Should I ditch my lovely boyfriend?

[TabbyT]

I was with my abusive ex-husband for 25 years. We have three DC together. Eventually nearly 4 years ago I found the courage to leave. The divorce was finalised earlier this year.

About a year after separation I decided to try online dating and, within a few weeks I met a man who I will call John.

We have now been together for 2 ½ years. I am now 54 and he is 60. He is also divorced after a long marriage and he has two young adult DC.

He is the kindest, most caring man. He would do anything for me. We have a nice time together. The sex is really good. He is emotionally available, able to be vulnerable, and when we disagree (which is rare) he will listen and talk things through. He is a calm and stable presence and I love him.

However, for a number of reasons, I feel like I need to end it, but I’m worried I would be throwing away something really good. My marriage and my upbringing were so abusive being with a kind man feels like something very rare and I worry I would struggle to find this again.

So the negatives are: we are really at different stages of our lives. I am working in a full time, demanding professional career. I often attend evening work related events. My youngest DC is still at home with me full time (she’s still at school and her father has moved far away) and my middle one is home in the university holidays. I enjoy my work but my life can feel quite tough and relentless.

John was working when we met, but then his contract ended and he retired. I am ambitious and driven. He is not. My life is really busy – and his is not. He doesn’t seem to have much of a plan for his retirement and isn’t really doing a lot with his time.

Financially we are in different positions. I own my own house in a nice area, have a well paid job and am on track for a comfortable retirement. He is living with his mother and has no plans to move out. He will inherit a half share of her flat when she dies and plans to buy out his brother. He did have a house when he was married, his ex still lives there but it was in a much less expensive part of the country so he could not afford to buy here with the money he has.

Our friends are quite different. Mine are pretty affluent and successful in City type careers. His are more laid back, less materialistic and less career focussed.
I’m worried that if we stay together my life will be smaller and less interesting than if I was with someone more aligned with my interests. On the other hand he's so lovely and I know it's not easy to find someone at this stage of life. Thoughts lovely mumsnetters?

I don’t think you are compatible. You have different outlooks, expectations and wealth margins

I dated someone for a few months at the end of last year into this year. He was lovely and I still miss him but I relate to what you are saying about different pressures and lives. I just didn’t have the availability he wanted and it wasn’t going to work practically which we both acknowledged. I didn’t really share the whole divorce trauma, but he didn’t get my levels of constant activity. He didn’t criticise or anything, we were just different.
I have been single for thirteen years and it was the first time I had been involved with someone. I was both lucky and unlucky that he is lovely - lucky because I felt noticed and listened to and cared for (briefly) and unlucky because if he had not been lovely, I would not have found the whole thing so upsetting in the end. Had I been in a position to work this out with him, and he also wanted to, I would not have cared what other people thought or that we were different, because I appreciated and valued who he is, if that makes sense. The differences balanced and he made valid and pragmatic observations about aspects of my life which were helpful. In other words, he paid attention and listened. He also made me laugh.
That said, he was self-sufficient and had his own house and I think I would find the lack of that problematic. I also would not have described him as dull.
Maybe it’s just as well it didn’t work out with my person as he will remain just lovely and shiny in my brain and not tarnished by knowing each other better over years. I don’t know. If you get to the stage of calling someone dull and questioning the relationship on a public forum, I think you should let them go.

Far better to be alone than to be with a dull man. You're lucky you met him as he's shown you what it's like to be with a kind man, but you and he are completely incompatible and have a different view of what makes a good life. The fact he isn't working when he doesn't have much money tells you such a lot. End it nicely, but end it quickly for both of your sakes.

Our friends are quite different. Mine are pretty affluent and successful in City type careers. His are more laid back, less materialistic and less career focussed.

You sound extremely superficial. Please let John find someone who shares his values in life.

Yeah. Not in a negative way, but this is the undercurrent. You know he’s not enough, for you.

Not really, she just has a different life style. Parallel really. But not a great match.

Not entirely. If you look at most of the posts on this site, you'll see that friends are a real issue in couples.

So many couples dislike each other's friends. Or have at least one friend of their partners or spouses that they dislike.

Her choice of words is poor and it sounds very shallow of her. But it's not uncommon to dislike some or all of your partner's friends.

Ignore the posters saying you’re being mean, you know in your gut that you don’t envisage a happy future and that means this relationship won’t last.

i was there in my early 20s with a boyfriend who already seemed middle aged in his ways and I wanted to go out and be free. He was a lovely man but absolutely not the man I wanted to spend my life with because the adventure I craved in life wasn’t his and whilst he would have done anything for me I would have been dragging him out into the world when really he just wanted to stay in. I ended things after almost 3 years and members of my family have mentioned him since thinking he was the one I should have stayed with, but I 100% know he wasn’t. My fiancé now is equally loving, calm and gentle but also has a desire to explore and to achieve things in life. He’s happy to stay in but not averse to going out and so he is so much better suited to me than my ex ever was.

