Who moves in with who in these circumstances? Or do we just break up

[TheBunnyLover]

I really don't want to break up

Been 'together' a couple of years now but long distance.

A assured B at the beginning of the relationship that they had absolutely no problem relocating-nothing much keeping them where they were. If the relationship worked out they'd be the one to move, definitely. However they've now changed their mind on this for various very valid reasons. Not totally changed their mind, but reluctant and confused.

B was reluctant to start the relationship at all. Didn't want long distance. They'd had a turbulent time where they didn't really have a proper home for a long time (long story!) and had just got one when the relationship started. They'd also been living a long way away from family for years (over a decade) and had just managed to get to be able to move back near them and definitely did not want to entertain the idea of moving away again.

I'll describe each party's situation further.

A lives with parents. No assets or savings. Left school very young with no qualifications although did go to college and get one later on in life. Despite this, they have a job that in terms of these circumstances is very good. Decent pay and perks, four day week, they're comfortable there.
A is also autistic which presents in ways meaning finding work in a new location would be very stressful for them and quite difficult. No money to fall back on. Finds new situations and changes very stressful. A is however a bit fed up of their job and in some ways would like a change. A is very close to some family members and spends a lot of time with them and would really miss them. The area A lives in is a seaside town, high crime rates and low house prices. A wants B to move to their area and rent a place with them for a year or so then maybe think about moving to B's area.

B has a house with a mortgage in a decent yet inexpensive area. Also has four buy to let properties. Not much in savings, roughly £3-£4k but some nonetheless. Only close to one family member really. Quite high qualifications in different areas and would likely be able to find work in a new location easily-a lot of jobs in their fields would be WFH too. A bit of £ to fall back on if couldn't find work straight away. B is not working much at the moment anyway due to recent redundancy so will be looking for new work in a few months when a contract ends. B feels that A would have a better life here with them, they're understanding about A's autism and take care of their affairs a lot. B does not want to rent due to being a landlord themselves and it seeming silly (not to mention expensive) but doesn't want to buy in an area they see as undesirable (and wouldn't be able to for a while anyway due to work situation).

Neither of us want to split up-we love one another. We're not young either.

But this conversation began happening a few weeks ago and we don't know what to do-neither of us want the other to be unhappy.

Any opinions at all welcome.

And none of that is a criticism or a judgement, it is just how I see it.

Thank you @MaryMcI . I am a qualified therapist--but there’s a running joke in work communities I am in that we can seldom sort our own problems out, just everybody else’s!

You’re right of course. That energy would be much better channeled somewhere else.

I also come back to the point that if you had known then what you know now, you would have run a mile from this relationship. Not only in terms of the long distance factor

This is one of the main points isn’t it. Also you and others are right, I need to not reject my own needs-and part of this is refusing to stay in a house with a woman-hater. I really don’t like staying there anyway, It’s just weird!
I'm a grown, (long since) fully fledged adult- I don’t want to be in someone's parent’s house.

And the way he speaks to her Mother is disgusting. He had a huge shouting spree at me one night too, unluckily for him, I am calm and quite confident with those situations-and I am well-versed in pathetic, angry men, so he didn’t get the reaction he wanted. 'Aww' for him hmm?

I don’t think you know which way is up, that is why you end up going over and over it. The ‘let’s pretend’ is the relationship you want but she won’t give you, just the promise of it. (And it doesn’t matter really why she won’t, just that she won’t). I think you have been pulled probably unwittingly into a difficult situation. The thing is, you know all this now, so staying in the situation is not unwitting, it is a choice.

So many good points you make here-you’re right, I don’t know what’s going on with myself any more. I’ve become perpetually upset-obviously this can be temporarily disguised if I am engrossed in work/at the gym/at the pub/with friends but every bit of happiness I get is underpinned with sadness and feeling crestfallen and rejected.

I need to not reject myself any more-the last bit is something I often say to clients in a roundabout way!

Staying with my friend has been helpful. She’s a bit of a ‘mama bear’ type, loves having guests, cooks delicious food and is very caring to all of her friends. One of those women I just admire. She’s also on her own but much mentally stronger than me I think.

She knows a bit about my situation. She’d bought me some lovely wine and last night she heard my voice get teary while we were talking over dinner-and just came over, gave me a really huge hug and said that whatever happened she’d be there for me to get through it. Other than that one instance, I've tried really hard to just not think about it.

Your friend sounds lovely, as does your weekend with her.

When I was thinking on things earlier, it seemed to me that whenever I have been in difficult relationships (by which I mean mainly ones which have been controlling or emotionally manipulative in some way), I have had noise in my head. The noise of thinking, thinking, thinking - if I do x, or if I do y, or why did that happen like that, and why has it upset me and on like that - and having to really work hard to switch the noise off.
And when I am not in these type of relationships, my head is quiet. The pay off though has been loneliness, as I am a single parent and it’s not practical to think about another relationship right now. But equally, my life is busy, and I have lots to do, so I am content . And the bit I realised today, I would rather be alone (as in single) than have the noise in my head.

