Dear Aunt Acid,
I’ve been with my partner for almost three years, living together for two. We have made a great little home together with cats and food and decor we both like. I really do love living with him. But sharing my space with him also just makes me anxious for reasons I can’t define. This has been true my whole adult life with any kind of roommate: I’m always hyper-conscious of what they’re up to, I feel weird doing things in my own corner of the house without them, and I feel a constant tension between wanting to do things with them and wanting to be alone. With a romantic partner this is elevated: I want to tend to his needs and receive affection, but I also want to be left alone. Sharing the space seems to give me a constant low current of anxiety. And yet I lived alone for years and was lonely and miserable the whole time! I want to share my life with him, but especially as it gets wintery and we’re both inside together all the time, I’d like to gain full peace of mind about sharing space with another human.
Space-Needing Cadet
Friend Cadet,
Small apartments during cold winters can be hard on everyone, especially when our anxieties alone take up what feels like at least 150 square feet. That’s valuable real estate for which our anxieties are not paying rent. It simply can’t be allowed.
You are voicing, in this letter, an unhappiness that goes back years and pre-dates your current living arrangement. What’s making you unhappy isn’t so much your partner as those anxieties, and they will continue making you unhappy until you deal with them. Right now your partner isn’t helping. You haven’t given him the chance.
Dissatisfaction can feel like a hailstorm happening inside our own heads, an endless window-rattling howl-a-thon so insistent and destructive that it seems amazing our partners can’t hear it – and yet, that’s subjectivity. Your partner is probably distracted by his own internal hailstorms, or else by “Bojack Horseman.” You have to tell him there’s a problem for him to know.
Yes, confrontation is scary. Admitting you have these frustrations with your living arrangement – let alone that you would like them to be dealt with – is terrifying. But to share space effectively with someone else, one has to have the courage to summon up one’s needs from where they’ve been safely stowed away and introduce those needs to one’s partner. “Here’s my need for some alone time, especially when I first come home from work,” one says. “Here’s my need for affection and approval, and here’s my need for the occasional Shouldless Day spent watching ‘Dr. Who’ or re-reading T.H. White or dressing up the cats like the cast of ‘Rocky Horror’ and posting pictures on Instagram.”
It doesn’t matter how seemingly rational those needs are, how mundane, how reflexive, how petty. They’re your needs, and they’re powerful, and you’re stuck with them. Your partner, if he wants to stay with you, is stuck with them too. At least now he gets to know what they are. I sincerely doubt that they’re so terrifying that he’ll run screaming into the wilderness; and if he does, well, then he wasn’t the guy for you.
Let’s give him some credit and assume he’ll stay. Maybe he’ll even make friends with your needs. (“So you’re what she’s been hiding all these years! Tell me about yourselves. Where do you hail from, anyway?”) Right now, you’re pretending your needs don’t exist so that you can seem smaller, easier, lower-maintenance. Women are often taught to do that, just as they are taught to host in their own homes: to make everyone else feel comfortable, regardless of how they feel; to anticipate other people’s needs and repress their own. To take up as little space as possible. But this act you’re putting on is not merely retro, it’s disingenuous, and it’s destroying you.
How your partner reacts when you open up about your needs is key to what happens next. And I can’t glean any hints from your letter. You mention, for example, that you want to tend to his needs, but you do not mention how either of you feel about whatever needs of yours he does know about or intuit. Does he make accommodations for what he perceives to be your preferences? Is he clingy, and does that aggravate your claustrophobia? What’s his part in all of this? Is it that he wants to help facilitate your happiness but doesn’t know how? I hope very much the answer to that last question is “yes” and, indeed, that he’ll be relieved that you’ve at last given him something he can do.
Figuring out potential solutions to try together is the next step. Perhaps all he needs to give you is permission to follow your own instincts. To spend time with him if you want to, rather than because you feel obliged out of an assumption that you have to host him in your joint home. To spend some time in solitude, especially during certain times of the day or when you feel triggered. To have a corner of the apartment you can retreat to you can stage your “Rocky Horror” feline photoshoots. To try a larger apartment altogether where you can actually have a Room Of One’s Own.
Peace of mind requires living with integrity. It’s hard to summon the courage to be honest, to admit that you’re not some super host person but instead a regular messy human being who requires attention and care. But dear God, there’s no quiet like the quiet when the hailstorms stop.
Good luck, Cadet.
