oh i feel so rubbish now.

[Orlandointhewilderness]

I'm with a lovely guy. i've known him for years and our friendship changed into something else a year and a half ago. i have a 6 year old dd who loves him to bits. he is very cautious by nature and careful about everything.

i live just over an hours drive and due to him working serious hours i am always the one to drive over to his. we go over typically on a friday night then come back sunday. during this time, i see him for friday night and sat morning then an hour when he gets in sat and the rest of the time he is out. i did used to go over midweek as well but it just was exhausting. i work as well and have horses etc and tbh life has been hard through these last 2 winters and i have really felt the pressure. i also live with my parents.

He typically hates talking in real terms about the future. he says he wants to spend the rest of his life with me and talks about long term, but if i broach the short term (i did about 5 months ago for the first time) he is so uncomfortable and clearly not happy talking about it. I've had a shit couple of days and today i told him that i had something i wanted to ask him and could we be serious for a min. he said he was nervous but as long as i wouldn't get offended if he gave the wrong answer. i then asked he is he would please give some thought to us moving in together in the summer. he said we will discuss it later and he thought it would have been something like this.

he doesn't want to does he. at all i think. we would have been together for 2 years by then and i would have known him well for 5. he has lived with his previous gf but he so obviously doesn't want us too. i just feel stupid for asking, like i've crossed a line he didn't want crossed, and unwanted and basically crap. i have always told him what i want in the future, it isn't exactly out of the blue and quite honestly i am tired and worn down by always being the one to do the travel.

Sorry for the ramble - and my caps lock doesn't work! Just needed to write it down i think.

I don’t think he’s evil. I do think however that promising a future he’s not sure about delivering is cruel especially given he knows that the OP wants a future with him. And I do think that it’s very easy to fall into a casual relationship with someone when you only see them at weekends and they’re the ones doing all the travelling.

It’s absolutely one thing to not settle for a house which isn’t right especially if you think the one you’re already in is the right one. It’s also absolutely ok to be concerned about taking on a full-time step parenting role to a six year old as twelve years is a long time and step parenting is hard, and the jump from two nights over the weekend to full-time is massive especially when the child will be transitioning between schools, friends etc and his concerns shouldn’t be taken lightly.

But he should clarify to OP what he means by him needing space. If he means that he thinks that he and the OP and her DD and future child will all be living on top of each other in a three bed house and he thinks they need something slightly bigger where they can each go to do their own thing be that read in peace or just be on their own etc then I see no issue with that. If however he means that needing his own space means that he enjoys having no—one around him for three/four days at a time as he currently does then that potentially makes him and the OP incompatible.

And his lack of communication is a big deal.

Yeah, sorry, I hate to say this, but he sounds so much like my ex.

We actually lived together and although he said he loved me and wanted us to be together, he would always stall and get cagey if I wanted to talk about the long-term future. I couldn't even talk about travelling together a few months in the future etc without him withdrawing and acting like I was pressuring him. I felt like I just wanted to talk about stuff that was normal to talk about in a long-term relationship when you're nearly in your 30s.

Then he started with the stuff about needing space or possibly needing to spend time working overseas in the future (by himself). Yet he still insisted he loved me and wanted to be together. It was extremely mixed messages and a total headfuck. What it came down to is that he just wasn't in it wholeheartedly.

He wasn't evil, he just wasn't that into me, sadly. He's married now, he got married within two years of meeting his wife.

How much space does he need? You could all have a bedroom each in his current home or stay there until he finds exactly the right place?

For me, when a man wants to be with you then he moves heaven and earth to make it happen.

I think you need to make a cold hard facts list of who is putting what effort into this relationship.

You:

• all the travelling. All of it.
• the disruption of being away at the weekend
• disrupting another person (your daughter)
• putting up with being a farm widow
• prepared to move for him
• prepared to take your daughter away from her friends and change her school for him
• prepared to change your job for him

Him:

• well, the square root of fuck all by the looks of it

He might be prepared to change house which is a big thing. But - you haven't asked him to, and actually I'm seeing much beyond hot air on the moving.

I actually have some sympathy if he's settled and doesn't want to move.

But this "space" nonsense is stalling bollocks.

He has a 3 bedroom house. That means there's a spare room that can be a "man cave". But surely if he needs space, he'll get that the 5 weeknights and 1.5 weekend days he spends on the farm, no?

Even if you both decided a bigger house was needed, you'd be crazy to buy it before living together. He should create his "space" another way for 6-12 months (that spare room, the farm, etc) whilst you check that living together works.

Honestly, I would cut your losses. I know you love him. He may love you. But when you dropped the midweek drive over (yep, you doing it) his response should have been "I'll come to you that night, I'll stop the farm work". It's not his farm and he has a full time job. If he can't prioritise his relationship for one night a week by telling his family NO (or paying for a farmhand to cover him) then that relationship simply isn't that important to him.

I wouldn't be prepared to change my child's life, for someone who has already chosen the farm over you. I wouldn't change my life either, but at least that's yours to take risks with.

Are you really going to move your child an hour from her friends, grandparents and school for a man who can't even make one compromise for you?

You'll be back on here a year later if you do, frustrated because you never see your boyfriend. Right now, you probably don't feel lonely or that he isn't interested because you don't see him. He's already not even there some of your visit time! How are you going to feel at 22:00 on yet another night, on your own?

Ellisandra is spot on.

When one of my male friends had a long term girlfriend of 5 years it was never the 'right time' to have baby.. To get married or to buy a house (they rented). Plus football practics could never be changed from 3 times a week. Even the house they got together was because of her nagging and she literally planned everything from the viewings to the furniture. All the mental work. The relationship ran its course and they broke up. My friend met another girl and within 2 years they've bought a house and he proposed. Whenever she wants to plan a day trip out suddenly football practice is out the window on a saturday morning and not an issue!! The whole 5 years with his ex Saturday mornings were off the table due to practice.

My point is.. I think men will literally drop everything for you if your 'the one'.. With want for a better word. You wouldn't even be questioning whether he would agree to a break. If he loved you then if you mentioned breaking up he would jump in his car and go to you to sort it out and deal with being knackered at work the next week. Because that's what you do when your mad on someone.

I think emotionally speaking it would be more likely that he'd move in with you without thinking it thoroughly through and it breaking down later, than it would stalling due to every possible risk. Why? Because emotions don't see common sense. Emotions don't risk assess and analyze every possible outcome. I mean look at you and what your willing to do. Uproot your DD, move away from your parents and start over to be with the man you love. It might not be the best of ideas but you willing to take the risk and do it anyway. Why? Because you love him. If he felt the same you'd be living together by now whether that's in his house whilst you try to find somewhere bigger or in a rented place. Youd find a way because your both 100% in it and determined to be together.
Usually the only reason people who are both mutually in love wouldn't do this would be because its not physically possible e.g visa issues, not a penny in the bank, dying relative. Not because a your perfectly acceptable house may or may not get too cramped at times.

My point is OP, when its mutual equal love, you won't have to question whether or not hes going to be with you. You'll know. You'll know because he would have demonstrated time and time again that you and your DD come first. You'll come before jobs, houses and hobbies. You wont even have to question it.

I really hope your okay and this works out for you