Skip to main content Skip to bottom nav
Feel better with online therapy Professional, confidential and affordable. Start today
lavenderLunch8756
2 84 M Embraced
PathStep 1 Compassion hearts8 Forum posts2 Forum upvotes1 Current upvotes1 Age GroupAdult Last activeSeptember, 2026 Member sinceSeptember 29, 2026
Bio
Recent forum posts
lavenderLunch8756 profile picture
Midlife move to a platonic marriage, and uncertainty over what comes next
LGBTQ+ / MOGII Support / by lavenderLunch8756
Last post
 1 day ago
...See more Hi all, nice to find such a nice supportive community! Things have been a little rough in my world the last little bit and I have been feeling pretty alone. I am not sure what I am looking for here really, maybe just a safe place to share the changes that have been going on, and practice looking at the new landscape.  I am in my mid 40s, bi, nonbinary, and in a long marriage that for a few years now has been moving away from a romantic relationship toward a more platonic one. Our kids are grown up and since they moved out we have been living apart, but we have some shared responsibilities that keep us working together several times a week and make staying married an easier choice than divorcing. Plus, really, there is still care in our relationship and it is nice to have someone who you can lean on, ya know.  This last week though some texts brought out the fact that my spouse has started developing feelings for someone else, maybe something you could describe as an emotional affair. The thing is, I would have said we were on our way to reaching an arrangement where this would have been fine, I think we were headed to some degree of openness in the relationship, but since we had not gotten that far in our talks together learning of this has been pretty painful for me. The silver lining has been lots of sharing of hard truths, and a better basis for our platonic relationship going forward.  I have been struggling with how to think of our new marriage status. Lavender marriage is not it, though it is making me laugh that the automatically suggested user name for me was lavender lunch. In some of our talks I have started to wonder if my spouse is somewhere on the aromantic spectrum, and has been struggling with feeling inadequate for not feeling fulfilled by what they are supposed to want so hey, maybe it is a marriage a little bit brought about by the comp het push to partner everyone up to make babies.  It is silly to be stuck on how to describe our relationship, but I am a bit. My spouse says, and I think means, that they would be extremely happy if I found someone to love me. I have been telling them, and meaning, that I feel the same (this is where the conversations start to make me wonder about arospec, because they, at least right now, do not think they want to meet anyone, and were as surprised to find themself developing feelings for someone else as I was, though we have been living apart for years now). I need to feel settled in my own mind about presenting myself as someone with a long term commitment to someone else who also might have room for someone else. I think platonic marriage is correct, though we did not start out that way.   An open marriage has always been on the table for me, at least in theory (cannot actually imagine having had the bandwidth while raising kids in a pandemic!), but my spouse has always been unsettled when finding themself having a little crush or whatnot so I set that aside, and in the years we have been living apart have just been moving toward that conversation very slowly, and had some medical issues to boot. I think that is where we are at now, though. And, yikes! I have not dated anyone in more than 25 years! Am I really about to go out into the world and tell somebody cute I am interested but then also somehow explain all my baggage? Definitely I need to work out a shorter self intro than all this. 
Search more from @lavenderLunch8756
Community updates
Considering Therapy?
Talk to an expert therapist
Badges & Awards
6 total badges
Hand Shake First Post Reaching out First Compassion Newbie Teammate
Report an issue
Considering therapy? Talk to a licensed therapist, wherever you are. Get started
Feel better with online therapy Professional, confidential and affordable. Start today