Was it a bad idea to move in with my ex when he still loves me

[YourDreamyFox]

Me and my ex have always got on, we still love each other, although mine is more practical, more grounded, deeper, I would say his is more romeo and juliet, more cinematic, as I approached retirement, he suggested we move in together, it would mean him paying the bulk of the bills as I have a very small pension. I made it clear it would be as friends, so we took the plunge and now have a very nice house, a dog, a garden, etc. He works 16 hour days, 7 days a week, just as he did before we all moved in, I am enjoying retirement, everything at the start was great.

However, lately, the financial pressures of being the sole income are getting to him, I want us to have a good friendship, I do have some saved money but he refuses to let me dip into my savings, and is intent on covering all the expenses alone, but then he burns himself out and he is starting to look to me to emotionally support him, I find this hard, I have tried, but its not something I am good at, and I have never been good at it, I struggle with it, sometimes he says he needs a hug, a kiss, but i know it will end up more, the more I give, the more I know he will want, and that is not what was the initial suggestion. He is trying to ignite our relationship again, and all I want is friendship. I am quite happy to move out and find my own way, I just dont know what to do, or how to move forward.

Should I try, or should I point out that he knew how hard it would be when he made his offer and put his big boy pants on and get on with it as he did before we moved in,.

Im in my sixties, he is in his fifties, I am done with all the love stuff, the arguments, the compromising, I just thought we would be two friends living together and doing our own thing. HELP.

This sounds so difficult and also familiar. I’ve recently reconnected with an old friend that I had had a relationship with years and years ago. I see him a couple of times a year, we hang out , all is good.
Three weeks ago he rang and I thought he sounded funny so I went over. He was in a dreadful state so I rang for an ambulance. Since then he’s been in and out of hospital and needing a care package chased up, food delivered and fresh laundry.
He’s more stable now and up and about again and all the hugs and ‘love yous’ exchanges when I thought he wasn’t going to make it have added up to him thinking there’s more to the friendship again. I’ve had to massively pull back, cutting visits shorter and only going once a week for a food delivery and clean laundry.
I feel a bit stuck on how to extricate myself now. I suppose I’ll just stick to the weekly visit until he’s well enough to drive again.
You have my sympathies, it sounds very awkward.

16 hours a day 7 days a week, he's a mechanic, he buys and sells cars, he loves cars, as I said, its not a job, he is quite happy, in fact when he is not working he can be quite miserable. He can be quite obsessive, be it drink, food, sex or love, at the moment, he is obsesses with his work, which is a good healthy obsession to have, and he has been like that for some years, even he is quite surprised by how much his feelings have returned since we moved in, he is working hard on trying to reconcile them, he doesnt want to lose our friendship any more than I do, we always knew we would be together forever, we just need to get past what I think is something that he is turning into an obsession again. He has an addictive personality, over the years its been pretty much everything, drink, drugs, gambling, and Ive been there for him, it worries me that his need for a dopamine hit is being fueled by visions of unrealistic love, I also worry about him become unbalanced and returning to his old ways, the truth of the matter is, at the moment, he wants something I cannot give him, and even if I did give it to him, I think it would make him worse, he needs to come back down to earth again, I want that so badly for him, just to be settled, calm, focused.

It's not wrong to want that, but that's not at all possible given that the reality is he wants more. He's not wrong, either. Your respective needs and wants are incompatible with a platonic housemate arrangement and you need to make decisions based on that.

I still don’t understand why you left your job.

It’s not realistic to want to spend your last years with your best friend on your terms if he’s in love with you.

@YourDreamyFox

"Am I wrong for just wanting him to love me as I love him" "am I so bad for wanting that?"

Not necessarily, but for a mature adult you are being incredibly naïve even to think that, both physically and emotionally, he'd be able to suppress his feelings whilst you are under his roof.

Your situation, in this current iteration, is untenable.

If you love him, as you say you do, move out immediately, it is the only way for you to guard your boundaries and for him to finally accept that what you feel for him is just a deep connection without the possibility of intimacy.

when we have talked of me moving out, he has begged me to stay, saying he will deal with his feelings, I just dont know if its possible

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." (old proverb)

Purely wishful thinking by you both will never resolve this unhappy scenario @YourDreamyFox

What kind of man would engineer financial dependency to pressure a woman for sexual favours? I’ll tell you what type of man, a fucking creep. Comfort! This creep isn’t looking for comfort, it’s a quid pro, put out because he’s paying. Urgh! He’s weaponised your past history together to get what he wants, this was his plan all along.

This ‘friendship’ is over, I’d rather sleep under a bridge than share a postcode with such a manipulative twat. Get out and get out now!!!!

its really not as cut and dry as some of you might think, we have both taken and given to each other over the years, the issue now is how do we proceed.

Yes when you were in a relationship.

Relationships are about give and take. You’re sharing everything, good and bad.

You’re not in a relationship so I don’t know how this works.