–Aunt Acid
Dear Aunt Acid,
In the past year I have begun to seriously question my gender identity, and have started slowly coming out to myself and a select few others as non-binary/genderqueer/gender fluid (I am still not sure which label fits me best). With this has come a change in my gender presentation, towards the masculine side — I am AFAB and up to this point had been living as a cis woman. I am afraid that my new presentation, while it feels more authentic to me, will cause my partner of ten years to no longer feel attracted to me. While he is bisexual, his preference is for binary-identified and -presenting people — that is, masculine men and feminine women.
The biggest sticking point so far has been shaving, or lack thereof. I no longer shave my legs as much as I used to because it no longer feels “right,” or at least necessary, for my gender. However, he has a hard time viewing it as anything other than an indication that I no longer care to get “made up” for him or care about his preferences. I’ve tried explaining that it’s not about carelessness, but instead about a change in what makes me feel attractive to myself; he seems unable to fully grasp how deeply gendered I experience shaving, though, and sees it as merely an aesthetic preference. He says he’s tried to get used to unshaven legs and simply hasn’t been successful. Do you have advice on how to frame this conversation so we can be constructive, or advice on how we can find some sort of compromise? We still love each other very much, and we want to spend the rest of our lives together, but we don’t know how to resolve this conflict.
Insert Clever Pseudonym Here
Friend Pseudonym,
I don’t know how much patience to urge you to have with your partner. He’s been with you for a decade, whereas you’ve only been on this journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance for less than a year. Maybe he simply needs some time to catch up. Or maybe he’s a deeply traditional person in terms of what he likes and another ten years wouldn’t be sufficient to get him to appreciate you, hairy legs and all.
Regardless, you sound like a catch. You’re trying to live honestly, even when it complicates your life. You’re doing the hard work of figuring out who you are and what you need. And, at the same time, you’re sufficiently kind that you’re looking for a constructive way to talk to someone who sees the legs you were born with in their natural state and says, “Ew.” Who interprets your efforts to live in a more authentic, comfortable way as an affront to him, because you’re doing less of the lady grooming he has been (forgive me) groomed to prefer.
Sure, there are compromises you could try. Shave sometimes, even though you don’t like to. Wear thigh-highs during sex. Open up your relationship so that he can occasionally have dalliances, or you two can have three-ways, with silky-legged femmes. But I can’t imagine these are functional long-term solutions, because the issue is a more fundamental one: you are changing, and your partner wants you to stay the same.
It happens in the best of relationships. Your partner can grow along with you; he can put in a good-faith effort to understand what’s happening and adjust accordingly, however long it takes him. Or he can move on.
As of now, you’re running a marathon and, instead of cheering you on, your partner is letting you know that he doesn’t find sweat attractive and by the way would it kill you to put on some lipstick. You deserve better.
–Aunt Acid
FWIW, I very much need my own space and time – I’ve been in a long-distance relationship for coming up five years and been perfectly happy with it, and for impending new job//rental period gap reasons the gentleman caller has been staying with me since September in my one-bedroom flat and it has been difficult. Luckily it’s been hard for both of us as he is much the same and used to living on his own, so we’re on the same page at least. I work at home and we normally pass on the stairs when he comes home from his temp job and I go out to the horses, and he’s said he really values and needs that time without me there. You’re not alone!
Seconded, LW1 is very not alone! Do either/both of you have regular out of house time scheduled? Living together became so much easier on my anxious brain when he started going to a weekly game night without me and I developed a weekly solo walk to the library routine. I’m fine with saying “I need alone time today” but alone time (and not the he’s-in-the-other-room kind) that I can look forward to and not have to actively ask for is great.
Also, if you have trouble articulating that you need time to yourself without sounding like you are angry with the other person in the house (a problem I have), you can designate a certain piece of clothing or accessory to designate that. I have a random hat that I wear when I want alone time. It reduces the stress for me of having to articulate and explain a feeling at a time when I don’t have enough spoons for that.
I would only live with someone again (the gentleman caller goes home as soon as his new job starts which is hopefully soon) if we could afford a place with at least two nice lounge/living rooms so we could spend time apart without feeling/seeming like we’re cross or the other person is cross with us.
My husband and I got a three-bedroom place and converted both of the extra bedrooms to offices for this very reason.
Ooof, 10 years is a long time, longer than any relationship I’ve been in, almost longer than I’ve been an adult. So, take this with a grain of salt, but as a trans type person who bounced in and out of relationships with straight and binary loving men (and a few girlfriends who wished I was femme-er) every time I tried to “improve” myself (read: be cis), I ended up really messing myself and my relationships up. So please don’t torture yourself trying to change him or limit you, I guess?
