What’s Your Relationship Status? Single? Married? It’s Complicated?

Is extreeeeeemely complicated an option? Divorced, son 19 years old and no relationship for 17 years…

I am so boring that even my potted plants won’t grow near me…

But my son is everything to me. We run our own web design company. And he is skilled!

All the feels. I’m crushing hard on a new found friend. After some weeks I told him I could see us being really good friends or even more and he was like I appreciate it and respect you a lot but. We continued being friends and I love the friendship but still … would love more.

I am 60, dating a 65-year-old and for the last five months we are right there, acting like 7th graders again. Well, okay, he’s a 7th grader and I’m an 8th grader. It is a strangely similar experience to what I had in my younger years except the restaurants are much nicer and we are in different political parties. Also we both have separate apartments. Still everything else is the same.

24 and crushing hard for the first time in my life. I thought it was just a flutter of physical attraction that would pass, but then one day we were laughing together so hard he got a cramp, and I went, “ah, shit.” I have to admit I don’t really like the person I’m becoming while in this weird in-between stage: waiting by the phone for him to text me, worrying about texting him first too often, the works. I’ve always been very independent, and the thought of pinning my emotions so much on another person and maybe someday having to consider someone else outside my career is – frightening, to be honest. I spent a long drive asking myself if I liked him enough to risk being rejected by him, and I think the answer is still yes.

I unexpectedly became single the week of Thanksgiving. I thought he was the one, and so did my family. He came back from a business trip and told me that he didn’t love me anymore and “can’t fully commit to us.” I still feel blindsided. Dating him for the past year and a half brought me the most happiness and adventure I had ever felt with another person. Hoping for strength and healing during the remainder of this year

28, just started living independently and an NBSB (No Boyfriend Since Birth). Tried having a “connection” with someone overseas – me in the Philippines, him in the US – who was matchmaked by a friend. Two weeks in, we both think it’s not working out.

Right now, just trying my best to live and enjoy single life. I started living alone recently (it’s uncommon for us to move out of the house unless it will be for marriage). A big adjustment for me but I love that I’m being challenged and out of my comfort zone. Let’s all just enjoy/persevere through our seasons I guess. Wishing everyone the best!

I’m 27 and single, and it’s so true that dating is fun sometimes but mostly not. Middle-aged coworkers of mine have always romanticized my dating life, when it’s usually just disappointing. Like, I can just buy myself dinner, it’s not about that. And this article is right–there are so many silly unwritten rules relating to texting, social media, calling, FaceTiming, etc. It’s stupid and weird and miserable and magical at the same time (if you got that, let’s be friends). Heaven help me! I always remind myself that my man, whoever and wherever he is, is worth all of it. :)

It’s….more complicated than it needs to be (thanks, brain, for over-analyzing everything!). Living overseas, exchanging frustratingly infrequent emails, telling myself it will.not.be.a.thing. when I move home in a few months – it all feels like so much sometimes. But it’s also exciting… Like, all the possibilities?? Seeing him again after two years?? For Christmas?? What if these aren’t just emails of the friendly, keeping-in-touch variety but of the slow burn, interest-building, becoming-more-than-friends variety??

It’s complicated for me. We were together for 10 years, married for 3, then in April (when I was 5m pregnant) he cheated on me and we split up. He is now living with the other woman. But we have a beautiful baby now and he sees us almost every day. On days when he can’t come over, we FaceTime and I send videos of her.

So much has changed but I still feel his love for me, in his own way, and especially for our daughter. As much as he hurt me, I am confident that our girl will grow up knowing that she has two parents who adore her and who respect each other. And that families come in all shapes and sizes!

Married for 15 years, together for 20. We began experiencing wobbles two years ago that shook me to realize how fragile relationships are. Because of the negativity that we experienced during that time, darker than any places our relationship had taken us before, I’m feeling nervous about it happening again. Also, I’ve realized how much I love a male friend of mine – not necessarily in a romantic way, just love – so this feels confusing, too. I wish it were easier and that we were more consistently in sync with one another, or at least able to navigate and appreciate our differences better.

I’m married/it’s complicated. I’m 37 and have been married to my husband for 10 years, together for 16 years. We have two young kids and are very happy together. Great sex life but looking for new things, possibly exploring open marriage, as we are both non-jealous types and find freedom a turn-on for each other. Not sure how we go about starting down this path but excited for new possibilities.

Married since 2014 but together for 12 years. We survived the newborn phase and didn’t kill each other during quarantine with a two year old, so feeling like we’re able to make it through pretty much anything at this point:)

Engaged but ready for marriage and the end of long distance. We were best friends for 6 years before we decided to start dating and have been doing distance love and friendship ever since. He’s so ready for marriage that he already wears a ring and calls me his “wife” rather than fiancee because the sound of it brings him comfort. Meanwhile, I find myself packing up more and more of my grad student bedroom so I can run out of the door following graduation. I also find myself documenting silly mundane things and sending them to him so he can feel involved – things like how I made breakfast for dinner again or a pretty leaf that fell in front of me.