I’m honestly struggling to believe someone in their 60s could be this naive. I know that there are people whose relationship has ended and they are stuck together sharing a home as they can’t afford to split (or are waiting for a property sale), but I struggle to believe why anyone would voluntarily put themselves in this situation.

My situation is no worse than plenty of women of my age group, at our age our focuses change, love is not the dreamy romantic be all and end all of our youth, I know plenty of women stuck in dead marriages where they have focused on themselves and the men are left still wanting to return to the days of passion and physical romance, to that end, my situation is no worse, my only issue is how is to whether to end this relationship, in which we have been bloody good friends for years, with someone I completely trust, and who trusts me, or move on and lose him altogether. I can think of much worse people to be contemplating the rest of my life, he is kind, loving, thoughtful, and extremely apologetic for the way he feels, in fact, I am extremely apologetic for the way I feel, we are constantly saying sorry to each other, and trying to work it through, it is no worse a situation than many menopausal women find themselves in, except we both understand what is going on here, we just dont know what to do about it.

It's pretty clear you have absolutely no intention of leaving despite how untenable this situation is. So tell me, are you getting some kind of ego boost out of having him pining for you and you rejecting him over and over?

Or is it that you think he owes you for the money you gave him when you were in a relationship and so you're staying until you think he's paid you back regardless of his feelings?

Or maybe you're seeing him and his money as part of your retirement plan as you know that he'll put up with any scraps of attention from you and you get a roof over your head for very little money?

What to say - except It's been quite a while since I heard such a crackpot idea.

There is a huuuuuge difference between offering and paying. Huge. People who want to pay, pay. People who don't want to pay, offer to pay. And wait for 'oh, no, no, no, no, thankyou'. Oldest trick in the book.

You moved in with him just for financial reasons. Not a good move.

This 100%
what exactly did you think would be the outcome here?

Don't move in with someone who has feelings for you - that's fundamentally toying with someone else's emotions. Why would you do that? It's cruel.

And then you just let him pay the lion's share? And all this bollocks of 'offering to pay' - you're in your sixties, you're not feeble. If you wanted to pay your way you would be paying your way - but you're not, and you need to ask yourself why.

Yes end it and also stop blaming it on 'women of our age' bullshit, none of my female friends in their sixties are stringing men along. As for menopausal?! Cheeky shit! I'm menopausal, live alone, support myself and would no way consider moving in with someone unless (a) I felt the same way for them as they did for me (it's called fairness and decency) and (b) I paid my half of everything.

'I love him in a deeper and more practical way' - more practical would split money down the middle. How is your love practical? Seems conniving to me.

You are being very dishonest, with yourself and in the way you represent this situation to MN, but most of all to this man, who should not be exploited in such a way.
Living alone, 70, and certainly in straitened circs, I would not dream of entering such an arrangement given all you have set out here. We aren’t all desperate for a man to lean on in this way.
I’m sure you could find a candidate for a ‘mariage blanc’ somewhere online.
But right now, move out asap, as the thing is surely inevitable, and delay will cause a lot more harm.

But the situation for him is a lot worse isn’t it? Living with someone who will never love him because it’s more convenient to depend on him than live alone.

I do love him, very much, and as far as the money goes, I lent him £20k, and never asked for it back, I just don't want the gazing or the spanish love songs or the romantic dinners, are you suggesting that if we had sex then it would be ok to stay?

You can’t change his feelings, or yours. I’m not sure what you’re asking here, nobody can tell you how to make him stop loving you in a romantic way. He works 16 hours a day and you say he hates holidays and has no interests, you can’t possibly spend much time together or do that much together, what are you actually getting from living together beyond the financial benefits?

It really all sounds very codependent rather than an actual friendship: you stayed with him for years of poor financial decisions, a variety of addictions, impulsive behaviour, hardship when you probably should have left a lot sooner, you still want to ‘save him’ from returning to his old ways. This isn’t friendship.

It sounds as though sadly he hoped that you living together and him supporting you financially, you would fall back in love with him and get back in a full relationship.

As I have said many times I do love him, just not in the way I did 20 years ago, he, however loves me as we were 20 years ago, he has asked me to die my hair the same colour as it was then, have the same haircut, wear the same clothes, act the same way, he is in love with a ghost, thats the problem. If he could accept that we are 20 years older, I probably would soften, but at the moment, I have my guard up. As for the money, I have suggested we put it in both our names, I do not see what more I can do, he refuses point blank and gets quite upset by that thought.

So it is all about the £20K.

A loan that you don't ask to be returned isn't a loan, it's a gift. So which is it - a loan or a gift? If it's a loan then ask for it back and use the money to get your own place. If it was a gift then forget about it, move out and get your own place.

This would have only worked if both of you just wanted a friendship from the arrangement. It wasnt a good idea moving in with somebody who still has feelings for you whilst yours are platonic. The best thing to do is move out and find your own place.