I snapped at my current boyfriend early on about this– he insisted me liked me as I was, but I make it clear that if it was a shorthaired tomboy he was into, he should go find her, that I was more dude than not dude, and that I may dramatically remove and alter some of the parts of my body he likes to love up on, so that needed to be part of his choice to be with me. Lucky me, this time around he’s an actual queer man interested in who I am across changes. These guys do exist! Your current love may not be one of them.
I’m the eternal pessimist but TL;DR, you may want to consider breaking up and really spending some time considering your body, your identity, and what a partner’s sexual preferences will have to do with your possible futures. I’m a bummer, I know. Sorry if that’s kind of anti-advice, but I’m touchy around “I’m sad and trans and dating a person who wants me a particular way and ????” because yikes, been there.
I second the sentiment that it may be worth considering breaking things off, if not permanently then maybe temporarily, to figure out who you are on your own, without having to consider another person’s needs, etc. I was on the opposite side of a relationship like this. When we began dating my partner identified as an asexual cis woman, but over the course of our relationship, started to consider some other gender identities. As a bisexual woman myself, with no real preference, I was happy to stand by and support my partner on their identity journey, but ultimately, part of why we broke up was that they wanted to be able to figure things out alone. I was very hurt and confused at the time, because I felt I had been nothing but supportive. I recognize now, though, that it really wasn’t about me, that no matter what I provided in terms of support, nothing was going to change the fact that it was a journey my partner needed to take alone. Sometimes it still hurts a lot, having to admit that there was nothing I could do for this person I loved so much, but again, that particular aspect of our relationship was really never about me.
If yours were a shorter relationship, it might be a lot easier to just call it a day and move on as separate people, and I can’t imagine how hard it must be to contemplate not being with someone who has been a presence in your life for so long. Even if your partner does eventually become ok with the hair, and all the other changes, being with someone else and having to consider them at a time in your life that is so intensely personal may never be right. It’s not fun to consider or admit or do through with, if you choose to. But ultimately you are your number one priority, your needs and desires and person have to take precedence, no matter how selfish it seems.
Being with someone else and having to consider them at a time in your life that is so intensely personal may never be right.
Wow, so much good sense here. Thanks.
This is an excellent comment and your dude sounds like a pretty great dude.
Can I reiterate how much I love love love the new illustration-heavy redesign? Every time I open up an article with an illustration I gasp at how great it is. They’re just super excellent!
I too love the original artwork, and would totally do more if it were in the budget, so if anyone ever wants to sponsor an ILLUSTRATION that can absolutely be done!
(I say this not in a begging sort of way, but just because you brought up how much you like the illustrations! I like them too.)
Maybe he’ll even make friends with your needs. (“So you’re what she’s been hiding all these years! Tell me about yourselves. Where do you hail from, anyway?”)
This is so lovely and sweet. It feels so good when people treat me like that; I want to get better at doing this for others, too.
Can I just say I feel you, space cadet. Like in an eerily exact way.
“I feel a constant tension between wanting to do things with them and wanting to be alone.”
Like, just, agh:
“To spend time with him if you want to, rather than because you feel obliged out of an assumption that you have to host him in your joint home.”
I also have some low-key anxiety about sharing a space. But I’ve been living with my husband for going on 6 years now, and we’ve found ways to make it work. The biggest key is honesty. It was me being able to say “Please go away; I’d rather just watch this show by myself.” or “Please come here; I really need to talk.” (And also listening when he says those things)
A big part of it was, as Aunt Acid says, getting a room of my own. And getting my husband a room of his own. We’re lucky to be able to afford a space big enough to support that. But you can work it out with visual cues. When he’s at his computer with his headphones on, that’s him time and I leave him alone unless I really need him. When I’m curled up with a book and a mug of tea, that’s me time. He might barge in because he wants a kiss or needs to talk about something for five minutes, but then he goes away again.
My desire to be alone more also dovetailed quite well with my husband’s desire to be more social. We have our shared friends that we hang out with together. But he also has an entirely separate group of friends. I’ll tag along with them occasionally. But mostly it’s him going to dinner or happy hour or even going away for a weekend. And I get our home to myself for just long enough to miss him.
I guess what I’m saying is that there are a million ways this will work out. Trust that your partner cares as much about your needs as you do about his.
Yup yup yup to all that! I had to explain my need for “alone time,” but I also had to learn to take it when I needed it – two separate processes! But now both my husband *and my kids* understand that I need my space sometimes, and that it has nothing to do with them. In fact, it makes me much more pleasant to be around when I come back into the fold.