Your relationship has caused a lot of noise in your head, I think, to use my way of thinking about it. It has damaged your inner peace. But you also have good friends around you who ‘get’ you, and I think if you focus on yourself and your needs for a bit, then it will help get some peace back in your mind. The thing about not rejecting yourself any more is interesting - is it like you are looking for your DP to fill a gap instead of just being happy with who you are, and then a relationship would be an added extra?

I hope that makes sense, I am very tired today!

Thank you for another detailed reply @MaryMcI (your username makes 'Mountains of Mourne' be the 'noise' in my head but I am not complaining)!

Yes-this relationship has me guessing things all the time, that's true. Wondering what's going on, wondering why she does the things she does (especially before I learned about her autism).

The 'rejecting my needs' part, of staying at her parent's house-in relation to her Father, I have a need to not be around men like that. I also have a need to not be in a long distance relationship which, again I stressed to her from the offset.

I was quite happy with myself before this relationship, I did a lot of work on myself after my last one. I was ready to meet someone else when she came along. She's even commented herself that I've changed and become miserable.

I do feel better after a weekend away so I am not feeling down today. I am going to try to do, as you say, some concentrating on myself and my life and what makes me happy.

I am sorry you're lonely-I know how that feels, in a sense I feel very lonely myself (I've been commenting on that thread that's currently running about loneliness) but I also feel that as I have not chosen to be single, I shouldn't be!

Wonder how I can quieten my head.

Sorry to keep bumping my thread but in case anyone is still reading, I am just wondering if anyone has a theory on why I would get that feeling when she leaves and her things are dotted about my house-as if she lives here. I don't mean she makes a mess, she doesn't I'm the messy one if anything but she has so much stuff here, and it makes me feel as if she does live here in a way. IT's as if two people's things are in this house.

When she leaves, I feel like chucking it all outside. I really just want to pick up the toaster she's left in my kitchen and throw it out (I didn't have one before she brought that as I never eat toast). Same when I'm doing the washing and her jeans crop up amidst my things-I want to throw them out. Or her dog's bowl if I spot it on the floor in my porch... Why?!

I never would throw anything of course but I am not a reactive person and I don't understand WHY my head goes to that 'throw it out!' What the 'eck?!

When did this feeling start?
What if you did box it up and put it in your attic/garage?
My short answer is maybe that you feel rejected and crestfallen, and you do things to try and forget this feeling and then you see her stuff and remember.
And she’s leaving stuff like your house is her home, but she is not making it her home properly. The arrangement suits her but does not suit you, so the stuff is a reminder of that. And/or you are at a different point in your head with this relationship than DP is.

My longer answer is the emotions which are caught up in stuff. DS’s dad lived a couple of hundred miles away (and similarly said he would move, which is why we had a DC together; I have an older Dd who was in school at that point so was not prepared to move her. It became obvious he did not want to move when there was a job here which he was going to apply for and then didn’t). After one Christmas, which for various reasons had just brought to an head for me all the issues we had, I went around the house and packed also all the things which mattered to me which were DD’s or mine. We didn’t separate at that point, I just wanted to get me and DC in the car and home. But I knew I didn’t want to go back, so I took the stuff too. I couldn’t do it anymore. In the end the things I took, although I kept them, I couldn’t enjoy them here either. There are a lot of emotions in stuff.

She's marking her territory, but you know it's your home, so you're pissed off at somebody who isn't prepared to give you what you want, who practically coerced you into a relationship, who puts you into the stressful situation of being abused by her father and witnessing her mother being abused (which she doesn't seem to mind that much), metaphorically pissing over your boundaries and safe home.

And the other thing, which came to me later, but not at the time, was the insecurity. It didn’t matter what was going on when ex was here, it could be absolute chaos or half-way through a project he had started or whatever, he would still get on the train Sunday afternoon at his appointed time and go, leaving me to sort it out. It was like being abandoned over and over again. Which sounds pathetic for an adult, but how do you feel secure or that you matter in that situation? You don’t. You need to look for other things to get security (work, friends, the things you love) and then as you say, why are you having to do that when you are in a relationship.
I don’t know what the answer is - I didn’t find a way through and it became very messy legally (and damaging). You don’t have DC so if you leave, then you can leave; you just need to untangle the mess this has created in your brain.

Or this. Which is a much more succinct and to the point reply than mine. In a nutshell.

B is in the better position and A should move there. Moving to a place where A lives sounds like hell.