Single right now and not actively dating right now. Got myself lost in a relationship before and would be great if I really focus on building life as I want to instead of thinking others all the time. Tbh this is hard and the last weeks I wasn’t satisfied with where I’m right now but my wise friend told me I can feel all the feels but shouldn’t let me be controlled by them so focusing on what I can do and what is there for me to enjoy.

current status: in a beautiful constellation of non-monogamous partnership (that includes a legal partnership of almost ten years that has never been monogamous), focusing on treating ourselves and each other with reverence and individual and group growth and healing, and actively dismantling colonizer/capitalist/codependent/ownership-model approaches to relationship. In short, I drank the kool aid and the water’s fine… :)

together 2.5 years and have one lovely dog. :)

I got married two weeks ago yesterday and we are still floating :) We’ve been together for almost five years, have 2 dogs, bought our first house together last year, and…have Bumble to thank for it all! I’m 31 and he’s 34, and I felt SO alone before meeting him after relationships both abusive and just bad. I feel incredibly lucky.

Living in a form of post-breakup state after ending my relationship this summer with my first everything. It was a whirlwind and we moved really quick. I was super young but felt so mature. Everything was so serious. This summer I contemplated things, had a serious crush on someone else but tried to focus on my relationship improve things enforce boundaries and after those didn’t get recognised I felt like I needed to get out of it, needed freedom. The break up was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Then I had a good summer, had a deep connection and some fun with my crush, went abroad for a bit and am now back at the tiny town where I lived with my ex. And I feel so stuck but can’t really leave because of responsibilities. Don’t know what to do with my life right now. I don’t want to burn bridges and I know I’ve good things here but there is just so much sadness and discontentment.

Married for 9.5 years with two children and a third on the way. I’m hoping things will just be settled at some point – things have been pretty hectic since we got married. We decided to try for children a few months after we got married, but it didn’t work out so we started fertility treatments, which resulted in our eldest after IVF. Then I feel pregnant with our second when the eldest was 1, traumatic birth that left me with postnatal depression and anxiety which lingered (without me really being aware) for a few years. Then decided to have a third – struggled again to conceive so back to IVF – one round which was successful but ended in a miscarriage at 10 weeks, and then another round which was successful – I’m currently 30 weeks pregnant. It is hard to maintain a relationship with so much going on but he’s still my best friend and makes me laugh. He did his first and longest ever work trip since the start of the pandemic last week, so I had an intense week of solo parenting + work, so today he’s gone out to get fancy pastries for breakfast and has booked me in for a pregnancy massage while he takes the other two to the zoo. What a man!

GAH i love coj community. Spent the last 15 minutes in the comments alternating between smiling and crying.
We are all in this together!

Married, going on four decades. He is addicted to pornography. It makes me feel fat, ugly, unloved, unwanted. Last week I found out that I have PTSD from partner betrayal trauma. I’m ready to walk out and never come back.

36 and recently out of a relationship with a man who I thought would be IT. The love of my life. He ends things unexpectedly, ultimately changing his mind about wanting something more serious for the future. I fell in love with him and his son, which has made the breakup twice as hard. I didn’t leave my bed for weeks, and am only now (a few months later) feeling like my old self.

Despite all that, I refuse to give up on love and having my own family one day. One person can never take that away from us, because we ultimately create our own happiness. He taught me how to be in a loving, happy, healthy relationship. I am forever grateful for discovering this new, expansive part of myself. In learning to love myself, I’ve realized the wonderful man who choses to be my life partner can only add more joy to an already good life.

I’m 31 and recently engaged to my pandemic boyfriend turned fiance (thank you bumble)! This is my first serious (as in, can see us being together forever type of serious) relationship, and it’s been such a gift. We had the big important conversations early on — since all we could do was walk outside and talk during the covid winter — and we feel similarly about what we want our future lives to look like. He is loving, easygoing, and makes me laugh. Last year at this time I had been single for years and was seriously considering starting the process to become a single mother by choice. Things can change so quickly!

I’ve been married for 20 years to my favorite person. My marriage is a bit complicated right now because of . . . me. At the very beginning of our marriage, I was suffering from fairly recent onset of serious anxiety and it was so hard. For me, him, us. I recovered several years on and was so healthy, until lately. It’s come roaring back. One of the awful things about it is that he has to suffer along with me. He’s so kind and supportive, and we’ve learned so much about how to care for each other. But I hate knowing that my illness is affecting his life too. We laugh less, have less fun, do fewer things with friends and out on the town. Fortunately, this time around, I know a lot more about how to treat this illness, and I think things are already starting to improve. But I hate the pall that I’ve cast (I know it’s not my fault, but still). I guess my point is that while one of the most amazing things about marriage is that I have his love and help during this dark time, but a very painful thing about marriage is that my dark times cast shadows on him.

Ive always been my weird self hoping that someone would love me for it- but alas almost 40 and still perpetually single! Still a hopeless romantic though :)