Anyone in a successful relationship with someone completely unsuitable on paper?

[Martymarta]

I'm single and have a single male friend who I care about a lot and have fancied for a few years. I don't think that he feels the same about me as we have been single at the same time before, flirted a bit, but he has always started dating someone else first. So this is purely hypothetical really. The reason I have never told him I have a crush on him is because we are completely unsuitable. We have similar interests and hobbies but the big stuff in life, we just want different things. For example, he is very homely and wants to ultimately live in a cosy semi in suburbia. I have no particular interest in material possesions, although I do own a house, and want to spend my retirement travelling the world. He likes to be around people all the time, I'm highly introverted. You get the drift. Yet still sometimes I think about having a relationship with him. In my heart I know it would be stupid but I just wonder if it has worked / not worked for anyone else with a theoretically highly unsuitable partner?

I don’t think those are the things that make you suited, it’s more about values and, if you have DC, being on the same page in terms of raising them.
Me and DP are very different in a lot of ways (upbringing, how we like to spend our time) and actually I find him fairly annoying quite often, but with a lot of the ‘big stuff’ (both close to our families, not miles apart in religious/political views but enough to spar, raising DC, sense of humour sometimes!) we’re similar enough to run along quite nicely.

It’s not theoretical, though, is it? You literally want totally opposed kinds of life which would make itself felt on a daily basis.

I have a good friend who used to be a work colleague, so for a long time our shared interests and work probably covered up significant differences, but in the six months since I quit and moved countries and changed my field of work, he has just been sitting on his sofa when not at work. He literally never leaves the house at weekends, apart from going to Tesco and owing his lawn. He doesn’t like his town but will never leave. He’s a potterer who loathes holidays and doing anything new or going anywhere for the first time — what he likes is sometimes going away for a weekend by himself to some Travelodge on an industrial estate on the edge of a town and ‘resting’, never leaving his room.

He finds my level of activity (which is very ordinary) dizzying.

He’s an attractive man. He’s an excellent long-distance friend. As a boyfriend I would kill him in a week.

Everyone told me my dh was unsuitable. When I met him I wasn’t looking for a bf as had just come out of a 5yr relationship. I just wanted to have some fun so it didn’t matter that it probably wouldn’t last. He was younger than me, working as a builders labourer, no qualifications, came from a ‘dodgy’ country, totally gorgeous though. I was working in a profession, had a post-grad degree, good salary, quite quiet personality wise whereas he was out clubbing every night. As we got to know each other though we just really clicked, there was a spark, similar sense of humour, both hardworking and close to our families. Lots of friends, family, colleagues said I was mad to date him.

19 years later we’re still together, just celebrated 15th wedding anniversary, 2 dc. He started his own building company after we got married and worked really hard, pre-corona was employing 120 people, doing really well. Everyone now says how lucky I am!!

It doesn’t sound like he is falling over himself to date you. Not because of your differences, because trust me on this - if a man is really interested he will not give a shit about differences. But he probably sees you just as a friend. If he was interested he would have made a move a long time ago.

What’s a ‘dodgy country’, @ProfessorPootle? Isn’t it more that your friends’ and family’s shock was a mixture of a set of negative stereotypes about his country of origin and class disapproval?