When I was a teenager, coming of age in the 70s, my grandmother, for whom the 60s and “free love” never happened, told me, “Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” Of course, I thought she was being old fashioned. However, I have come to see the wisdom of her words, but from a different perspective.

By the time you’re in your 50s, relationships are no longer for the purpose of starting and raising a family; they’re for companionship. This is not to say, however, that marriage is no longer a goal. For most of us, it remains important, as reflected in our desire for a relationship to be “heading somewhere.”

The biggest mistake I have made is spending too much time and making too much of an emotional investment in relationships that, for one reason or another, had no future. In retrospect, I recognize that I had been happy to find some intelligent companionship and had been hoping against hope that the rest would fall into place. But this is not something that just “falls into place.” Rather, our intentions are set well before we meet someone, and there is nothing we can do to change this. But I had to learn the hard way.

Sometimes, going into a relationship, I knew that it probably would never “go anyplace.” When I met Phil, he was 49 and never married. He told me, “There were women who wanted to marry me, who I didn’t want to marry, and there were women I wanted to marry, who didn’t want to marry me.” Yeah, right. But up until the point that I broke up with him, I was the “good girlfriend.” Not only did I provide him with intelligent companionship, but I was always “there” for him, being “emotionally supportive” and going with him to movies and events of little interest to me—because, at the time, I wanted to, for the sake of the relationship. But we never really got beyond “dating.”

At other times, when there were “extenuating circumstances,” I felt that, once the circumstances were resolved, we could “forge ahead.” When I met Henry, he told me that he was looking for someone with whom to have a “24/7” relationship. This was true. He wanted to see me all the time, at least when he was in Irvine for the six months of the year that he wasn’t in Oslo, his adopted home. He said that, “eventually,” he would move here. But, for now, he added, how could he make a commitment when he was still living in two places? In the meantime, there I was—again—the “good girlfriend.” I can’t tell you how many times I schlepped with him to “visit” his airplane or to go to the pilot store. After enduring two years of his back and forth, he finally moved here. The “extenuating circumstances” had been resolved, but his commitment issues had not.

But I only have myself to blame. I gave freely of my time, my caring, and my support—the “milk” of human kindness. Phil and Henry had no reason to “buy” into a commitment; they were getting everything they wanted. Fortunately, I have learned from my mistakes.

A recent relationship appeared to have potential. He treated me with kindness and respect and, when I was sick with the flu, missed an important meeting to take me to the doctor and to get my prescriptions. He called me during the day and read me a bedtime story at night. I was, to use his words, “the best thing to ever happen to [him].” We had a wonderful time together, as well as the best communication that I have ever had with a man. But often our communication related to the fact that, despite how much he enjoyed being with me and didn’t want to lose me, he was not ready to make a commitment.

This time, however, I had lost my willingness to emotionally invest in a relationship that was “going nowhere” and, after giving it enough time to see that nothing was changing, I left. I was no longer willing to give away the “milk” for free.