Help

I met a guy about 6 months ago now. On the first date he told me without any prompting that he was seeing other people and wanted to carry on dating a few people. This suited me because I’m in a training programme at the moment which is really intense and the last couple of guys I’ve dated have struggled not to have more of my time. He’s divorced, and has been separated a couple of years with a 7 year old boy he has 50% custody of. He has had one relationship since which was 8 months though they were apart for a lot of it because of the pandemic, he ended that 9 months before we met.

By date 3 he told me that he felt like he might want something more serious with me. This was more of a passing comment than a discussion but since then he’s mentioned every time he’s seen me that he sees it going somewhere and he thinks we’re a good match/I’m what he’s looking for and he’d like me to be his girlfriend.

We’ve seen each other every couple of weeks since then. At the moment though I’m in the area occasionally anyway I usually live a few hours away so when we see each other we spend the whole weekend and a day or two either side. I speak to him every day, he initiates more often than not.

In general we get on very well, he’s handsome, intelligent, charismatic, funny and we have a lot of chemistry. On the other hand he’s disorganised, can be quite thoughtless and sometimes abrupt to the point of rudeness. To be fair I mentioned the latter to him and he said he thought it was a cultural thing (he’s French and I’m English) and recently I haven’t really noticed this so I guess he’s making a point not to be.

The reason I’ve been skirting the topic of being official is partly because of that, partly because my last serious relationship had a period of long ish distance at the end which was really tough (and it’ll be at least another year before I can move) but mostly (now at least) because since the beginning he’s been dating lots of other people and actively pursuing new connections all the time. Initially it was mostly just FWB but there have been a few who he sees once a week or so, and will sometimes have a date without sleeping with.

I’ve never asked him to stop but I think it’s obvious as time has gone on that I don’t really like it, though he always wants to tell me when he meets someone new and because we text every day he always mentions when he’s going on a date. He says that they all know about me within a few dates (I believe him since he told me straight away and I know some have ultimately chucked him when he’s told them he doesn’t want to date them monogamously) and that whilst he cares for them all (I think this is genuinely true, he doesn’t just use people for sex there’s always some friendship) he doesn’t see them the same way as me. He says for the moment at least that won’t change but obviously in the long term I’m going to have to make a decision. He says he’d be very happy to only see me even if it was long distance but he’d want a bit more (I don’t even really know what he means by this). He’s so far always put me first when it comes to making plans (obviously only when his son isn’t with him) though often I wish I could talk to him more but he’s out on dates.

I know it’s a catch-22 situation but I feel like if he really liked me enough to make it work long term he would have probably stopped seeing other women before he proposed us dating exclusively, and if not at that point then definitely as we’ve got closer. Or at least that his interest in meeting new women would wane which is definitely not the case. So I’m reluctant to offer more and feel like I should have seen it coming if he decides in a couple of years time he’s missing the variety (I also wonder is it really normal for a guy to want to date 5 women at the same, is that not a sign that maybe he’s not quite ready to move on after the divorce (it was a mutual decision), or that he’s not really that into monogamy generally). But then I wonder if part of this is being driven by him feeling hurt that I’m not more enthusiastic at this point. I had a couple of other dates right at the beginning but I’ve kind of lost my drive to get to know other men, and even if I hadn’t I just don’t have the time/energy. He knows this and has said he doesn’t mind either as things stand if I want to see other people, though a couple of months in I did almost arrange something and he got a bit weird about it.

At the moment I’m enjoying the time I spend with him but the interim periods are getting more uncomfortable and I’m not really sure whether I should go all in or back away entirely. For reference we’re both early/mid thirties.