I’m 45 and have been dating a man 44 for about 16 months now. This time last year we were totally loved up, going on lots of fun dates, trips and I even travelled on holiday with him to his home country to meet his family. There was pretty much no conflict between us and everything just seemed to click.
Over this past summer it seems like the honeymoon period is well and truly over and I feel like while he isn’t pulling back from me as such he does seem to want more time alone to dedicate to his hobbies and he seems less keen to be spending as much on going out, for meals and to clubs or bars and the like. He is also less happy about the large commute to see me as he lives about a 90 minute drive away.
When we first started dating this didn’t seem to bother him at all and he would even come out to see me in the evenings sometimes and then have to get up really early to drive back to go to work. Now that pretty much never happens, as he says he is too tired which I understand it is just disappointing that he now seems less keen to see me. I do and have always driven to see him as well but as he lived in a shared flat its was usually better for him to come to me as I live alone in my own flat. His view is that going out a lot is what you do initially but then as you get more comfortable going out is rarer so he didn’t misrepresent himself, while I feel like getting dressed up and going out to nice places has always been something I love to do.
He has been talking about getting a different job closer to me since last Christmas and moving in with me, but he keeps saying there isn’t anything suitable or that he hasn’t got an interview for something he sent his CV for. He is a warehouse worker so I know that there probably is work he could get if he tried. I own my flat, all my family are here while he rents a room in a shared flat and is only tied to his location by low paid job he could probably replicate easily elsewhere. All his family are in Europe so he has no ties really.
He also seems fed up of some things about me, like I don’t cook, I never have and never will its just a chore to me so I prefer to eat out or make do with something easy like a ready prepared meal I can bung in the oven. He’s a great cook and I love to eat his food but I feel like now that we are staying in more he’s fed up with doing the cooking and if its my turn to cook eating a supermarket pizza and salad for example, which he never used to bother about.
I am a higher earner than him and have my own home so I can understand that he can’t afford to be going out to eat as much as I would like or getting takeaway but I’ve just never liked cooking and he knows this.
I don’t know that all this is fatal, but I just hate that my honeymoon period is over and especially at my age where even if you meet and fall in love with someone you still have to wait a year or so to see how things will pan out when you both come out of the infatuation fug. I feel like I already compromised on certain things to be with him because he was so happy to be with me and made me feel really loved and wanted. I also get that its normal for the initial phase of a relationship to end for things to settle into a more relaxed vibe but its also so hard to lose that energy.
I suppose it just feels like even when you think you are wise and have your eyes open its so hard to see all the pitfalls until your out of the initial stages if you’ve been lucky enough to fall in love the its another year or two gone by and your now even older and coming face to face with certain issues that might not be resolvable.