A needs to be very careful though, they have a lot of pitfalls in their life and becoming reliant on B could be a huge mistake and if it goes wrong will have a huge impact and set them back years.

What @NeverDropYourMooncup said.

Just bag up her stuff and get it couriered to her home - you know, the place where she WANTS to live and where you do NOT want to live.

Rip off the plaster.
Try to stop the endless ruminating.
Build up your boundaries.
Focus on what you actually want to do.
Invest in a little happiness for yourself.

@MaryMcI I think it started about 9 months ago. Right after she left. She used to spend all day Sunday here if she came for the weekend but then began leaving in the morning as soon as she woke up. Which upset me. I think that's a large part of my feeling this anger when I then spot her pjamas in my bed or her aftershave in my bathroom or whatever it may be. I'd just want to shout and fling the offending object away from me.

Nail on the head with 'the arrangement suits her but does not suit you'. I've actually said this to her before in different words such as 'Your needs are met, mine aren't' or such. 'You're happy with LDR, I'm not, I'm sad and miserable!'

So you've been strung along in a similar situation to me, but worse as you had a little boy to think of. I'm sorry-that sounds really stressful.

DP has actually told me she's applied for jobs around here and not been successful, I do believe her but after a few instances of this I asked to see her C.V and it had her address on-which I think would put employers off as she's so far away, and also it was written in two different fonts, had bad grammar and had a lot of her skills omitted.

Thank you for sharing your experience and you're right, even if we aren't consciously thinking about it, there ARE emotions in 'stuff'. I just went into the spare room where she has a wardrobe and It's full of her clothes, It's such a weird feeling to look at her winter coat sitting there, for someone who's so seldom here

Of your second post, yes that's what it feels like DP does too. Runs off and leaves me spinning around in a confusing place. It's definitely like being abandoned but all the time, not just like when someone leaves and doesn't ever come back-I guess it can feel like being dumped repeatedly but by the same person?

I don't think it sounds pathetic. Human emotion means needing to feel wanted and appreciated and these situations are going to mean those needs aren't met. Especially painful when you've invested yourself in someone.

@NeverDropYourMooncup (fab username!) yes it does feel as if she's marking her territory! better than cocking her leg up I suppose

I wonder what boundaries she's destroying, maybe because I want her here so she 'teases' me by leaving bits of her everywhere but not allowing me a real connection with her. It feels cheeky?! Somehow.

She dislikes the way I've got my house too. I'm quite old-fashioned, I like carpets and thick curtains and colour and books and oldy-worldy things. Not on trend I realise but.. and she's very minimalist, she'd have all hard floors, lots of white and grey and nothing ornamental or decorative.

I've told her she can do what she wants to my house if she contributes to it! But the point being, she complains I have too much clutter (my house isn't cluttered btw, she's just VERY minimalist and I like little artifacts) and then she brings loads of her stuff here. I'm going off on a tangent now anyway.

Ha! My ex (DS’s father) disliked how I had my house too (in fact, my house generally I think, although we would have bought a new one if he had moved here). It’s a way of undermining and devaluing you because your home is part of how you express yourself.
Boundaries - that you didn’t want an LDR, that you wouldn’t choose to stay in a house with an abuser (her dad, I mean here), that she knows the relationship doesn’t work for you but carries on regardless - and that’s just off the top of my head.

There’s the every basic boundary as well - that there is a lot of someone’s stuff in your house when they don’t live there. A toaster? Did you not have satisfactory toast-making equipment? And then you are doing her laundry too (jeans in the wash). You don’t do another adult’s laundry unless if is part of a reciprocal domestic arrangement. So on one hand, your home and stuff (toast making equipment) is not good enough, and on the other, it is expected that your home provides additional space and laundry services. Again, leading to the ‘which way is up?’ confusion.

I have read back and see that you didn’t have toast making equipment as you don’t eat toast, and now you have to make space for her toast making equipment. It’s just encroaching on your space and way of being, which would be fine in a recirprocal domestic relationship. But you if you had wanted a toaster in your life, you would have bought one.

It doesn't work for you so you have a choice. You can carry on as you are and things will never be right and you can complain, feel resentment, compromise etc etc or you can break up. You have the choice.

Some similarities here aren't they-what didn't he like?

It does feel a bit like that at times, but although I have my tastes I'd be easy-going if she lived here and wanted to make changes-NOT chastising me for my taste when she's not here and doesn't even have a house herself (referring to how she doesn't approve of my management of things).

No, i didn't have a toaster! I had one when I first moved in but it broke, and as I used it once in a blue moon I didn't see the point in replacing it, if someone stayed and wanted toast I would use the grill.

Yes, I'd have no problem washing her jeans if she lived here and was out at work or such. I'm not an unintelligent person but I think my head's just confused. There's a presence here, but there isn't

@PaminaMozart yes, I think that's what I may have do.

