Anyone else feel like they’re living 2 lives?

[PumpkinWanker]

Been in a relationship for 4 years post divorce of 6 years ago.
We live about a 30 minute drive from each other, both work full time and have dc’s.
I tend to stay at his usually once a week, sometimes we get weekends away or it can be 2 nights if circumstances allow.

I love hanging out there, we do walks, go out for drinks, there’s no cleaning he cooks for me and treats me nicely. Then I come home back to my house where I feel lonely. (Kids are teens and although lovely don’t tend to hang out much with me).

The arrangement suits us both as never want to blend families and it’s nice having space but sometimes I wish he was there at the end of the working day, house decisions could be shared. Just general humdrum of life things. I don’t always feel like this just sometimes when we’ve had such a lovely couple of days feels like coming back to earth with a bang and also feels like our lives are so very separate too as popping in for dinner/a cuppa doesn’t really happen with the distance.

Anyone in similar set ups?

In a similar set up for 5 years. We got married in August, and plan to still live separately until our DC's (mine young teen, his a bit older) are older. We live 30 miles apart.
I feel the same sometimes at the end of a lovely weekend, but overall know that my own space is exactly that. I sometimes think how nice it might be to share house admin with another competent adult, but also spent years previously with someone incapable and it made me miserable. For all the expense and mental load on just me, I'd still take that over sharing my space right now. We feel the same, which is important.

With my DH time together is really special. We speak every day; he is my best friend.
It's definitely unconventional (to other people) but it works for us.

Yes, I feel just the same. I adore being at his place, he looks after me so well. It's like a mini break each time.

Then I'm back home and it almost doesn't even feel real somehow. And I'm lonely in the evenings.

Plus he's not great via text etc. So I lose the feeling of connection.

He is looking at buying a place much closer to me soon so I'm going to see if that improves things. If I could just pop round to connect for a couple of hours mid week, just watch TV on the sofa with him then home again, I think that might help.

Interested in how this thread develops. I’m only 4 months in to a similar relationship having been single and relatively happy for several years. I’m finding the sense of loss after a lovely weekend increasing, but really have no desire to take on his DC who are a bit younger than mine if this does go places - I probably have just 2 more years of parenting and do have days off. He has a minimum of 6 years left, and no routine days without them, though we have managed a few days and nights without as snatched opportunities. It’s feeling difficult.

It is difficult @ocelot3 there's no getting away from that. Mine at least only has adult children. But I have at least 4 more years to go. It does feel like everything is in separate boxes.

I’m sorry but I couldn’t maintain this set up indefinitely, let alone for the last 4 years and I too love my own space and independence but I can’t wait to live together with my boyfriend.

I too live between my house and my his and like you, it’s idilic when we’re together and then feels like a sense of loss when I’m back home. It makes me want to be with him more and set up a family home together.

I love the time with him. I haven’t got my “mum hat” on (albeit he has DC with him full time) so I can relax a bit. But I also enjoy looking after him because he has DC all the time no one looks after him IYSWIM.

We are planning on living together. Just waiting on right house, right timing of schooling / GCSE’s / Alevels etc. For now we make the best out of the situation and love that quality time together. When I am on my own, focus on my own wellbeing (gym, yoga, run, friends) which is good for me.

Yes, my partner is American and it's so lovely when he's here. He usually stays for 6-8 weeks at a time so it's a wrench when he's gone. Just so lovely to have someone to eat with, chat to, just be there. I'm not ashamed to admit I prefer living with someone now.

Thank you for all the responses- it’s good to know I’m not alone as I don’t know anyone else in real life in this scenario for this long a time period.

i think we both keep each other at a bit of a distance if I’m honest with myself - him because I think he’s an introvert and doesn’t need many people in his life and me because I’ve been badly hurt in the past and would struggle to have anyone fully in my close circle of family and friends.

Logically I know that me and my dc are better just being just us emotionally and in some ways financially whereas my heart really desires a true partnership but I think what is the likelihood of ever having that.