YES so much yes.
Being able to say ‘please go away’ and know that the person on the receiving end of that knows that it’s nothing they’ve ‘done’ is a massive help when sharing spaces.
My partner & I have been living together since…our entire adult lives (8 years?). We’d moved in together out of convenience, in college, having dated for about 15 minutes first. Upfront, we laid down ground rules that this was not a “step” and we were both really, really adamant about “alone time.” Turns out, being together is kind of like being alone. We don’t attend to each other in every moment. We’re both comfortable going out or staying home respectively. I think it’s easy because our needs are on the same page & have been directly stated. It’s also part of intimacy. Saying “go away I need me time” or “hey let’s cuddle & be affectionate” comes as easily as being on the other side of a thin bathroom wall when someone has food poisoning. It’s just intimacy.
Oh, Pseudonym. I’ve been on both sides of this one (one time, both sides at once, which was better in some ways and worse in others), and it is not easy.
I’m distractingly confused by the concept of not seeing shaved legs as a heavily gendered trait, especially on the part of someone who is attracted to “masculine men and feminine women”. Is he really into hairlessness generally, or are some of those masculine men lumberjack types whom you could use to point out that he’s also already seeing it as a gendered thing, on some level?
In your shoes, I might look for a compromise where I didn’t shave my legs, but did do some other kind of personal grooming that would help him feel like I was putting in effort to be attractive to him. Well, okay, I don’t really do “putting in effort so a romantic partner will find me attractive,” and my husband is most likely to tell me I look sexy when I’m wearing flannel, so that works for us. But it seems like you might be up for some effort, so if you are, that’s the direction I’d try to head in. What kind of dressing-up or using-scented-products or fancy-hairstyling or seductively-lighting-the-bedroom (etc) would be fun and comfortable for you, and also a plus for him? Talk about the possibilities, pick something, and make some extra effort in that direction and leave your legs alone. If all the things that are a plus for him strike you as more feminine than you can comfortably be, that’s not a good sign, but better to know. And maybe he’ll have some things that are more about knowing you care enough to make an effort, and less about you making an effort to look as feminine as possible.
my partner and i, by happenstance, are some of the cisiest people–a femme and a lumbersexual walk into a bar–and i don’t even shave my legs or the rest of my eastern european hairy hairy self with any regularity. and he’s never once nagged me about it. so when i read about this, it doesn’t feel like it’s really about the hair itself but what hair represents in this moment. because not all cis women shave. and some cis men wax. and some transgender women don’t touch it. and some feel most comfortable talking about pantyhose in Vanity Fair. it’s just hair that your body produces–if it were natural for women to be hairless, we wouldn’t spend so much money getting rid of it, so i feel that that’s just a shitty argument say, “but eww, girls are hairless.” Regardless of where you are on your badass journey through your own interior castles of authenticity, hair care is your decision and leave it at that.
but perhaps a big change in your gender identity has created a seismic, unexpected shift in your partner’s idea’s about their own gender and sexual orientation that they were not prepared to answer? and rather than disturb ten years of feeling like they’ve known another’s soul, to wake up next to scratchy legs and say, “who have i loved this last decade? do i know this person if they are telling me something i was so out of touch with? where do i fit? will my love stop loving me over this gender fluid journey? ” it’s just easier to *make it about the hair*?
“Regardless of where you are on your badass journey through your own interior castles of authenticity…”
you are awesome and this was awesome, thank you for that stellar turn of phrase!!!
Awe, thanks! And here’s my public service announcement: READ THE INTERIOR CASTLE. It’s amazing. Mystic Spanish nuns for the WIN.
Yes! It really bothers me that he thinks hairless=female. hairless-American-version-of-feminine, but that’s about it, and tons of us don’t do it, don’t call us not women because we don’t shave our legs! Ugh.
But more broadly, this is a very petty thing, so if he is really hung up on it, it sounds like he is uncomfortable in some way about your transition and this is the symbolic hook he hangs it on. Maybe he feels uncomfortable, consciously or not, about bringing up his confusion or need for adjustment around your transition because it might sound unsupportive and politically incorrect. But it makes sense, if you are changing physically (in whatever direction or way), that an erotic partner might need to have an adjustment period. He should take responsibility for his own adjustment, though, and not offload it onto you. I wish you the very bestest luck.
