Unsatisfied With Secondary
You can't help but imagining a nesting relationship with someone who isn't interested in escalating.
Here’s my situation: I have this friend who I’ve known for about 5-6 years now. We met in college and had very strong feelings for each other. It was a long 10 months of having feelings before we decided to move into a relationship, however that only lasted a few months and then we broke up. It was a painful break up and we found it very difficult to maintain a friendship after that, so we kind of lost contact and only really talked when we happened to see each other (we used to live in the same city).
Fast forward 3 years and we reconnected via social media. He lives in a different city now and I was in a non-monogamous relationship with a partner of about 1 year. This friend and I realize we still have strong feelings for each other so we decide to reconnect when he’s in town. The date goes SO well.
We laugh, we connect, we have sex; it’s awesome. We decide to keep seeing each other but long distance. For other reasons, the partner I was with and I ended our relationship but I keep dating my long distance friend. On one of my visits to where he lives, we talk openly about how we experience the relationship.
He shares that he’s not interested in moving on the relationship escalator with me. I’m a little shocked he knows this so soon, but respect his decision and ask for some space while I figure out what I want. I realize that I’m also unsure about moving up the escalator with him and decide I’d like to keep dating. I should also mention, neither one of us currently has a primary partner although recently he expressed feelings to a friend of his that he is “really excited about”.
Recently I’ve realized I really want a partnership that moves towards nesting and co-parenting with him. I would say he’s the love of my life! We share so much in common on how to raise children, ideas we have about partnership and I feel like we could make a great team. I try to envision myself as a secondary partner to him and it sounds very painful and unfulfilling.
I know his thoughts haven’t changed about partnership and me. I’m now feeling like I should maybe ask if we can de-escalate our relationship to “just friends” because I feel it might be too painful for me to be intimately involved with someone who doesn’t want what I want. I know I can’t change his mind and I’m nervous to stay in a relationship where I feel like I’m “not enough” for some reason. I also want to ask him why he doesn’t envision partnership with me, simply because I’m curious.
I wish there was some way for me to feel fulfilled by a non-escalator relationship with him, but I feel very nervous he’ll find someone he thinks is “his person” soon and the heartbreak will be even worse for me. Please help!
What might be helpful in this situation is, instead of being a glutton for punishment in terms of knowing the personal reason why he doesn’t want a future with you is to ask if he does see himself getting married to or having children with anybody else. You don’t really say whether or not you’ve explored those conversations with him or not. It’s possible that it’s not about you being “not enough” but that he’s generally not interested in any of this at all.
If he says he is interested, then the next big question to ask yourself is are you hoping that you will be able to convince him otherwise? Or are you wanting a future with him so hard that you are willing to merge into whatever ideal he has for the person he wants to marry? Is that really a position you want to take in that case?
When it comes to him going into the reasons, if he does actually want to have children and a primary with someone, understand that this can be such a personal rejection that it has the potential to ruin your entire friendship if you end up feeling that your strong feelings and admiration for this person are not really echoed by them in the same way. So ask yourself, once you have the answer to whether or not he is interested in this type of future, if there is a need to go further than that and whether or not going further would really help you.
Also, I wonder if, given you initially thought you would be fine not pursuing children and a different type of relationship with this person and then you found out that it wasn’t the case and you did want this, is your desire to de-escalate to a friendship going to drag out pain further. What was it about you that found yourself coming back to this relationship knowing your incompatibility in terms of a different type of relationship? Did you find yourself assuming you didn’t want this type of relationship with him because you wanted to keep dating him? And are you now wanting to continue a friendship so you have some close contact with him?
To me, if I were in this position, I would probably not just de-escalate to friendship. I would rather move towards a no contact situation for a period until I felt like there was some emotional distance between us especially if he is looking for someone to establish that kind of life with and the likelihood of him finding that is soon. I truly believe if you make good friends, a period of distance wouldn’t change that later on down the line and I would hesitate to begin any other romantic relationship again in the future.
Overall, there are some big questions here to ask yourself about your own motivations, what is useful for you to know, and getting some clearer answers from him as far as what his goals are eventually going forward. I hope this helps and good luck!