settling’, and whether I want a proper relationship with the aim to be living together and marriage. But then I think about the previous relationship where I felt suffocated because he wanted exactly that and I hated it. I hated him wanting to stay over on week nights or wanting to go for dinner or to see his family.

I’m not getting any younger and I wonder whether I should be brave, call it off and look for someone with a more traditional view of a relationship. Or it it okay to stick with what I’ve got despite being relentlessly told by friends that it’s not a ‘real’ relationship.

🙄 It’s just a chat forum. No one is obliged to post anything.

I’m not reading your posts. There’s little point in wasting your time writing so much.

Yes, I would love him to. He isn’t going to though. That’s why I posted.

If you want more, don’t persevere. Don't sell yourself short. Try to achieve what you actually want, rather than accepting what is offered - you’ll just become resentful and it will all end badly anyway.

This isn’t what you want to hear though, so ignore and crack on with your half (if that) relationship out of fear of never achieving anything better.

If he wanted to, he would. He doesn't want to, so either accept that or move on - 'persevere' sounds like you're desperate, and I don't think you are.

Agree with this, men don’t come in that many varieties, the men who were really taken with me proposed quickly and I’m no prize, not particularly beautiful or intelligent, definitely not charming. DH proposed within a year and when my lease was up on my apartment immediately asked me to move in with him. When men really want to they get on with it, equally been in relationships where I was there at their convenience, men who were very nice to me but still. i do remember being very in love with someone who would never have given me what I wanted but I hung on for far longer than I should have out of hope that would change. It wouldn’t have. It’s not that easy though to give up a person you love even if they don’t really love you back the same way.

Yes, I know. That’s what I started the thread about.

OP you're on the wind up now, surely. You're just farming the attention.

You don’t need to read my posts.
It makes no difference to me. I’m just giving my view on the situation you started a thread about and I’m entitled to do so unless my posts breach Talk Guidelines which they do not.

It didn’t take very long to type and edit that last post. I have a clear opinion on the question you posed based on your extensive posts and I can type quite quickly so no big deal really.

Well you know for some people any attention is better than none

I think that may be the crux of the whole matter.

I’ve said that I think this thread has ran its course. I don’t mind people continuing to comment if they have something new to say but continually commenting just to be rude and attempt to provoke a reaction is just odd.

Surely if you feel someone wants attention, and you don’t want to give it, it would be best to stop paying any and stop commenting? 🤷‍♀️

It’s the thread is upsetting you, it might be best to stop commenting.

I’m not reading them. You’re wasting your time.

Something you seem highly familiar with in a slightly different context I respectfully suggest

😂 Cutting!