Live apart relationships - how do you do it?

[Goldilocks3Bears]

So I’m divorced with 2 fairly young kids and met a man about six months ago. He’s great and has three kids himself and one of the things I adore about him is that we’re on the same page with the kids coming first.

None of us are in a hurry to want to “settle down” as we are both in our late 40s, both work, both have our kids, social lives etc.

I am personally also enjoying being a girlfriend and in no hurry to move in with any man for a loooong time.

We see each other on our weekends off and sometimes with kids around and we go out for dinner dates etc. during the week.

It’s very much a romance not a fuck buddy thing - we are very affectionate and talk about the big stuff.

Unlike when we were in our 20-30s where there was an urgency to mate 😂 this is more casual and I’m wondering how you do it if you have experience of this and “maintaining” it with everything else going on.

Goldie

I think this sounds really hard for you OP. I presume his DD is early/mid teens? A difficult age and I can imagine your DP being concerned about how she might react to him appearing to put you first if she is having a hard time.

Is there any option for you to even be there for some time with both of them at home? Not ideal I know.

The other thing I wondered is if you’ve spoken to your DP about how this making you feel. I suspect that even if you knew he was finding the separation as hard as you are, it would go some way to giving you a bit of reassurance.

I really sympathise. It’s distance and work commitments that mean my relationship is weekends only. DP was away last weekend which means a two week gap. At one point, it looked like circumstances may have prevented us meeting up this weekend too, and I honestly felt like giving up. Hopefully, that is now sorted, but it’s made me realise I want a conversation with him about the extent to which this bothers him as I want to know if we’re in the same place or not.

Sorry to hear it's not working at the moment. Things with kids change in an instant. Just talk to him, maybe if she needs him a lot right now you build a new routine to adapt. No reason you can't go to his when she is there, if Wednesdays are date night, then she will know this an she can choose to join you or not. Make it clear that you and him will be spending time together no matter what (barring emergencies). Invite her and him over to yours for supper. If she's more in his life than he will need to blend families a bit more.

Don't get disheartened. How old is she? This too shall pass.

We're 4.5 month in to ours becoming a LDR and it's working still but it does take super honest and considerate communication. You need to tell him what you want and ask what he wants, then find a way to make it work.

@ladylouanne - your situation sounds very similar to mine. I'm very tactile and whereas he's happy that we are "in touch" with the all day texting, I need to actually have f2f time.

She is 15. We get on and I do spend time over there, but not too much. When they split up 2.5-3 years ago, she started going missing from school but is back now but he's nervous about her and part of my frustration has been that he has been hesitant to set boundaries and thinks he can fix this with "disneyland parenting" - buying treats and bending over backwards.

There was a bit of a clash a few weeks ago and talks have been had (so many talks!). He has tried to make changes as well as he can but if we make plans and she then shows up at his place, he's caught between a rock and a hard place and I get blown out. I'm an adult and get the dynamics of this but it's still hurtful.

I know this is a phase and she'll dump him like a hot potato the second she has another distraction but I'm just frustrated so came in here to vent a little to people who know what it's like...

I am glad to read that two homes work really well for some. I have been with my boyfriend for 2 years, we live 30 miles apart. Both of us have children, I have them 24/7 and he has part-time contact, my youngest is 7 and his youngest is 9. As a relationship it works well, especially that I have an aupair and am flexible to go out / go to his place. However I will only have aupair for another year or so, and I am dreading to think of the future. I also constantly crave physical contact and cuddles. I can’t imagine we might have another 10 years of this? He says we will work it out when the time comes. He hates his own town (I live in London) but by the sound of it he’s not keen to move due to his DC. In my head, the most sensible option would be for us to move into a bigger house in my area so he could have space for his visiting DC. Would ferrying his DC 2-30 miles to our future house be too much to ask? I am nearly 40 and sometimes I feel like wasting my time for the unknown. I don’t want to be in late 40s and still live separate lives. I envy when I see family units doing everything together.

I intend to wait for another 2 years then I won’t have an aupair and his youngest will be in secondary school, we ought to make some decision by then. I don’t push for anything, and I understand DC always come first, but I also need to think what’s best for me…

So overall it is hard for me.

@catbasilio I share your thoughts and we have similar distance. Neither of us are keen to move in with each other, due to the young age of some of our combined kids and the hangover from our divorces. So in some respects, I suppose it is hard to expect more when I'm not willing/able to take the relationship to a live-in status myself. By contrast to your man, mine lives fairly happily in a smaller town and has done so since he was young and has a solid network around him. Although he talks about moving away on occasion I think he'd find it difficult in the longer term as he'd be cut off his closest friends and further away from his children. I am decidedly urban and transient by nature though and can't see myself living there as it's too country. Funny enough one of his kids talked about moving near me to "get out of the hills" and I thought to myself well, that's one way of blending families :-)

The temptation is to think "where is this going" and not focus on it going well as it is. I think we are groomed to always have a certain end goal in mind but as we are all 'sorted' for kids, money, homes, etc. there is not that pressure that you have in your 20/30s to settle down and get married/have kids. So whereas that does remove some of the pressure, it also does make things very fragile I suppose.

I don't like imposing ultimatums on relationships but I'm very much focusing on doing my own thing as I always have and seeing my own friends and doing things I would if I were on my own because trying to plan around him and his dramas is just driving me insane.

It’s hard I think, to work it out alongside society’s definition of ‘security/stability’ in relationships.

If we don’t live together it’s easy to wonder and fret - are we committed? What is this?

And when Disney parenting is added to the mix it’s easy to feel like relationships are not on solid ground. That your place in the pecking order is fragile and secondary to the whims of their dc.

Would it be the end of the world if you are there on the agreed evenings? Hard to see that it would - if you guys are committed.

I suppose the only definition of a committed, functioning relationship is that you guys talk about the difficult stuff and work out a way forward. Whatever the setup.

My experience is that in ‘live apart relationships’ it’s also easy in all that separateness to avoid more thorny issues..... I think it’s key not to do that.

I know in mine we are definitely guilty of that in ours - it’s a relationship ‘bubble’ if we want it to be.

I suppose it is hard to expect more when I'm not willing/able to take the relationship to a live-in status

The temptation is to think "where is this going" and not focus on it going well as it is. I think we are groomed to always have a certain end goal in mind but as we are all 'sorted' for kids, money, homes, etc. there is not that pressure that you have in your 20/30s to settle down and get married/have kids. So whereas that does remove some of the pressure, it also does make things very fragile I suppose.

Goldilocks, I completely agree with both of these statements. The point about not expecting more when being unsure if what you want yourself is one I recognise.

What you say about expectations in relationships when we're a bit older is so true. In our 20s/30s, there are obvious questions to ask when in a developing relationship eg do you want children in future, how many, what are your career plans, do you want to buy a house etc etc. When we already have our kids, our own houses and jobs etc, these questions don't apply so much, or they represent the history we bring with us. They also illustrate that we have potentially more to lose by moving in with someone.

Maybe, if there is no immediate rush to change things, you just need to give this relationship time. You're right in saying his DD will be off doing her own thing when it suits her. It might be that once you have more time together again you are able to speak about how this made you feel, rather than trying to sort it out 'in the heat of things' as it were.