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.

I would happily move in with and marry him.

That's the bit I don't get - how could you want to marry and live with someone who you are currently happy to see only every couple of weeks? Have you ever lived with a partner? Have you lived with this guy at all - even for a few weeks on holiday? It's such a change from what you currently have that I can't help thinking you are in denial about how you really feel about the current situation or completely delusion about the reality of marriage and living together.

Could you both have your own spaces but him stay half the week with you one week and you stay half the week with him another (or some combination like that. It sounds like you see each other very little right now, but as he doesn't want to live together full time this might be more of a compromise. It might be important to him to have his own place, but he might be happy to share a bit more than you are currently?

If you're perfectly happy and he's perfectly happy there's no need to change things, or have all this angst introspection about what people think or what might happen in the future.

If things change in the future then you can deal with any problems that may arise then.

Yes. I like to be alone and left in peace to read, paint, write etc. I hated it when exes have wanted to spend weekday evenings together watching tv and then going to bed early.

Living together feels like we’d have space to do our own thing, but in the same room. Which I think I’d be okay with. But failing that I’d rather see him on a weekend when we’re both properly free and relaxed and it’s quality time.

However I do know I might be looking at living together with rose tinted glasses and the reality may be that I hate it and want full freedom back.

I would only be open to meeting new people if I ended things with him. I am definitely in no way willing to even entertain anyone else for a second whilst with him.

Do you mind if I ask what is being wasted? Even if we don’t end up together for another 50 years, how is the time wasted?

I don’t want children.

I’ve never lived with a man and have never wanted to in the past. I’ve always hated it when men want to see me a lot.

Yes, I think this is where the thread has led me to. Just continuing as we are whilst we’re both happy, and ignoring friends who try to suggest it means that we are somehow lesser.

Don't apologise, length was fine, some people struggle to read anything longer than a sentence.

Are you happy though? Sounds like you both just settle for each other while looking for what you really want. What happens when he meets someone and stays with them? I get the feeling of being suffocated by someone but don't give up - it may have just been that person. Different people make us react differently. I discovered recently I 'might' be able to just have sex with one guy forever (not the guy I was seeing!) haha as long as circumstances were right.

Neither of us are looking for anyone else. We both want each other and both would be extremely unhappy for it to end.

He is absolutely and completely the man I want, and it has been so for many years. My questions were over whether I trade the man I actually want, with another man who will never him, but who would be open to living together and getting married.

If it ain't broke. Enjoy your relationship which works for you both.

I don't understand why you would consider leaving someone you are entirely happy with so that you fit in with the opinions of your friends.

Have the confidence to enjoy what you have because it is what you want.

When DH and I split up, what you’re describing is exactly what I wanted from another relationship, I never wanted to live with another man, but I wanted someone I could date and holiday with, at our choosing, and to be exclusive. I did realise that would be very hard to find. I’m older than you though and I’ve had the full marriage and family. It’s so hard to say whether either one of you will back out of it, no one can see the future. It’s nigh on impossible to give you advice, just that you can only live each day with what you want for that time. If it’s working for you now, then stick with it and deal with anything if/when it changes.

I think you are definitely looking at living together with rose tinted glasses - and that you wouldn't actually enjoy the reality of living together. Even with this guy, let alone with some other guy.

Yeah, sorry I did get that but I also picked up on the pattern you described. It sounds to me like he will meet someone again and feels able to because technically, he is single. I don't agree with marriage but I do understand it's possible to commit fully without the piece of paper. Based on your description, I don't think he is someone who commits (you might also not be!) but the fact you're even questioning whether you should seek someone else who wants to marry... I think you'll feel like you wasted so much time on this guy if he leaves again.

Sorry if I'm mixing up your posts with another one(!) correct me if I'm wrong on anything.

My questions were over whether I trade the man I actually want, with another man who will never him, but who would be open to living together and getting married.
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But…you said that you DON’T want to live with someone. I’m really confused.

Thank you.

It’s just relentless sometimes. I’m seeing friends quite a bit at the moment due to my birthday and it’s endless ‘is John a one man woman then? He is? Hmm, well, I’ll be surprised if he’s not out meeting people when he’s not with you.’ These people have been told multiple times that he’s a ‘one man woman’.

And then endless ‘what’s going on with you and John then?’ It feels awkward to say nothing is going on. We just are. People seem to not be willing to acknowledge us as a relationship unless we move in together etc.

I am badgered as to why he doesn’t want to come out with them and their partners, but he has his own friends and doesn’t want to, much as I have my friends and don’t want to double date with his.

Yes, I think you must be mixing me up. He is not single, technically or otherwise.

My friends often mention the wasted time but I must admit, I never really understand how it would be wasted even if we did eventually split.

Did I? Where did I say that? It must’ve been a mistype.

I do quite like the idea of living with someone, although I do wonder if I’m looking at it with rose tinted glasses and wonder if the reality would feel a lot more suffocating and I’d not enjoy it in reality.

I thought that you said that it was suffocating to spend weeknights with a partner.

It sounds like you both enjoy your own company which is great but it is a big jump from only seeing each other every couple of weeks to living together.

I know people say "if you love someone you want to spend all your time with them". I'm not really that person but surely there is a desire to see him more often if you do like him this much that you are considering marriage and cohabitating.

Are your friends a bit obtuse?
Sorry, I am trying to be polite here!
I don’t live with my boyfriend. We have no intention of moving in together. But our friends would never dream of questioning our loyalty or fidelity to each other, just because we aren’t living together. That’s just bonkers!
Just tell them to STFU.

Sounds casual and incidental to your life which is filled with friendships, commitments, other things, hence the once in a few weeks thing. This wouldn't (at all) be what I wanted in a relationship, but if this works for you, then it works for you. Are you happy? Do you want more - from him or from a relationship? I personally don't want to live with my partner but I very much want the closeness, we see each other all the time, chat daily, have integrated our friendship groups, go on holiday together etc. This works very well for us, even though it isn't the template of living together/marriage. You do what makes you happy, don't worry about what you are meant to want.

What do you do when you see each other? And what does 'speaking all day, every day' mean?

I can see how people might perceive the relationship to be you just being a regular sex partner that he messages frequently to keep around, and not a proper emotionally invested relationship.

But if you're happy, then I don't see a reason why you shouldn't carry on the way you are. Sure, you might split up eventually, but that could happen if you lived together and got married, and as you don't want children you don't have any biological clock ticking down. If it's not broken, why fix it?

Or is it that you have a preference for living with him, so you can do your own thing but in a shared space, and it bothers you a little that he's against it? Personally, it does seem a little odd to me that the most you have sex as childfree, 40-year-olds is every few weeks - that's very infrequent! But if you're both happy with that, it's not a problem.