Carolyn Hax: Moving in with boyfriend has lost its luster

Q: My boyfriend moved in with me last summer. I thought we both wanted it, but, in hindsight, I think he may have been trying to give me a feeling of relationship progress without making the big leap of getting engaged.

There was maybe a three-month period where living together felt fun and exciting, then another couple of months where it felt comfortable and like we were settling into a routine, and since then it has felt like living with someone who has no interest in dating or wooing me at all anymore.

My boyfriend likes to spend most evenings playing video games on his own, though if I negotiate, then we can have dinner together first. I don’t mind his having that time to himself — I assume there would be many nights like this in marriage — but I feel like I traded my only chip, living together, and now we’re already in the next phase, having skipped over the fun engagement phase entirely.

I know that’s probably just a fantasy anyway, but now I really don’t know what to do.

— Skipped the Fun Phase Entirely

A: Celebrate that you managed the crushing skid to divorce without the marriage, fighting and lawyers?

Sorry. Read the room, Hax. I do know you’re hurting.

I also find myself wanting to stand up for old, comfy marriage, though. It’s not a “fun and exciting phase,” then a “comfortable, settled, routine phase,” and then, “K, now go play by yourself for 50 years.”

I mean, there’s some of that.

But you can actually enjoy each other’s company in year whatever without having to burn all your marriage points or put on hard pants.

There’s an element of luck to still wanting each other’s company as the newness wears off, of course. But it helps to think in terms of companionship from the beginning, organically — and I’m talking about the before-you-even-meet-someone beginning. Meaning, you orient your life and priorities — in all kinds of relationships — on the quality of the companionship, and whether the time you spend with someone flows and makes your life better. And whether you want more of it, mutually, without having to force the issue.

Any framing of a relationship in terms of progress, wooing, leaps, negotiating or, egad, *chips* within this mindset of actually enjoying each other and — mutually — not wanting that to end just seem so … discordant.

It’s your life, not mine, but I can’t imagine wanting this phase or a next one with someone I have to beg to have dinner with me before he goes off to game by himself.

If you, too, want someone who wants to have dinner with you, then you’ll need to ask this one to move out.

Then I suggest breathing a bit as a single person. Reconnect with things you like about life, and your friends who reciprocate, and yourself. Add new ones, maybe. Reset your sense of normalcy and consider getting it realigned professionally. Especially if it wasn’t 100% plumb to start with, it can get pretty bent by a power imbalance — as this relationship seems to have.

Letting your interest in each other run its course more naturally next time can help you avoid that; in this case, you’d have been able to read him better and accept his message of lesser or dwindling interest sooner (I’m sorry). You’d have seen the compatibility gap, too, I’m guessing.

Speaking of which: In fairness to no-dinner, solo-gamer guy, he’s just right for some people. But needing to haggle for his attention says he isn’t right for you.

• Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.

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