My relationship makes me both really happy and really sad

[bracedforlanding]

I don't know if "advice" is even possible to give for my situation or if I just feel desperate today and have no one to talk to, but my relationship situation has made me genuinely depressed. The confusing part is that the relationship has also made me really happy and I feel trapped in a cycle I can't seem to get out of.

My boyfriend is the loveliest person in the world. He is always kind to me, loyal, honest, sex life is great, affectionate, reliable, my best friend in the entire world without question and we are devoted to each other. I waited a really, really, really long time to find it and felt a bit like finally my time had arrived. We are older, both 40s, and both have grown up children so there's no biological clock element.

The problem is that he has some "ishoos" around relationships that I have tried incredibly hard to work through, but have failed. It's worth beginning with saying he is on the autism spectrum (recently discovered) and I think this affects things a lot and makes it a lot more difficult to make changes.

He struggles with empathy, emotional expression, changes to his habits, black and white thinking and he needs a lot of solitude to be happy. Knowing this helps me be more understanding with him, but it also doesn't actually change how much it hurts sometimes.

We've been together two years now, and there's lots of normal, every-day things that I haven't got from the relationship. We've never spent more than 3 days in a row together (even that was a fight to get him to agree!). Never been on a holiday (although he's constantly saying how much he wants to he is always miraculously too busy). He's said he sees himself spending the rest of his life with me, and that I am the person he wants to grow old with but he can't even begin to talk about moving in with me so I struggle to see how he thinks that's going to work.

His relationship history seems to be serial monogamy and he has lived with people before, lasting many years but ultimately ending badly because he does things subconsciously to create solitude. For example, taking jobs far away or deciding to study at night etc. and women have always become angry and resentful in the end that he's only half present for their relationship and life.

I think he's always felt like he was always never good enough to give women what they wanted and been confused about why they were upset and angry. That's also coloured his perspective of what living with someone would be like and he thinks it represents someone who's constantly forcing you to do things you don't want to do.

To a degree, I think our relationship has worked so well thus far because I am also independent, I travel a lot for work, and I don't need to be with my partner 24 /7, but I do also feel some sense of "grief" if that makes sense for the life I want but don't have. I've never lived with a man before and I am in my forties. I want to have a proper life with someone, to fall asleep next to them and put up a Christmas tree together and that might sound completely daft but it's my hope.

Practically speaking, I will never be able to buy a home without two incomes and I am starting to get worried about my old age and it feels like both of us renting is madness when we could be saving huge amounts every month.

All this has unravelled slowly for me, and I find myself in a deeply committed and loving long term relationship with someone who would prefer to see me twice a week than ever live with me and I am trying to be a grown up about it like people are in books on or websites where you read about these strong women who know their needs and demand them or walk away. I can't work out why I am not finding it easy to be like that.

For me, it doesn't feel that simple. Walking away from someone I love very much isn't actually that easy. And when I have tried he has begged, pleaded and promised he'd work on these things (he never follows through with any tangible steps however) and I don't think he understands that I am getting genuinely depressed.

I'm at a point now where I am actually worried about myself. I just feel exhausted by life, I'm completely despondent, and there's a really deep pain inside of me almost all the time. I feel like all the things I really wanted out of life have passed me by. The thought of leaving makes me sad, and so does the thought of staying.

I know you will all tell me to leave and find someone who wants the same things. My question is really how I find the strength, and how I find it in myself to believe I will actually find it with someone else because I just feel hopeless.

I feel like maybe you should talk this through with a counsellor. I mean, in reality, you're not going to get what you need with this man and you need to accept that.

If you did move in together, the chances are monumentally high that he'd follow his pattern of creating space anyway.

Your mood sound so low it would be worth seeking some support with it from your gp.

I don't think you should leave! I think you need to readjust your perspective that living with someone is the aim of a relationship and the only version of a 'proper life'.

Surely you can fall asleep together when you're having your 3 days together? And put up Xmas trees, spend Xmas together etc etc. You're independent, so is he. You have a great time together, then have a break, then have a great time together. What's wrong with that? You know living with him would ruin what you have as he won't cope.

Perhaps suggest that you have two shared homes rather than two separate ones. Both have keys to both, make small decorating choices together, keep stuff at each other's place. But assure him that his need for blocks of solitude will be respected. He may be compromise on the small stuff without the big 'threat' of moving in together hanging over his head.

Do you have an overwhelming desire to live with HIM, or just to live with someone? While conventional relationships do end up in moving in together, it doesn't mean all do. (Have a married friend who lives separately to her husband by choice. It works for THEM, so who cares what works for other people!)

