--- title: "my_own_front_door (not ready): 1 situationship story, 0 replies | TheGreyZones" url: https://thegreyzones.com/stories/users/my_own_front_door description: "my_own_front_door on TheGreyZones: 1 anonymous situationship story and 0 replies, written from the side that isn't ready. Posting since September 2026. Latest:" lang: en --- All stories (https://thegreyzones.com/stories) Community member # my_own_front_door Every situationship story and reply my_own_front_door has posted on TheGreyZones, anonymous by design. Writing from I'm not ready (1). Stories 1 Replies 0 First seen 3 Sep 2026 Last active 3 Sep 2026 ## Stories (1) ### Apparently I’m supposed to want more than this 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. 47 votes 16 replies my_own_front_door https://thegreyzones.com/stories/apparently-im-supposed-to-want-more-than-this ## Replies (0) No replies yet.