I have crossed London 27 times. He has never come to me
I’m 24 and I have been seeing a man of 27 for nearly six months.
He lives alone in south London. I live with my parents in the north, so we nearly always go to his.
At first that was completely logical. His flat is private. Mine comes with my dad asking whether anybody wants tea and my younger brother walking into rooms without knocking.
The journey is about 75 minutes each way. I did not mind when everything was new. I would finish work, change on the train and get the last Tube home the next morning.
He has never made the journey in my direction.
I did not notice properly until my friend asked where we go near mine. The answer was nowhere.
I suggested a Saturday here last weekend. Not meeting my parents or staying over. Just lunch, the park and the pub where my friends go.
He laughed and asked whether he needed a passport.
I laughed too, then asked seriously.
He said it seemed pointless when we could have the flat to ourselves at his. I said the point was seeing a bit of my life instead of me constantly travelling into his.
That turned into an argument about scorekeeping.
He said I had agreed to the arrangement for months and could not suddenly present him with an invoice for train journeys. He was right about one thing: I had agreed. Nobody forced me onto the Victoria line.
But I counted afterwards. Twenty-seven trips to his area. Two Ubers home when the trains failed. He has met my friends once, in Soho, because I brought them closer to him.
The fact that I counted probably tells me how resentful I already am.
I am not asking for perfectly equal mileage. I am asking whether the inconvenience always belongs to me because my home is less useful.
Yesterday I told him I am not coming south for the next two weeks. It was not meant as a test, though it probably sounds like one. I said I would like him to plan something near me or halfway if he wants to meet.
He replied, “Okay, fair.”
No plan yet.
I feel petty and relieved at the same time.
The distance between us has not changed. I have just stopped automatically being the person who absorbs all of it.
6 votes 1 repliesnorthbound_only
I broke no contact when his dad died
I ended things with him five months ago after nearly two years of being almost together.
We were exclusive without calling it exclusive, spent most weekends together and knew each other’s friends. Every few months I would ask whether we were actually building a relationship. He would say he cared about me but could not promise the kind of future I wanted. Then we would have a sad conversation, agree to take some space and be back in bed within a week.
In April I finally stopped.
It was not dramatic. I told him I could not keep behaving like his partner while being asked not to expect a partnership. I blocked him because we had already proved that “staying friends” meant restarting. The first month was awful. By August I was sleeping properly and had stopped checking whether he had viewed things through mutual friends.
Then his dad died.
I knew his dad. Not well, but enough to have eaten Christmas lunch at his house and received a birthday card written in capital letters. When a friend told me, not sending anything felt cruel.
I sent one message saying I was sorry and that I was thinking of his family. He replied immediately. We spoke on the phone that evening for nearly two hours.
I went to the funeral. Afterwards he asked if I could stay for a drink because everyone else was leaving. I did. He cried. I stayed at his flat, on the sofa at first, and then not on the sofa.
That was three weeks ago.
Since then we have spoken every day. I have brought food round twice. He came to mine on Saturday and stayed until Monday morning. It feels tender and familiar, which is exactly the problem.
Nothing about the relationship question has changed. I asked him last night, gently, whether he saw this as us getting back together. He said he cannot think about labels or the future while grieving. I believe him. His grief is real. I also heard the same answer I spent two years trying to wait into a different one.
I am angry with myself because I knew where the door led when I opened it. I am also angry at the idea that setting the boundary again makes me heartless when he is going through something terrible.
This morning I told him I care about him and I am not disappearing as punishment, but I cannot be the person he sleeps beside, calls first and leans on like a partner while our relationship remains off limits. I said I would send a meal through our mutual friend this week, but I would not keep coming over privately.
He said the timing was cruel.
Maybe it is. There is no kind week to say that grief does not turn an old mismatch into a new agreement.
I keep wanting to send another message explaining it better. I have already written three and deleted them. I am putting this here instead because explaining has always been how I turn a boundary back into a conversation, and a conversation back into us.
15 votes 4 repliesTryingNotToExplain
His mum needed him. I couldn’t keep living on postponed plans
I’m 47 and my now ex is 45. We were together for three years.
For the first eighteen months it felt very straightforward. We lived about forty minutes apart, spent most weekends together and had started talking seriously about finding a place halfway between our jobs. I met his mum often. She is funny, stubborn and completely devoted to a quiz show I cannot stand.
Then she had a stroke.
She came home needing help with meals, medication, washing and getting around the house. My ex moved into her spare room because there was nobody else nearby who could do it. He has a sister, but she lives in Canada and could only come for short visits.
At first I thought we were pausing our plans for a few months. I tried to be useful. I cooked, drove them to appointments and stayed at my flat when he was too exhausted for company. We still saw each other, but the relationship happened around whatever crisis had occurred that week.
A year passed.
Every time I asked about us, he said he could not think beyond getting his mum through the next stage. That was true. It was also the answer to everything: holidays, where we might live, whether I should stop renewing my lease for another full year.
I became resentful and then ashamed of being resentful. His mum had not chosen this. He was not out drinking or keeping me hidden. He was caring for somebody he loved.
But I was also organising my life around a future that no longer had a date, a plan or even a shape.
In June I asked whether he wanted to build a life with me if the caring situation stayed roughly as it was. I was not asking him to leave his mum. I wanted to know whether we could make decisions inside the reality we had, rather than waiting for the old reality to return.
He said he could not promise anything while she needed him.
I asked what would count as a change. More outside care? His sister spending longer here? Me moving closer? He said discussing it felt as though I was turning his mum into a problem to solve.
That hurt, because I cared about her. It also made the decision clearer.
We ended things six weeks ago. It was not angry. He said he understood that waiting indefinitely was still asking something enormous of me. I said I understood that he did not have the capacity to design a new version of our relationship while trying to keep his mum safe.
I still worry about both of them. Last week I nearly messaged to ask whether the stair rail had finally been fitted. I stopped because I knew the question would become a conversation, then a visit, then another month of behaving as if concern had solved the incompatibility.
I did not leave because he cared for his mum. I left because our entire relationship had become a postponed plan, and he could not tell me whether he wanted to make one inside the life he actually had.
31 votes 12 repliesNotAnotherSpring
i just want to know why he is ignoring me
he has not replied to my message for three days now. i sent a simple text on Tuesday asking if he was free for a drink this weekend and he just left it on read. honestly, i feel stupid for even sending it. we have been seeing each other for eight months and it always feels like this. i know people are busy at work, but it takes two seconds to send a thumbs up or just say you are tied up. i am not asking for a huge commitment or for him to move in or anything like that. i just want a bit of consistency. i keep checking my phone every hour and it is driving me mad. maybe i am overreacting, but it is just so frustrating when we act like everything is fine when we are together and then he vanishes as soon as we part ways. i am not trying to be pushy or clingy, honestly, i just hate the silence. i keep wondering if i said something wrong last time we saw each other but i really do not think i did. it just feels like i am always the one putting in the effort to make plans. sorry for the essay, i just really needed to get this out somewhere because my head is spinning.
34 votes 10 repliesanxious_mess_88