Dear Roe,
I am a gay 25-year-old and find myself at a crossroads with my boyfriend of five years, who I have lived with for two years. My partner is Type A and keen on reaching life’s conventional milestones, while I am Type B, neurodiverse, and move at a slower pace. In the last two years I have gotten hints that our trajectories are not compatible. For example, he has recently voiced a want to adopt, while I want to find purpose in a craft, and by caring for my parents.
We both feel stuck because of my lack of direction. We went to couples therapy which provided initial benefit, but as I later attended individually I felt lost in game-plans I didn’t believe in or resented.
Recently, my partner was meant to go for drinks with a colleague and I brought up that he seemed guilty upon getting ready. He confessed that he had complicated feelings towards this guy, who has a girlfriend. He apologised, saying he was unsure if this was a crush or if he wanted to be like him, but admitted to going out of his way to get closer to him. We all get crushes and I accept this, but it seems to speak to an impasse. The child-parent dynamic in our relationship is on both of us, and it’s left us both feeling stuck.
I ended my situationship six months ago but I’m still not over him. How do I move on?
Where can my wife and I access porn that is both legal and erotic?
I think I’m in love with my ‘situationship’ but he doesn’t feel the same
‘My brother-in-law wants to move in with us but I don’t think my marriage will survive it’
His confession gave me clarity to say that I thought it may be best to end our relationship due to this “stuckness”. Saying this to the only person to ever convince me that I could be truly loved has left us both devastated, but we have yet to officially call an end to it. We agree that we may feel more fulfilled if we separated, but my partner is not emotionally ready for this. I sometimes feel certain, but then have moments of intense doubts due to our bond.
[ My partner is having an affair with a colleague but says she wants another babyOpens in new window ]
We have lived so deeply in each other’s lives, and it’s terrifying to consider closing the chapter, as I could see companionship for life in this person. I need to listen to gut feelings and ask simple questions between the noise. What questions do I need to ask myself?
One place to start would be to ask yourself why you’re judging yourself so harshly? When and why did you start comparing yourself to your partner, assuming he was always right and you were always wrong, instead of you two just being different? Do you do this elsewhere in your life, judging yourself against other people as a way of feeling bad about yourself? Why have you cast yourself as a failure in your own life when you’re not obliged to walk any path other than your own?
Throughout your letter, you’re holding yourself against your partner’s way of being and assuming that his modus operandi is correct, the default – how you should also strive to be. You talk of yourself as moving “slower” than him, of having a lack of direction, of being the child in a child-parent dynamic. This language is starkly judgmental, infantilising and invalidating, and I see no reason for it.
Not unimportantly, you mention that you are younger than your boyfriend, and it’s extremely normal for people’s priorities to shift between their early-to-mid-20s and their late-20s and early-30s, from experimentation, career exploration, self-exploration, to a focus on the “traditional life milestones” – settling down, starting a family. Even your age difference alone could easily explain this difference in priorities, and nothing about that difference means that he is somehow more mature or more correct than you are.
I really want you to start shifting your thinking away from this self-flagellating game of comparison between you, where you (and maybe he) cast you as somehow lacking, flawed, immature or stunted simply because you want different things right now.
I worry about this framing because it seems so embedded in your thinking. You write “I want to find purpose in a craft, and by caring for my parents. We both feel stuck because of my lack of direction.” Do you see how these are two contradictory statements? You have a direction. In fact, you’re very clear on your direction and priorities. You may be figuring out the details, but you know what is important to you.
You know where life holds meaning for you. You know what you want to build, what brings value and fulfilment in your life, you know where and how you want to focus your attention to create the life you want. That is a direction. But you’re assuming that because you aren’t currently oriented towards the more traditional trajectory of life milestones that he is, your desires, goals and dreams are meaningless, directionless, infantile. They’re not. Your direction is your own, and is just as valid, meaningful and worthy of exploration as his.
Your “stuckness” isn’t evidence of being immature, slow or without direction. It’s the tension of knowing deep down that you don’t want to be swept along by someone else’s roadmap, even if that roadmap is clear and conventional. The part of you that resists isn’t weak - it’s protective. It’s insisting that your path matters, too.
The crossroads you’re at is not about who’s correct, it’s about whether these two visions of life can run alongside one another without one of you feeling erased
What’s fascinating is that you are doing to yourself what mainstream culture so often does to queer people - treating any path that doesn’t align with the straight, heteronormative script as illegitimate. The idea of queer time pushes back against that. It recognises that queer lives often run on different clocks, with different priorities, sometimes unfolding “later” or “out of order” compared to the mainstream. But this isn’t failure - it’s possibility. Queer time celebrates disruption, reinvention, chosen family, craft, community, care, and the freedom to build a life that doesn’t have to mirror anyone else’s milestones.
Your boyfriend’s longing for children and a more traditional family life is valid and beautiful. But your own desire to lean into creativity and caring for the people who raised you is equally valid and beautiful. His unwillingness to end the relationship, even while acknowledging that separation may serve you both, also says something about the dynamic: he may be less comfortable facing uncertainty, and more invested in stability at all costs, while you are wrestling with the discomfort of change in order to live authentically.
Neither stance makes one of you “better” or “worse”, but it does highlight a difference in how you both tolerate risk and transition. That difference matters when imagining a future together.
The crossroads you’re at is not about who’s correct, it’s about whether these two visions of life can run alongside one another without one of you feeling erased. If the answer to this is yes, then it will require radical acceptance of your different tempos. If the answer is no, then the most loving act may be to step apart so you both can live honestly. That is not failure. It is courage.
It is brave to acknowledge that love can be real and transformative, and still not the right fit for the life you want. And it is brave to trust that there may be other loves, other companions, who align more closely with your rhythm and vision of the future. Starting over is daunting, but it’s also a chance to build something that fits more deeply with who you are becoming.
Either way, your task right now is not to diminish your desires, but to claim them. The most clarifying question you can ask yourself is: “If I gave myself full permission to live by my own rhythm, what kind of life would I build?” Start there, and let the answer guide your next step. Good luck.