The only thing I see as an issue is the security of owning a home which needs a joint income - but is that a good enough reason to have to live with someone?

Thank you.

I did see a counsellor a year ago when we first hit this wall, and she was very helpful at the time and "rescued" the relationship so to speak by letting me know she felt certain that I was deeply loved by this man and that life wasn't always as simple as I was hoping it would be, especially for older divorced people.

She felt he had (a) reached his mid 40s without ever having lived alone - he'd been with partners continuously and was living with flatmates when we met and (b) had only very unpleasant experiences living with people in the past which she felt was colouring his perspective of what living with someone was like.

She recommended he get his "own place" for the first time in his life, and that we continue as we are for a few years as it was clear we really loved each other. He was delighted with this arrangement, and I accepted it. Unfortunately he chose a location much further from me than it needed to be, and he seems to absolutely love having his own house with no intention at all of that changing.

If I try and talk about "down the road", he looks visibly grossed out by the idea of living with anyone ever again, and I am afraid that feeling like it's never going to change is what's made me depressed. I don't mind independence, I don't mind mind him needing solitude, but I do think I have to live with my partner.

I don't think that's a purely romantic notion. I can't continue financially living by myself indefinitely. My rent is so high that I can't really save much and I am very, very worried about my old age security. My pension won't be enough to pay my rent, so I don't know where I am going to live. I've raised kids by myself with a completely absent Dad who never gave me a penny and now I feel like I am looking down the abyss of poverty in my old age.

I know the above sounds really negative, but when you just about pay the rent and bills every month, what happens when you're old? I don't have anyone to rely on and I worry also about getting sick, not being able to work etc. and where I would go or what I would do.

All of that aside, I do just really want to live with someone. My idea of the perfect life includes someone sharing my home with me, or it would never feel like a home to me. I know he doesn't share my wishes, and I know that won't change.

I do know I should go back to the counsellor or GP or something, but if it makes any sense at all, I feel to miserable right now to get help with being miserable, and I can see how unhappy me being unhappy makes him so I've started to play it down.

I think hes made it very clear he's happy as things are.
You want different things so I suggest that you start thinking about a future that may not be with him.
Sorry if that sounds awful.
You also mention you work away alot. Can you move to a cheaper house as you are not there much and might be able to start saving more?
Take in a lodger that might help with the money and feeling lonely?

Yes, I know I need to plan a future that doesn't include him.

I can't move to a smaller place as I am already in the smallest option, but as I live in the general London area, the rent is astronomical even for a tiny place. Myself and my boyfriend do have good jobs, so if we lived together we could save about £2000 a month or more. Over 5 years that would be a real nest egg for us.

I have done a lot of thinking the last few weeks about the future that doesn't include him, and when my youngest leaves for university in a couple of years that will mean me moving. I will have to go somewhere much cheaper by myself. Leaving my job, home, friends and family isn't that appealing but it will be the only way I can ever save anything for my own future.

It feels pretty bleak, and it's not because I am poor or anything. I have a good job and have supported the kids in a really nice life, but there is just nothing left over to save and no real security. I always just thought I would end up in a couple and never did.

All of that aside, I think having kids living with me for so long has meant I was all right with not having a partner but after the youngest heads off to his studies, I think I'd be completely miserable sitting there by myself every night. If that's the life he wants, it's not really compatible with my idea of happiness.

It's a shit relationship and he's actually a bit of a shit himself as he simply pleases himself and also - serially - allows women to grow despondent then medically depressed by his behaviour.

He chooses women who want company, then subjects them to his solitude. At this point, it seems a deliberate choice - he probably likes feeling "in demand" - where the moral choice would be to find another autistic woman who may actually enjoy solitude but may not make herself so available to him at his convenience and could make a more compatible partner.

He is shit and he will never change.

The grown up choice of the real world outside of books is to take responsibility for yourself and leave a person whose behaviour and preferences make you mentally ill. Gather yourself together and break up with him.

I repeat: HE WILL NEVER CHANGE.

I don’t read this as him being a bad person. He obviously loves you and is committed to you as much as he is capable of. That might change in time but it probably won’t.
I’ve had a bad cohabitating relationship and live alone now. I can quite confidently say that will never change, no matter who I might meet in the future. I’m in my 40s also.
You can either accept this and make the best of it, or plan your future without him. It’s as stark as that. You can’t expect him to change, that’s not fair and he’s still the same person you met.
You’re right to think about your financial future. I bought a house last year that will be paid off as I hit retirement but I’m still worried about how I’ll manage day to day.
Good luck to you