Apparently I’m supposed to want more than this
my_own_front_door · Posted 3 Sep 2026, 07:03
I’m 63, widowed, and I’ve been seeing a man I met through a walking group for about 18 months. He’s 66 and divorced. We both have grown-up children and grandchildren. My daughter thinks I’m being strung along. The reason is that we don’t live together, don’t plan to marry and don’t spend every free day together. I usually see him on Wednesday evening and one day at the weekend. We’ve been away twice. We don’t do Christmas together because we both want to be with our own families and neither of us wants to spend Boxing Day negotiating whose children have been offended. I realise that doesn’t sound very romantic written down. It is, though. He brings me the terrible liquorice tea I like. I go to his house and complain about the volume of the television. We know each other’s friends. If one of us has something important happening, the other turns up. We are exclusive, although neither of us particularly enjoys the word exclusive at our age. Mostly we say we’re seeing each other. About six months in he asked if I wanted us to become a proper couple. I asked what he meant and he said he wasn’t entirely sure. After quite a funny conversation, it turned out he thought he ought to offer marriage and living together because that was what a decent man did. I thought I ought to want those things because that was what proved I wasn’t settling. Neither of us actually wanted them. I loved being married to my husband. I also spent 34 years sharing cupboards, money, holidays and a bathroom with another human being. I don’t want to do it again. He feels the same after a divorce that took three years and enough solicitor’s letters to wallpaper his hall. So we made some actual agreements instead. We don’t date other people. We tell each other if we need more or less time. We plan trips a few months ahead. Our children have one another’s numbers for emergencies, but they are the first call, not us. Nobody is quietly waiting for a proposal. My daughter still worries. Last week she said, “What if he never takes the next step?” I told her this is the step. She looked at me like I’d joined a cult. I do understand where she’s coming from. When I was younger, a relationship that stayed like this probably would have made me miserable. I wanted marriage, children, a shared home, all of it. I wasn’t wrong then and I’m not wrong now. They are just different lives. Maybe one of us will change our mind. If that happens, we’ll have to talk again. But I’m not sitting here hoping he’ll offer more, and he isn’t using vagueness to get out of caring for me. We have been fairly annoyingly clear. I suppose I’m posting because so many people seem to think anything short of moving in together must be a waiting room. This doesn’t feel like waiting. It feels like coming home on Sunday night, putting my own key in my own front door, and being very pleased to see him again on Wednesday.
What should they do? · 47 votes
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I don’t think your daughter is wrong for checking that you’re happy, but she seems to be measuring progress by milestones neither of you wants. You’ve actually discussed exclusivity, time, family and emergencies. That sounds more defined than plenty of relationships with a conventional label.
The liquorice tea and separate front doors sounds ideal to me tbh. You’re not waiting. Your daughter is.
This sounds more deliberate than plenty of conventional relationships. You have discussed exclusivity, family, emergencies, time together and what happens if either person’s needs change. Separate homes are not the same thing as an undefined relationship.
“This is the step” is such a good answer. A relationship does not need to be travelling towards cohabitation to be committed; it needs both people to understand and genuinely choose the arrangement they are in.
I lost my husband three years ago and the idea of merging homes again still feels overwhelming. This post gives me hope that closeness and separate space can coexist when both people choose it clearly.
Your daughter may be trying to protect you using the only relationship map she trusts. The useful difference is that you are not defending vagueness: you and he have made specific agreements and can revisit them if either person’s needs change.
The post says they both visit, travel together and show up for important events, so the liquorice tea and television are probably examples rather than the whole pattern. Their practical agreements sound deliberately mutual.
I like that your agreements cover the unromantic details: emergencies, holidays, exclusivity and what happens if somebody’s needs change. Those choices tell me more about commitment than sharing a postcode would.
The liquorice tea detail made me smile too. This sounds committed in the ways that matter to both of them, even though it does not follow the usual path towards sharing a home.
After a difficult divorce, wanting a relationship and wanting your own home can coexist. I liked the way they replaced assumptions about the next step with actual agreements.
I can understand why your daughter worries about future security, especially as she loves you. But your clear agreements, emergency plans and willingness to revisit them sound more useful than taking a conventional step neither of you wants.
Keeping separate homes can be part of why a relationship works, not evidence that it is incomplete. Their tea, television and family routines sound deliberately negotiated rather than avoided.
My partner and I also keep separate homes, and having our own bathrooms is genuinely part of why it works. The clarity matters more to me than following the usual sequence.
Sharing the emergency plan with your daughter might reassure her, provided you actually want to. You can take her concern seriously without asking her to approve the relationship structure you have chosen.
They have discussed illness and agreed to revisit care rather than assume separate homes mean separate lives. That conversation will need more detail as circumstances change, but it has not been ignored.
Loving a former spouse deeply does not obligate somebody to recreate the same household structure later. It is good to hear that this chosen arrangement made your own preference feel less lonely.
I like my quiet house too. Separate homes can be a positive choice when both people want them, not evidence that the relationship is missing a compulsory next step.
My partner and I have kept separate homes for three years and it suits us. The difference is that we have also agreed what commitment, emergencies and holidays mean, so neither of us is waiting for a different arrangement.
Her daughter may be measuring the relationship against a life stage that once suited her mother but no longer does. The concern can be loving even if the conclusion about moving in is wrong.
Her daughter appears worried rather than controlling. She may be using marriage and cohabitation as her definition of security, while her mother has deliberately chosen a different one.