@LittleJustice I wonder if, like you, the ‘moving nearer to each other but not living together’ is the compromise that might make things easier if for me, if things progress in the future. In past relationships, where I have been the one with DC and a more demanding home life, I’ve been the one to ‘do less running’ and have a longer term ‘boyfriend’ come to mine more. Whereas now, despite my busy work and parenting life, his is much worse and DC are younger teens. I am very conscious that his domestic routine is frenetic and much more unstructured than mine, so there’s no way I would want to bring my youngest DC into that, having worked so hard to establish a very stable home life for my family over the years. I’m working hard to draw boundaries quite clearly right now, despite yearning to spend more time in this new relationship. I’m guarding against my time off from my own DC being filled by me being integrated into a different and much more chaotic domestic life at his, so that we protect time as a couple and I look after myself. Difficult teen DC was definitely not on my ‘list of the ideal partner,’ but meeting him began as an unexpected encounter that was unplanned and took us both by surprise in finding someone that otherwise feels so right. Time will tell, anyway…

@PumpkinWankerit sounds like there is some great value in the set up you have, where you can regularly remember who you are without your mum-hat on though… I guess many people who are parenting with their partners full time rarely get that any more. They wear mum hat full time and for some/many their partners have stopped treating them in the cherishing way you describe! I absolutely get the sense of loss when you get home, but I do also value the fact that I’m doing the right thing for my DC by having my home set -up undisrupted by any man (especially my ex)! Plus I always found as a single parent that making the effort with myself to feel polished and looking nice for a date/weekend away takes time, so it’s easier to do that when someone lives half an hour away rather than them unexpected popping in when I’m focusing on more domestic and work routines! At this early stage in my new relationship I’ve upped my game on that front compared to the last few years when I never even met anyone I was interested in dating and am grateful I have windows of time to do it!

Yes, me 🤚

Coming back to this later as I’m popping out now.

I’m back 🤣

I am doing the split life thing but in a slightly different way. I have my teens week on/week off, and in the ‘off’ weeks my partner lives here, and goes back to his place for the following week.

I find it very hard. We feel very much that this is ‘our’ home, we decorate together, we live a full life together, but when the kids are here for a week it basically stops.

The evenings are so boring with teens aren’t they? 80-90% of the time they’re happy in their rooms, and I sit alone in the lounge basically being available to
them, waiting for some company, and it makes no sense to me that my partner is sitting alone in his home a mile up the road.

But I’ve only been separated from their dad for 18 months so I’m trying not to put this on them too much. I was thoroughly lonely and unhappy for the last four years of my marriage, and looking back it was not right from around the time our eldest was born.

I didn’t expect to meet someone so quickly, and someone who is so much the right person for me, and it does make things feel difficult. I absolutely do not want to wish my time with the kids away but they have their own lives and hanging out with their mum isn’t that high on their agenda 🤣

But thank you OP for starting this thread; I don’t know anyone who lives in this way in real life and it can feel a bit lonely and like nobody understands the emotional ups and downs that come with it.

This is me too. Only 2 years since the split, found someone lovely unexpectedly quickly. We don't get as much time together as you do but it feels so right when we are together. We're a complete couple.

Then I have to come home, be the service human that is Mum, and pass lonely evenings whilst just being there for them to touch base either, make them food and service the house.

No help from their dad either as he has left the country. So I am 100% responsible.

The service human. Exactly that. While my full rich life is so close.

I’ll be honest, I have no intention of living like this long term; many people on here claim they wouldn’t look to meet anyone until their kids have fully fledged. I saw one woman say she was waiting til her youngest graduate!

Thats not for me - I am a mother but I am also a woman entitled to a life. I would imagine that in the next year the black/white existence will begin to merge into one.

As they rarely leave their rooms anyway, I can’t see what huge difference it would make.

Do you communicate much when youre not together physically? Would more phone calls, or maybe watching a TV show together but in separate locations help (like watch parties during the bad old Covid times)? Is there a thread for people in long distance relationships you could take a look at and maybe get some ideas from?

Perhaps the posters that feel like 'the service human' in their household need to look at switching things up? Give more responsibility to teens (they can make their own bloody food and do chores too), find a hobby, go out with friends - find things that makes your life enjoyable. I don't believe a a partner should fill all the gaps and it's surprising that people who are divorced would put all their eggs in one basket. What happens if you split up?

Just to clarify that I do have a rich social life with lots of really good friends. It's not going out that's a problem. You kind of miss someone to lie on the sofa with and watch TV on an ordinary evening. And making food together, all the boring stuff really.

And my kids are completely self sufficient and capable. Them making their own food etc (which they do a lot when I'm out) wouldn't make any difference.

If you're not living it or enjoy living separate lives then you won't understand. But I get it, OP, and others who feel the same way. It's tough when you feel this way.

Oh the kids do do those things - they’re just not really up for hanging out much, 20 minutes here and there, we cooked and baked yesterday for example.

I don’t really have any female friends now - everyone was always playing ‘I’m so busy but I might have an hour on a Tuesday night four months from now’ so I let those slide. My partner and I met through our shared interests, and we do those together. I’m not worried about splitting up but if we did I’d start again like I already did 🤷🏻‍♀️