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There are things I really miss about having a partner. But today, I considered things I do not miss about living with another person. Because that's how my mind works.
Here is a partial list (feel free to contribute):

Arguments
Being awakened from sleep (snoring, tossing, getting up and flopping back into bed)!
Unrealistic expectations
Messes I didn't make
Eating my chocolate without asking
Too much talking
Complaining
Nagging
Resentments
Unnecessary nonsense
Lack of respect
Lies
Blaming

Oh, that is a lot of stuff. And I don't miss any of it, but I feel a little bit bad about the size of this list.

RoadGoddess 7 Mar 22
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24 comments

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8

Things I love about being single:

Privacy
My home is a peaceful, neat, clean sanctuary.
Freedom to do what I want.
Ability to eat, read, exercise, socialize, volunteer, hike and live at my own pace.

Freedom from criticism, anger, controlling behavior, disrespect, messiness and other problems a relationship brings.

I could have wrote that! You and I can live apart in complete harmony!

8

Don't feel bad. I think everyone suffers from the Grass Is Greener On the Other Side syndrome. There are downsides to everything.

You say you are an introvert, and particularly if you're with an extrovert, that can be vexing at times too.

My wife is fairly introverted, but less so, and more social, than I. Sometimes she wants to do things that I'd rather not do. I haven't decided yet if that stretches me in good ways or just annoys the shit out of me. Honestly, I guess it does both.

Sometimes these things can be mitigated by thinking outside the box. My wife is a VERY light sleeper (when she manages to sleep at all) and I have a typical 62 year old prostate and go to the bathroom 3 or 4 times many nights. I also snore, so I'm considerate enough to use a CPAP to stop that, but it still makes a nonzero amount of noise, particularly when I take it off and put it on, etc.

Once we got over the guilt and shame of it, this was easily solved by separate bedrooms. I still often massage her feet and neck before she goes to sleep, and sometimes I, you know, stay longer. But I sleep alone. And guess what, we both rather prefer it now. Google it ... a high percentage of couples have separate beds and many have separate rooms. It just isn't talked about. Ask yourself how much a couple really spoons and cuddles beyond the first couple of weeks ... it's not conducive to comfort or sleep. So once the canoodling is over, bid each other a fond adieu. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. One need not fear the end of intimacy or drifting apart just based on that one non-activity!

Nicely put!

@whispers Remember for many years, the separate beds in the same bedroom?, Sure be intimate, have enjoyable sex, but then sleep but not too far apart. When did it change?

@SeaGreenEyez I had not considered what a practical problem this is for budding relationships. There's something that has come to be highly symbolic to many (most?) people about sharing a bed. That it is somehow a rejection if your partner wants or needs to sleep alone or a relationship failure if it doesn't work well for you.

I'm willing to bet that if people could be honest and actually talk about it as we're doing here, we'd discover that at least half of people in relationships secretly wish they could sleep alone by default, but feel the very admission is shameful or reflects some defect on their part -- or they feel it would blow their relationship up if they suggested it. So they can't admit it to themselves, much less to others. To many it seems to represent the beginning of the end of intimacy ... that it means you can't stand your partner. When in fact it is probably just a very practical thing around sleep hygiene.

My wife kind of would like it if we'd go back to sleeping together because she likes the "idea" of sleeping together and how she "feels closer" that way. She talks of getting European-style beds (basically two twin beds right next to each other, thus transmitting less vibration and noise) or going to the old 1950s style totally separate twin or full beds; we already have European style separate duvets so no one is pulling the covers off the other. But I keep coming back to the fact I get up several times a night and she does too, due to her chronic insomnia, and we just end up ruining each other's sleep hygiene. And while separate beds will help, it's still a lot of disturbance for us both and frankly I'm relieved not to have to use the CPAP every night (I don't have actual sleep apnea so there's no medical need to use it).

So we may negotiate and experiment some more about this but I think our separate sleeping arrangements are going to "stick" long-term. It's nice to just read or surf the 'net if you feel like it without worrying about bothering the other person. It's nice to get up when I need to without feeling anxious about tip toeing around. It's nice to not worry about how much sleep she is or isn't getting. It's just nice. And it hasn't harmed our relationship at all to separate this activity. It just bugs us both a little now and then that it's so "unconventional". It's a PITA when we have house guests as that usually displaces me back into the master bedroom. Like everything else in life it's not ideal, but it has on balance been an improvement in our quality of life together. YMMV ...

