I (23M) moved out to get my GF (23F) out of an abusive house. Can't give her enough attention while paying the bills.

So first, a bit of background. I went on a trip to California a few years back with some friends, and while I was there, I met an amazing girl, let's call her Angela. She was awesome and we hit it off well and decided to keep in touch after I went home to Colorado.

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We started talking over skype and messaging daily and decided to try and make this a long distance relationship. Every couple of months I would take time off of work to fly out and see her. (I had a lot of disposable income at the time since I still lived at home and had a decent job as a waiter.) But after a while, I began to notice her parents were kind of cruel to her. They would make snide remarks to me about how I was so much better than their daughter and they didn't understand how she could "get a guy like me". This made me super uncomfortable, but I brushed it off as some family hazing. But then Angela opened up to me about how her parents were verbally and physically abusive towards her. She wasn't allowed to get a drivers license because they were afraid she would try to get away from them. She would get screamed at or even hit if she came how late from school/work. It's a long list of issues but I think you get the picture. Anyway, she was diagnosed with major depression and her parents pulled her from meds and therapy because the doctor said that they were the blame for it.

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To cut a long story short, after about of year of visiting and seeing the signs, and panicked crying calls about what her parents had done to her I decided to become a big boy and do something about it. I was going to go pick her up and move out with her.

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Now my parents are pretty old-fashioned, so they didn't want me to be living in the house with a girl I wasn't married to so I was going to have to get an apartment. I got that sorted since I was making enough as a waiter to afford a first and last months rent as well as a deposit. I found a friend to roommate with and got a place. Then I drove 15 hours to pick her up and move her here. Got her a job at the restaurant that myself and my roommate worked at and we were all making good money for rent and bills.

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Now for why I need advice. It has been almost 2 years since that all happened and about 4 months ago, the restaurant started overstaffing and we were all cut to like 2 shifts a week. We made enough money for bills at first, but it started eating at our savings so I picked up a new job. I currently work 6-7 days a week doing both waiting and as a salesperson at a small family shop. At my current pay, I am able to cover bills and started building savings back up again. I have a couple of months before I get a manager position and will be making enough to just do the second job, but in the meantime, the long hours have put a strain on the relationship.

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I am very introverted so after a long day of talking to customers, I usually want to just lay down and sleep, or maybe watch TV. We also don't go out together as often for my lack of time. She only works 2-3 days so she has a lot more free time than I do. My girlfriend has recently started telling me that I seem distant, and so a cycle has started. She tells me I'm distant, I try to give her attention, get accused of only doing it because she brought it up, me trying for a while, then getting exhausted, get accused of being distant, rinse, repeat. I love her a lot, but I am starting to feel suffocated because I am not exaggerating when I say that I have literally no free time. I feel super selfish for saying that too. I've talked to her about that, and she understands, but then I feel like she still thinks I am being distant and eventually the conversation comes up again. I am also scared that she is considering breaking up with me, but feels trapped because she doesn't have anywhere to go. I think she may also think that I want to break up (which I don't) but won't because again, she has nowhere to go.

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So my question is, how do I balance bills, a relationship and free time? Obviously, I feel the relationship should come first, but I need us to be financially stable for that, and being mentally exhausted all the time isn't good for either of those things.

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TLDR; Need 2 jobs for bills, the relationship is suffering because I am exhausted all the time.

Submitted November 17, 2018 at 04:18PM by EffectiveCourse https://ift.tt/2zYbiNg