I'm in my mid 50s. Been in a relationship for about 5 years now with DP. We are both financially independent, have our own place, do lots of nice things together, share interests, go on great holidays. He is consistent, generous, reliable, interesting and I find him physically attractive, which is nothing short of a miracle by the time you get to your mid-50s. We don't live together.
I have two early 20s children and a medium sized family who I see regularly. He has no children, one surviving parent and an estranged sibling who is 14 years younger than him. One of my DC still lives at home and the other lives in a shared house with friends, but comes home reasonably frequently.
Part of the reason we don't live together is that when we discussed it seriously, I said that it was really important to me that wherever I lived my children would always have a place to stay. Their father is a complete tool and they definitely are not welcome to stay with him, so I want them to feel that there is a home for them with me. My eldest is autistic and does now have a decent job with career prospects but still needs a fair bit of support with personal admin and just life generally. I see that DC living independently but not quite yet. DP said that whilst he'd always be happy to welcome both my DC into a shared home, it would have to be on a strictly time limited basis. I found that very off-putting and it made me decide to continue living in my own home.
I'm increasingly noticing that he has huge difficulties sharing people and is very insular. He doesn't like sharing his remaining parent with the step-parent and always prefers to meet them alone. Part of the reason I think he is estranged from his sibling is because he went from being an only child, who was clearly the apple of his parents' eye to having to share that attention. And he dislikes sharing me, not with friends and he isn't trying to isolate me, but sharing me with my family and particularly my children. He is incredibly reluctant to join in with my larger family events and more often than not will have other commitments that seem to prevent him from coming to birthday celebrations and so on. Obviously, with only one remaining family member that he sees at all, it is not something that happens much in his life.
He reiterated this weekend how important it was for him that we spend time together "alone". I don't disagree but we already spend every second weekend together alone and we also spend every holiday we go on "alone". For me it is important that he can be part of my family, which he definitely isn't at all. He sits on the outside dipping in very, very occasionally. I felt so profoundly sad when he said his alone thing again this weekend and I'm still trying to process it.
I can't change him, the only thing I can change is my approach and my response. I am a post-therapy people pleaser. My first instinct is to want to "fix" this by giving him more alone time, but my post-therapy self knows that this is not the solution. What I'm not entirely sure is how to tackle the issue, if it is even worth tackling, or if I accept that to have a relationship with him, this is how it has to be.
Thoughts welcome!