Recap of my original post:

I (mid/late 40sF) make a lot more money than my partner Marc (together 15 years, around 5-10 years younger than me). We've always shared our money equally since we got together, as well as future plans, like retiring somewhere warmer, possibly outside of the US. Alize, Marc's newer partner (casual dating 4 years, more serious for 1 year, around 15 years younger than me) who he has gotten very serious with has no interest in moving outside of our current area, so Marc no longer wanted to move outside of our area. I have absolutely no interest in staying in our area, so it looked like it's possibly time to start de-nesting or scaling back our relationship, since our interests no longer aligned well for the long term.

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Current situation:

Both a lot and nothing have happened.

In terms of things that have *not* happened. Alize has not moved in yet, but will be moving in for a 3 month trial period at the start of October. We are all still working our usual jobs. We are all still living where we lived in my first post.

In terms of things that *have* started happening: I'm losing my vision, wheeeee! Good thing that I was already planning to retire early, I may have way less of a choice about it than I thought I would.

We have started to untangle our money situation partially, which I'm happy about. Basically, because of the vision loss, more money is coming out up front, before all other savings & expenses to be specifically earmarked for my future needs. I actually feel pretty happy about this, in that now my needs are being prepared for in a more secure manner, but we are still enjoying the money sharing that we both wanted in our relationship.

Marc and I have talked, and I let him know that I, personally, WILL be moving somewhere else, with or without him. Somewhere warmer and more comfortable. Possibly a different country than the US, someplace with better healthcare, if they'll take me. Marc took this better than I thought he would, and also apologized a lot. While he DOES want to stay in the area/with Alize, he didn't realize that I am completely not on board with that.

I truly think most of that part of the problem was a misunderstanding. He had been talking up the area where we live for months, and how it does actually have a lot of perks. I was agreeing to this, because it's true; it does have a lot of perks. But they're nowhere near enough for me. But since I was just agreeing (and not commenting on how those perks don't do it for me anymore), *he* thought I had come around to the idea of staying in the area, whereas I was more agreeing on the general principal of "Yes, I can see why people want to live here". So when he talked about us staying like it was a done deal, he did genuinely believe I had come to agree with that, when I haven't and won't. We're on a better page with that now. He apologized for not being direct about why he was talking up our area.

Alize, interestingly enough, is not a US citizen, though she does have permanent resident card. I am unsure of the details of what kind it is, just that she has it. Alize's country would possibly be a target country to retire to, and she recently (in the past month or so) voiced that given how things have gone recently in the US, she is becoming more open to moving back to her home country and helping us relocate there. I know that is a whole big thing to consider, and right now it's just a very small possibility and nowhere near the top of my list of things I'm looking into.

So that's the good news with Alize. The less-good (but not terrible) news is that I've spent more time with Alize and...I don't really care for her. She's not a horrible person. I do feel like Marc's heart is in as safe of hands as can be, when you love someone. But parts of her personality that Marc finds adorable or fun, I find tiresome and irritating. I'm very glad that we're in a position to do a trial situation living together, because I'm not sure at this moment that I would want to live with Alize long-term, I'm glad we will have some time to sort that out. I'm also glad that I feel pretty comfortable about advocating for my own boundaries these days and my top priority (after dealing with vision loss) is making sure that I am fully advocating for myself and 100% comfortable with where my future takes me.

And that recaps the current situation. The vision loss is going to be a long-term mess of irritating fuckery, as there's really no telling how that is going to go, as of now. I'm glad that Alize will be moving in soon, since getting a better feel for how all of that will go will play a large role in shaping my future.

I hope that by the end of the year, I'll at least have a few more established possibilities or crossed a few future options off my list!

Thank you all so much for the support in the last post. I really meant a lot and although I was already fully prepared to advocate for myself and do what I felt was best for myself, it helped me to do so unapologetically, and eliminate those lingering fears that I was doing something wrong instead of doing something different.