I don’t want a relationship.

I’ve only been single for nineteen months. Since I was fourteen, I’ve only been single for two years and two months in total. That’s twenty-two years I’ve spent in relationships and only just over two years that I haven’t. 

I am just not ready to give up on my dream of single life. I love that life is just about me and the children. I really love getting to make all my own choices about everything I do. I am not ready to hand over every Saturday night and all day Sunday to a man, and if things continue like this with Phil, my free weekends with no children are going to be the only time I can see Phil, so while I’ll gain him, I will lose ‘my’ time, and I simply don’t want that.

There are so many things I wanted to do and experience on my own – even silly, mundane things like waking up on a Sunday morning and cutting the grass. If I’m with Phil, I can’t do that. I know I am more than entitled to set some of the rules here, to say I won’t see him one weekend because I’m doing my own thing, but I want all my weekends for me.

I’ve been starting to have a relationship with myself; I’ve been falling in love with me, and I want to spend more time with me. I don’t want anyone coming in and breaking me and me up.

Maybe I could spend some Saturday nights at Phil’s but go home by 10 am on Sunday and still get the day to myself?

The thing is, I also want to sleep alone in my bed. I’ve fallen in love with my child-free weekends; of cooking myself a nice meal, doing my own thing on a Saturday night (although to be fair, I was starting to struggle with Saturday evenings on my own), going to bed when I want, waking the next morning when I’m ready, staying in bed to read, nap, eat, go on the laptop, getting up for a walk, having a long bath, watching films, doing my family tree. There just is so much going for it, and I don’t think I’m ready to give that all up yet. In fact, I’m not sure I’m ready to give up any of it, not even once a month.