I wrote out this big reply and realized I was really just saying the same things as diaryofamadeditor, so I deleted it, and will only leave the following:
LW, when you say “he seems unable to fully grasp how deeply gendered I experience shaving”, I wondered about that. I wonder if he DOES grasp it, deep down, and your gender journey is really anxiety provoking for him, in ways he can’t even articulate to himself, and you guys are having a fight about body hair as a proxy for all that big stuff. Which is really tough.
I think I’m going to title my memoir “Body Hair as Proxy.”
LW1 – Aww man, as someone who got married relatively young (25), and didn’t live with my husband before we got married, and had been conditioned to put a man’s needs before my own, it took me a few years to be comfortable and confident communicating my emotional needs, but it was SO WORTH IT once I got the hang of it. Living with another human is complicated; it’s soooo much less complicated if everyone’s clear about their limits and needs, and my husband, like any non-terrible human, wanted to know how he could help me be happy. If your partner values you, he’s probably dying to hear from you about this stuff.
I don’t know, I am kind of of the mindset that your partner shouldn’t care whether you shave or not regardless of your gender or gender presentation, because patriarchy/bodily autonomy, but that’s just me.
I think they can *care*, but they don’t get to *dictate*.
I totally get the need for space- I just recently asked my husband to change one of the days he goes to the gym to a different day so that I could have one evening a week where I had the entire place to myself. We’ve lived together for five years, but just recently have we really been in a situation where we don’t get many breaks- once I realized I was hurting for some extra me time (or rather, me and the house by ourselves time) that itchy feeling on my brain made sense, and fixing it turned out to be very simple. LW1, i hope you find a simple fix too!
Me and my dude are both really introverted loner-types (it’s a wonder we got into a relationship at all) and for a few months we shared his tiny one-bedroom apartment with a dog and all my stuff while we waited for his lease to end so we could upgrade. Our saving grace was our very different schedules. I’m a full-time student and he has a 9-5 but is reliably out of the house two nights a week minimum. I also encourage him to spend time with his friends at their houses without me. Now we have a two-bedroom condo, so not only can we be in different rooms when we need to, we can be on different floors. It is ever so helpful.
Uggghh I had a panic attack last night based on “oh my god I may be sharing <1000 square feet with you for the rest of my conceivable life how can I surviiiive!” & we’ve been living together for over 5 years! The main issue comes from the fact that I work more days/longer hours & spend several nights after work at the gym whereas he doesn’t, so his alone-apartment time exceeds mine probably by orders of magnitude, but then when I finally get home he’s like “yay my favorite person who I don’t see enough is finally here!” Which is very sweet & understandable & so I feel like a giant bitch for being like “noo go away right now” (because, after all, when I am away I am pursuing my own career & my own interests in book club or yoga or whatever, so all of that time is fundamentally “selfish” as it is? Even though it’s not remotely the same as bona fide apartment-alone-time!) It’s honestly still a source of tension although we at least have improved from the first time I articulated my discomfort & he pettytexted the next day “I can sleep at my office tonight if you want I guess” (!!) This rather turned into a rant but yes, I feel you, it’s so hard & good luck to both of us (:
I just got the impression that body hair universally becomes a part of any long-term relationship 😜
But seriously though–from someone who prefers everybody clean shaven, even/especially men (that long arm hair, ugh): I generally don’t even voice that opinion because the way I see it, it’s actually got nothing to do with me. Your body, your hair. Attraction should not be make or break on something like that. #justsayin
I don’t think I would make it past the third date with someone who cared that much about my body in any control sense. The “well, I still love you, but I’m not really attracted to this [short hair cut/body hair/weight gain/etc] is like “oh, you’re not, huh? guess that formed in a void away from society so…” Nah, can’t do it. Even when people put it in the “I can’t help what I’m attracted to” terms that make them sound like the victim in need of comforting because you just got mad or sad for what they “just feel.” And yeah, sometimes it’s a girlfriend who said this stuff to me.
I just can’t shake the feeling that some people want to date people and other people want to date a look? I don’t get it. I’m super attracted to someone presently but he could switch up whatever he wanted, he still has his essential features that I’m attracted to (eyes, laugh, way of moving, tenderness, etc) and nothing would change. I wish we would start calling fetishes for shaved legs and thin bodies and so on what they are, to destabilize the “normalcy” of what are some pretty specific fixations. I…? *shrug*
Yes! It really bothers me that he thinks hairless=female. hairless-American-version-of-feminine, but that's about it, and tons of us don't do it, don't call us not women because we don't shave our legs! Ugh.
