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 not that long, op. Some people have a very short attention span!

Do you want children?

Life is uncertain for sure but you can still think about where you’d like to see yourself and things you’d like to achieve, places you’d like to go and things you’d like to experience. It sounds like you’re in limbo at the moment because he wants things to stay as they are which holds you back from thinking too much about the future but being honest, you don’t sound overly happy in general and I’m not saying this in a critical way, I’m being genuine.

Do you think you could be happier?

No.

I am very happy. I have lots of amazing friends, a busy social life, a lovely house, enjoyable hobbies, a job I enjoy, and a partner I love and who I love spending time with.

I go on several holidays a year, a couple with him, the rest with friends. These aren’t particularly big discussions though. We just talk about where we’d like to go and what we want to do and book something. Similarly, things I want to achieve are things I would like to achieve, career wise and personally. He’s supportive but they really have nothing to do with him, so there is no need for a joint discussion about them.

He wants what you have now. You want more. I would suggest that you start being honest about what you want, and not piggybacking along with what he wants and calling it fine.

Your friends can see straight through this, once you start saying out loud what you want you'll find it easier to make it happen.

I’m glad that you are very happy in your life but I don’t understand how you can be very happy in this relationship when you’re wondering if you could be more content being with someone else and saying you don’t know what you want. And similarly you say you love spending time together but choose to only see each other once a fortnight. I’m just struggling to understand how this all fits together

I last posted about him during the pregnancy

Well, that's a HUGE something you have left out of your OP.

So I don't know how to advise you. Sorry OP.

Hope it all works out.

It’s in the OP.

I don’t really know how to explain it other than how I already have. I love him and want to be with him, but he doesn’t want to live together or get married, and so I wonder if I’m missing out on living with someone and getting married.

When I see him it is proper, quality time. I don’t want to go round on a weekday and either leave to come home to sleep or have to leave early in the morning. I’d rather wait to spend some proper time together when we have the time.

If you’re happy and he’s happy with this arrangement then what’s wrong with it?
Trying to second guess how you might feel in some hypothetical future seems futile to me.

You’re not getting any younger is the reason to end this, not to settle for it. There are more than two men on the planet op.

Well, I mentioned three men in the OP so I obviously know this.

There is only one of him though.

You don’t persevere with a relationship at least not in this context. What you do is endure or tolerate something that isn’t quite what you aspired to or envisaged because you want the other person and will take whatever you are gifted whilst explaining away the way they treat you against the backdrop of your entirely legitimate life choices. Meanwhile the other person has massive opportunities to take the piss and hope the other individual concerned will do the enduring or tolerating. Not even hope perhaps expect or assume. Hope is not a word I would dignify this other person’s behaviour or mindset with.
Not sure what advice you want really. It’s obvious you are trying to make sense of a situation but nobody else can walk in your shoes and feel what you feel so you have gone to great lengths to respond accordingly on this thread.
Not wanting children and wanting what you have outlined doesn’t mean some sort of perpetual state of will he won’t he is reconcilable.
separate them out and imagine this was you responding to the scenario objectively and instinctively. Then you might have your answer

But surely you do have the time? If you only life 5 minutes away from each other, why would you be getting up early? You’d be getting up at the same time to get ready for work as you do when you’re at your own house?

I think if you are content to know you will probably never live with him or marry him but he may in the future choose someone else (which is a risk for anyone on a relationship tbh) then crack on.

I just think you need to think about whats so special about him that you are willing to accept a situation that you yourself don’t think is ideal.

I honestly think it’s his unavailability thats got you hanging on. I genuinely think it would have worn off if you had a normal amount of contact for a relationship. Honestly DH lived a one and a half hour drive away from me when we were dating and he would do the drive to have dinner at mine and then drive back at least once a week. If I had lived five minutes away we would have seen each other a lot more, even if it was just to grab dinner etc. it’s all quality time. Even for very independent people who want their own space seeing a loved one a few times a week is not going to be too much.

I’m not judging and I don’t think you are being silly, the heart wants what it wants. But he is never going to give you what you actually want from him specifically. Tbh even if you leave him you can probably go back later if you don’t find what you are looking for, there is a danger he’ll just find someone else but if I’m being brutally honest you are already in that situation.

I work from home. I get up five minutes before I start.

I can’t see the point in staying there to wake up earlier and rush out. He goes to bed much earlier than me too, I am a night owl. He’s also a poor sleeper.

I absolutely hated it when my ex wanted to stay over during the week. I hated creeping around quietly so as not to wake him. I just don’t enjoy it at all, it’s not for me. Likewise, it would feel a bit miserable going around on a weeknight then going home to a dark house at 10pm. I’d rather just stay at home cozy in PJs if I’m not out with friends.

I don’t think I could go back again. He would be extremely hurt.

I don’t think it’s the unavailability. It is him and his personality that keeps me with him. Although I concede that it may be different if we were having to discuss who was doing the cleaning and washing and other household tasks. But that is a positive, not a negative.

I’ve had those ‘would drive for hours to have lunch’, passionate relationships in the past and they’ve always ended badly. I like that we had a friendship that grew into more without any fireworks or drama. I like that he is always completely consistent and I never have to worry about where I stand. I like that he stays in touch and shows me in many ways that he loves me, but that he is entirely unpossessive and that he is not remotely jealous, and always happy for me to do my own thing. After previous relationships I love the calm consistency of it.

Surely the point is that you get to spend more time together rather than waiting for every other weekend? You express in one post that you’re deeply in love with him but then can’t be bothered to make the effort to get up what, half an hour earlier?! even once a week so that you get to spend a night together. How can you even think about living together if you can’t compromise on sleep and each others respective routines?

What are his thoughts on you staying over during the week?

If I ever did live with him we would have to have our own bedrooms during the week and it would have to be big enough that he was not disturbed by either the sound of me having the TV on, speaking to friends or going to bed.

I don’t want to see him during the week. He has his own routines during the week too. That isn’t an issue at all, we are completely aligned on it. It wouldn’t be a quality night. He would be in bed hours earlier than me, and I’d be frustrated I’d have to creep about quietly and he’d be frustrated he was woken up when I came to bed.

Ok, it’s good you’re on the same page but how are you even considering living with someone or getting married then?!

well he would say that, wouldn’t he ?!

It would have to be a big enough house that we had our own space within it. I quite like the three storey town houses with a lounge/kitchen on the ground floor and bedrooms above. With him, we’d have to have separate bedrooms during the week.

Of course. He’s never given me any reason to doubt him though.

Actually, I’ve just come back to edit this. I think it’s unfair to say ‘of course’. I don’t think he would lie. If he still wanted a casual arrangement where we weren’t a couple and could see other people, he would say so. I don’t think he would lie.

🤣🤣🤣
You’re being funny now aren’t you!? 🤣
You don’t want to see him, don’t want to share a room, don’t want to combine your worlds, but yeah might marry him!
That’s not marriage!