The thought of starting again is daunting but I've been upset and down for a long time now and it looks as if things won't change.

Not sure if I mentioned this upthread but she has a meeting with her senior manager in a couple of weeks (well it'll be less time than that now) as there's a job opportunity at the company she works for, but in my nearest town a short commute away. Upon enquiring she was told there's a ban on transfers until next year. He said he'll discuss it with her, so not sure what that means. I think if 'next year' means January, I may hold on. But if it means 'In a year's time' then no, I've had enough now. I've not seen her for two weeks although things are great when she's here, I don't enjoy visiting her and I feel a bit differently now, after having a little break with my friend, and because of all the wonderful advice on this thread.

Oh, he expected a Victorian house with bay windows, which I cannot afford in the area I live. But the schools are excellent here and I can pay for my house so 🤷🏻‍♀️
He didn’t like my crockery.
He didn’t like my cutlery.
My kitchen knives were not sharp enough (there were small children in the house)
He didn’t like my dining table and chairs.
He didn’t like my glasses (spectacles), complained and said I should get new ones. After we separated I saw a picture of me with the old glasses and they looked fine.
He didn’t like me to straighten my hair (why?!?)
He didn’t like the music I listened to. (I stopped listening to music; it was always his on when he was here).
I didn’t put the cans the right way around in the cupboard.
Actually, he didn’t like the ham I bought either.
It’s a random list, just the things I remember.
He felt entitled to comment on everything.
And looking back, I think it cannot have been like that when we started or was I so insecure, I thought his taste and judgement must be better than mine?
Where the heck were my boundaries?!?

I would have grilled the bread under the grill as well, we never had a toaster growing up - now I am trying to remember if he brought the toaster into my house or only upgraded it to a better one. His teapot took up residence, I remember that.

I think I was just too chaotic for him, really.

*regarding the ham, I feel I should explain this was because I did not insist at the deli counter that the sales assistant cut it wafer thin.

I think lifestyle preferences can be an absolute dealbreaker.

However much you love someone if one is homebody, while the other likes to party, it may not work. Cumulatively, different approaches can lead to fundamental disagreements and misery for both.

Where you prefer to go on holiday - Far East Asia vs the Lake District
Rock music vs jazz vs opera etc
Saving money vs spending it
Rural bliss vs city living
Introverts vs extraverts, quiet types vs chatterboxes...

And so on.

Yes, but I wouldn’t have chosen his furniture etc either; difference is I never said so.
I think for a relationship to work, people have to be prepared to meet in the middle. If that is not possible, then one person loses who they are if the relationship continues.

@MaryMcI That reminds me of DP complaining that my Kitchen is too small! Maybe if I moved to a dodgy area OR wasn't on my own, I might buy a larger house. But for now this is more than adequate and it does feel a bit insulting when she complains about it.

That is quite the list! I assume there must have been something about him for you to commit enough to have a child with him but that all makes him sound awful and very uptight

DP hates most of the music I listen to when I think about it. I like rock, country, classical, pop, indie-anything but jazz. She just likes dance music and that's it. I do like some dance music but she actually really dislikes most of the music I like. I have often heard a lovely song and thought of her but I daren't send her them, she just wouldn't like them.

That end part is sad-regarding your thinking he knew better than you.

My relationships earlier on in life were like that. I assumed they were 'better' than me thus I should listen to them about what was good and bad in terms of taste and things one should like/dislike.

Yes, I've made toast for guests under the grill with no problem! But I've got a huge fancy toaster now so...

Actually I've currently got an air fryer, a deep fat fryer, a pizza oven and a sandwich toaster all in my kitchen, all DPs!

As well as the toaster! 😂

They can I guess. I don't think mine and DPs preferences in any of those terms are so far apart, we both like the same sorts of things generally, and we're both quite easygoing in terms of entertainment, both like a party but also like staying at home with one another.

I mentioned upthread that years ago I dated someone but ultimately realised our lifestyles just didn't suit-she loved being abroad and spent half of her year travelling about. I'm too boring for that, I love England and I've been abroad enough times to know I am just not so bothered about it. I prefer being at home-so one of us would have always been compromised. There were other issues too but that stood out for me-I'd have gone abroad with her but not all the times, which may have upset her, I find it quite stressful. She'd have been miserable holidaying in the UK.

I do agree though @MaryMcI that compromises have to be made sometimes. I just feel I've compromised things too much so far in this relationship-not so much in terms of culture or entertainment choices but staying at her parent's is a compromise to me, as is the journey there. We compromise on things such as, I went to see a gory film at the cinema with her even though I don't like them, it made her happy-I have no qualms about that. She came to a festival with me where the music wasn't to her taste, that sort of thing, definitely important in relationships.