After six or seven months of dating, I’m starting to feel uneasy about something I was willing to give more time. He says he’s slow to commit. For a while, that explanation was enough. Now I want a committed relationship, and I don’t know whether we’re moving toward one.
I’m 40, and he’s 53. Things between us seem good, which is part of what makes this difficult. If I were unhappy with how we got along, there would be a clearer problem to name. Instead, I like what we have enough to want it to become a committed relationship. He still isn’t ready to put that label on it.
I gave him more time because I didn’t want to mistake a different pace for a lack of interest. There’s room between meeting someone and being ready to commit to them. I can understand that. What I’m finding harder is being this far into dating and still not knowing how much room he needs.
The time hasn’t been neutral for me. While I’ve been trying to respect his pace, my own feelings have been developing. The question I could leave open earlier has become something I need an answer to. That doesn’t mean the good parts have disappeared. It means they matter enough that the uncertainty has started to hurt.
I keep wondering whether his age has anything to do with it. Do men become more cautious about commitment as they get older? It’s an appealing explanation because it would make this feel less personal. But I don’t know that being 53 explains his hesitation, and I don’t want a theory about older men to stand in for understanding this particular man.
The more uncomfortable possibility is that slow to commit is a softer way of saying he doesn’t want to commit to me. I haven’t discovered that he’s lying, and I can’t honestly say I know he’s stringing me along. Those are fears, not things I’ve established. Still, I’m beginning to worry that I’ve been hearing a promise in an explanation that never actually included one.
What I want needs a little honesty from me, too. I’m not simply curious about what word he would use for us. I want commitment. A label would matter because of what we meant by it, not because adding a word could make us want the same thing. Being happy together now doesn’t answer whether we want the same relationship.
Giving it more time would mean continuing with something I enjoy while leaving that question open. Asking him directly would mean risking an answer I might not like. Neither feels as simple as it would have when I was less invested.
I haven’t figured out what to do yet. But I’m no longer wondering only how long it takes him to feel ready. I’m trying to work out how much longer I can keep dating him without knowing whether he wants that with me.