But more broadly, this is a very petty thing, so if he is really hung up on it, it sounds like he is uncomfortable in some way about your transition and this is the symbolic hook he hangs it on. Maybe he feels uncomfortable, consciously or not, about bringing up his confusion or need for adjustment around your transition because it might sound unsupportive and politically incorrect. But it makes sense, if you are changing physically (in whatever direction or way), that an erotic partner might need to have an adjustment period. He should take responsibility for his own adjustment, though, and not offload it onto you. I wish you the very bestest luck.
I have no idea if this would work for anyone else, in part because it only works sometimes for me, and in part because for me it comes out of necessity (long distance = virtual closeness because that's the only kind we can get), but sometimes it's nice for me to "watch a show with my boyfriend" via texting. For us, that works out as each of us pulling up the show on our respective laptops and syncing them up, while we text whatever snark or comments we have on the show.
For me, it's a little less pressure to be actively with him, while still letting us do something "together".
Hows about he give the shaving legs thing a go on his own legs, although perhaps he already does? Then he can touch silky-smooth leg whenever he wants. Maybe it’s an activity you can learn to enjoy together, two pairs of nude legs entwined? Or perhaps you can both decide it takes a fair amount of time and effort to keep legs bare and save it for special occasions. If he expects you to groom to suite his preferences I do hope he’s willing to do the same for you.
I feel you, Space Cadet. I have spent more years of my adult life than not partnered with loners who verge on neurotic in their need for space. My current partner is certified in MBTI and dragged me in (quite willingly) so the need for space on all levels for decompression and self-care gets called “I”-time, and we take it pretty seriously. It takes some negotiating – intense need for personal space and solitude only coincides by virtue of how much both us need, and can be inconvenient. One of my really good friends is pretty introverted and frequently complains that her wide “thinks too loudly” and I so totally know the feeling (her wife does think too loudly, though, seriously), so it’s about not just separate space but the quality and kind of separate space.
I don’t do it enough, but it find it beneficial to reflect on what it is specifically that makes me happy so I have an outside chance at expressing that to someone who would be invested in fulfilling those needs or desires.
I feel you, Space Cadet. I have spent more years of my adult life than not partnered with loners who verge on neurotic in their need for space. My current partner is certified in MBTI and dragged me in (quite willingly) so the need for space on all levels for decompression and self-care gets called "I"-time, and we take it pretty seriously. It takes some negotiating – intense need for personal space and solitude only coincides by virtue of how much both us need, and can be inconvenient. One of my really good friends is pretty introverted and frequently complains that her wide "thinks too loudly" and I so totally know the feeling (her wife does think too loudly, though, seriously), so it's about not just separate space but the quality and kind of separate space.
I don't do it enough, but it find it beneficial to reflect on what it is specifically that makes me happy so I have an outside chance at expressing that to someone who would be invested in fulfilling those needs or desires.
For the space-needing, also, I really recommend throwing out the script that you have to live alone with your lover. I live in a big weird house with friends, and when we ignore each other to do stuff it doesn’t feel like it impacts the quality of the relationship. A mile down the road is my sweetheart, living with a friend of his and frequently enjoying the whole place to himself.
There is a special magic of having the whole place to yourself, and the power to choose solitude or spontaneous hang out living with pals. I feel myself being like “oh he and I should live together!” and it’s like, but I’m so happy now with this arrangement, where does that script come from?
From the other end of the age spectrum, many of us retired older women have a policy with our retired husbands.
<<For better or worse, but not for lunch. >>
One of us goes out for a couple of hours a day. Bridge, hobbies, long walks, baby-watching at the cupcake shoppe.
At least you younger people have jobs and school to mix it up a little.
After 48 years there’s not much new to talk about. Sometimes that’s boring, sometimes it’s a blessing.
(He still makes me laugh.)
I have the space problem yoo. I live in a small 2-bedroom apartment with my boyfriend. He works from home (the 2nd bedroom is his studio, although he more often works in the living room), and he has no friends he didn’t meet through me. He has no interest in hanging out with other people without me, and has no reason to ever leave the house without me other than for five-minute smoke breaks. He also never goes shopping without me, because I enjoy it more than he does; he’s always putting off our grocery trips to the last possible day. When I want to be alone, I shut the door of the bedroom, but it feels like I’m avoiding him and I don’t really feel alone; he could come in at any moment unless I lock the door, which feels really unfriendly and always worries him. He gets lots and lots of time alone in the apartment, and I get essentially NONE. But what can I do? I can’t kick him out of his own apartment when he doesn’t have anywhere else he wants to go!