The answer is to end it, but try to be genuinely happy on your own instead of seeking a new man for the sake of it.

You should finish the relationship so that John is free to find someone who really appreciates him. You want different things and that’s ok. And you are right, finding a decent partner is difficult but that doesn’t mean you have to settle. Equally, John shouldn’t be made to feel that you have compromised and settled for him. There are lots of fab women out there who could make John very happy.

It could work if he was relaxed about you going out to your events and work stuff. Is he? Or is he throwing you signs that he wants you to become a homebody as well?

I am in my 50s too, love books, debates and enjoy working. I want to do more overseas travel too. I could be with a guy who was the opposite IF he encouraged me to pursue my interests and be myself. But if he was making noises like “why do you want to go there?” I would see us as incompatible. It would be good to know where your boyfriend was on that front.

Thanks so much for all the replies, it’s giving me a lot of food for thought. I think it’s time for an honest chat about the future.

No one knows if you’ll find someone new but maybe that’s worth the risk of the opportunity and if you feel you can enjoy your busy life without a significant other.
I was in a situation with similarities to you and I decided to end the relationship and I don’t regret it. Good luck OP.

I think it is difficult to move on from someone who is nice but not the right one.

Sounds like you've found someone who is living in a different class to where you are. I think it's called eschelons. I can't advise what you should do but it won't be an easy decision whatever. Stay and suffer long term, leave and suffer short term.

I would be really wary of letting him go.

I’d worry that after 25 years of an abusive relationship a nice normal relationship would seem boring by comparison

And while he doesn't try to stop me doing things he gets quite upset when I am too busy to see him or want to do things without him with my DC.

I felt slightly sorry for him until I read that comment. Call it a day, you're too young to allow this man to make your life get smaller and smaller after you've escaped one unhappy marriage. Enjoy your life, career, children now and remember it's not essential to have a full-time partner to make you happy.

Would you judge a 60 year old woman that lives with her mother? Would that make you shudder? People like you keep the Patriarchy ticking along and make me shudder.

I don’t think you sound sneering or superficial - I think you sound sad. You really like this man but he isn’t a good fit for you. It sounds like you want to be in a relationship but not this relationship.

It’s too wide a gulf and you both deserve to be with someone who makes you completely happy and proud of yourself. Time to move on but it’s no one’s fault - you’re just not compatible.

He will inherit a half share of her flat when she dies and plans to buy out his brother.

Where will the funds to buy out his brother's share come from?

He’s not a ‘good package’ at all! Sure he’s ‘nice’, but that’s hardly rare, and the sex is good, but he’s dull, old before his time, a low-energy potterer, his conversation is ‘pedestrian’, he’s badly-read, silent in company, and already resents time the OP spends doing her own thing. They have completely different ideas about how to spend the next 20 or 30 years. He wants to camp and potter, the OP wants to work as an arts trustee and travel.

He’s a perfectly nice, but not at all suited to her.

No I didn't. I have been single ever since.

I think you also need to bear in mind that you are 54 and your own energy levels could change a lot.
At 52 I was dating someone of 58. They were a bit of a homebody and I had a busy active social life and I felt concern that they'd want me to stay home with them and my social life would gradually be curtailed.
They planned early retirement and had no plans for what to do with their retirement beyond sitting on the sofa and going for a couple of strolls each day. I was only just over 50 and retirement and slowing down weren't even on my radar so it was a big leap to have to start thinking about those things, and be helping a partner with pension planning!

We split up for a combination of reasons, but to my surprise, 3 years later I find myself much more home-based, going out leaves me tired the next day, and I am very focussed on my pension and saving for retirement.

A lot can happen in your 50s. It may not, but it might.

I think the bigger question is, do you really love him?

He already wants me to retire which is obviously not going to happen any time soon!

So you can both idle around and potter, until early-onset old age sets in - no thanks!

He doesn't sound very lovely to me.

I haven’t read the whole thread but what about his friends? Does he have any and do you find them boring?
It is very likely that he finds your friends boring too, so it’s probably a two way thing. I don’t mean to be rude but I find city-type highly ambitious people boring too, just a different world to mine. It’s nothing personal but that lifestyle is just alien to mine, very materialistic and shallow.
As you get older you might slow down to his level and will like pottering about, like him.