FIVE YEARS TOGETHER - SHE WANTS MARRIAGE - HE DOESN'T : MAKE UP AND BREAK UP IS A GAME FOR FOOLS

My advice?

I told her I didn't think everyone was meant for marriage and that there is nothing essentially wrong with a person who doesn't marry.  However, they are incompatible in this one HUGE way.


They are both in their forties.  She says they've had the discussion several times. He just does not "see himself" married.  But I care about this woman, and I know that she does want to marry someday, and she wants her later years in life to be married years. Is the fact that she's hit her forties unmarried mean it's impossible?  Despite "great sex,"  "best friendship," and "loving to pieces," should she dump him?  Is it all her fault she's given five years to having love, having someone, having something, rather than nothing at all?

So I went on the Internet and there are sure a lot of people, including psychologists who are making this type of relationship pathological.  So much advice by educated women coming to the old "Why buy the cow when the milk is free." They should be embarrassed to have been to college, to be feminists, and think like that.

Yes, my friend HAS in so many ways agreed to have a non-marital relationship.  And it would be emotionally difficult for her to give him up.  Is he taking advantage of that?  Maybe. She reports all is well otherwise.

Basic advice on the net is to break up, or go to therapy seeking to find out what is wrong with the reluctant partner.

So, what is MY ADVICE?

My advice is to have a conversation in which she admits that she loves him, and it's going to be really hard to do so, but that she needs to be free of him for some time  - several months at least - so she can figure out what's next for her and he needs to be free of her for the same reason.  Yes, it's a break up.  Not punishing.  Not manipulative.  Not demanding.  Just standing up for herself and her needs.  And she must ask that all her family and friends not get involved, not give him reports on how she is; they really need to know what it's like to NOT have each other.  I imagine it will be awful.  Lonely nights, sexual frustration, questioning one's state of mind, maybe even depression.

The reason I suggest this though is that basically breaking up and making up and breaking up and making up is ADDICTIVE and the EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER in doing so is simply no good for anyone.  So it's time apart, the real deal.  If she still wants to marry him, she cannot take him back unless he wants to.  Guess who's in charge of that reapproachment?  Not her.  HIM.

Not easy. 

Because it may be turning ones back on love and years without anyone at all.  But I believe one must clear the way, and involved as she is, few men are going to invade that or risk it.


Sister