Anxiety -- men fix, women just want to be listened to

Hello,

I have been in a friendship relationship since January with a woman who is 17 years old than me (I am 43, she is 60). We met through Overeaters Anonymous. I suffer from binge eating disorder and schizoaffective disorder. I am trying to hook up with a partial hospitalization program right now to see if I can get treatment for anxiety. We think very highly of each other, but we agreed from the beginning not to have a romantic relationship because of our age difference. Later I found that she had bad relationships with men at a young age and does not feel drawn to younger men. I can understand where she is coming from, and I still don't feel romantic about her, but I feel intimate with her emotionally to the point where I want her to be "my Katie", at term that has meaning to me. I almost suggested that seek therapy so she would feel different about me, but I stopped short.

Just lately, Katie brought it to my attention that I was "fixing things" too much as a man, as opposed to women wanting to talk about their problems but not having them solved (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg). She told me that she did not want to listen to me because we were not romantically involved. I never had this happen before, and it caused me to lose a couple of nights sleep trying to figure out how I should behave. I did find two articles on Psychology Today (see https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/skills-healthy-relationships/201606/stop-trying-fix-things-just-listen and https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fixing-families/201211/how-talk-man-how-talk-woman). I sent them to Katie, but she hasn't gotten back to me about them.

However, in the past week, Katie let me know that she is taking a young male border into her house to live. Katie is single like me. I do not think she has the best living arrangement to handle that and they will be practically living together). I don't think she is interested in him sexually, but the arrangement strikes me as cohabitation anyway. Even if it is now, I am afraid they will become emotionally intimate, more so than Katie and I am now. I am concerned that, like the woman in the nail movie, she is going to want to talk about her life with her border. I can just hear her say "he doesn't hang up the towl straight, he leaves his socks in the hall, he drinks five beers a night, I found him in bed with a woman twice, he was smart with me, he made a pass at me (or tried to assault me), he doesn't act friendly enough when I try to be friendly with him, he steals from me, etc.).

In the Psychology Today articles, they talk about how men sometimes try to fix problems for women because first they care, but second because it lessons their own anxiety over the woman's situation. I am afraid now that if Katie seeks to validate her feelings about her border with me, I am going to want to fix the situation, which will add anxiety on top of my preexisting anxiety issues. Conversely, if I listen to her problems, I am afraid that I am not going to be able to listen very long without getting disgusted about the situation out of jealousy. I may be inclined to go tit for tat and say "since you are not romantically involved with me, why should I listen to you as a woman talk about your problems", in the manner as she shut me down when I was trying to act a like a caring, thoughtful man by giving her advice. Or are the two scenarios different? I am sure men and women will have completely different answers to this. When people respond to this post, would be they be willing to identify their gender? I am concerned for my health and well being at this point. Any advice?