5

I felt like I had gotten out of prison when I told him I was out. There is no one to tell me how to do dishes, how to wash clothing, how to scrub a floor. OMG, my head is exploding remember all the instructions I got during a four year relationship. I should have shut the door the first time he told me I had spilled something on my sweater, when he explained "I want you to be prefect." I thought at the time any reasonable person would understand when I replied, "i've lived this long without instructions from anyone." He never did get it, and so I'm out and I feel and willing meet a healthy person.

4

Even if I found an agreeable human, I'm quite sure I never want to co-habitate with anyone again. Living a few miles apart would be perfect ! Together when mutually desired, then apart for each to enjoy their own blissful aloneness !

The trick then, Is to find another who feels the same way ... ha.

4

Sounds like you have lived with some real assholes.

4

You can have a partner without actually living in the same place. That really seems like an optimal arrangement to me, at this point.

That would be my ideal relationship.

3

Some people believe in magnetic attraction, and I think that is part of the problem, because spending to much time with anyone is detrimental, even if it is only within proximity without communication. I have heard that in some cultures, the woman and man have separate bedrooms, but in my mind, as fiercely independent as I am, even that could be a little to close. Most Americans have this idea that it should be otherwise as far as I can tell, they seem to think that they can live indefinitely with someone in close proximity, and that it SHOULD be that way. But you seldom miss someone who is breathing down your neck all the time, or someone who intrudes on your personal privacy, or interferes with your general direction in life.

THHA Level 7 Mar 22, 2019
3

I only had to put up with a few of those.

😀

3

Sounds like you’ve met my teenage son in one of his hormonal moods... JK!

I’m not perfect and I don’t expect that of anyone I spend time with either.

2

The noise of sports on TV
Having to defer my priorities behind his
Cooking all the damn time
Hearing the same story for the millionth time
Hearing my own idea repeated as though he thought of it
Doing all that laundry
Tripping on huge shoes everywhere
Having to explain or justify every damn thing I say or do
Going for a glass of milk and discovering the carton in the fridge is empty !!!!!
Being embarrassed by the stupid, tired jokes he tells every single dang waitress
Being made to feel guilty about ... everything

Deb57 Level 8 Mar 23, 2019
2

Oh my.. what a disheartening list.

It's worth writing the "things I enjoy when I'm single" list, so that there's no rush getting into something that will make this other list a reality.

Eating chocolate without asking?

To clarify; are these guys still alive?

2

Expectations from them towards us and us towards them.

2

One can have good, close, it intimate friends without having a "partner". ?

2

Add me to your list, trust me

1

If you don't want me eating your chocolate then don't leave it out in plain sight!

1

Not being able to pursue my own outside friends and interests. The male idea that foreplay is a golf term and romance only happens on soap operas. And the snoring. Can't stand it.

1

We are Human, with all it's flaws, finding the perfect partner,is a life's search,we all have our idiosyncrasies, toothpaste squeezed wrong, sink cluttered with dishes,dirty clothes anyplace but the hamper,the negative is not having that warm body to seek comfort with,to cuddle on cool days,but now you have a choice; Continue by yourself with maybe missed chances, or compromise with his bad habits?

1

Ouch...that is quite the list?

1

something i would miss, though, is the necessary nonsense.

1

Having to work with/around another's schedule.

1

Isn't this complaining?

1of5 Level 8 Mar 22, 2019

@mzbehavin she doesn't have one, yet has a list of complaints about what partners do that she doesn't like. I don't need to be hers to point out she doesn't appear to need one to complain. So I'm guessing 2 way street.

Like it matters.

@1of5 not sure it is complaints so much as criteria for what she wants to avoid in a partner. I think it is important to know what you want and don't want or you are likely to not get either.

@Roadster I couldn't disagree more. My wife and I threw those stupid "This is what I know I want" lists out the window when we meet each other. Fortunately for both of us.

She's the woman of my dreams I didn't even know I had.

Her critique of this list is even harsher than mine ?

@1of5 That would make sense if this were her criteria, like a checklist. It seems more like a preference, which would make things, internally, negotiable.

@Roadster this is a list of what she doesnt miss (want), except many of her things are what happen in every relationship, and how they are handled is an indicator of how strong the relationship actually is. Some of them are seriously petty, and the whole thing is complaining (no mention of whose complaining about whom, though).

It reads, to me, as an excuse not to have a relationship because no one can actually meet her criteria.

0

if your not getting on the list is massive what ever your sex

0

Perhaps you should have numbered your list RoadGoddess. I count 13. fwiw.

twill Level 7 Mar 24, 2019
0

Expected to make love all night and be a sexual athlete with the dominice of mike tyson and the cuteness of Donny Osmand and vigour of Ron jeremy?

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