I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for four years. He graduated from college 14 months ago and then decided that he wanted to pursue an esports career, possibly in Overwatch writing/casting/coaching, but I'm not seeing visible progress. In one year he has written only two articles, has only publicly casted two games, and hasn't moved past the "tier 3 scene"; scrimmage games and "vod reviews" for his lower-level team consume all of his time. This is eating 10+ hours a day, 6+ days a week, and he hardly spends time with me anymore.
I've tried being patient and supportive... but I got frustrated with him still not even having a proper online presence until 3 months ago, so I built him a bunch of professional graphics to create a brand for his online identity. I also built him a website as an additional publishing space, but he doesn't want it public "until he has written more stuff"..... We paid for it jointly and I spent hours building it and the site has now been private for three months. He keeps setting all Twitch streams to private. Asking him to write anything always backfires so I don't bother anymore. His scattershot method of "work hard running small teams and eventually run into job contacts" doesn't appear to be working, but he gets defensive when I ask about things. I've never played Overwatch because I have addiction risk factors and no time or energy for it, but not knowing the game makes it harder for me to talk with him because it's all he does.
I don't want to leave him, but I've lost trust in him to make progress on his own and am feeling resentful about being the only one with an income. I know he considers what he does to be "work", but it doesn't pay the bills. I'm not getting enough help or attention and my heart feels heavy. I don't want to "kill his dreams." I know this kind of career takes time to learn, but shouldn't I be seeing progress if he's supposedly spending thousands of hours on this? Any feedback on how I should handle this? Am I supposed to stay patient?
TL;DR; : Am running out of patience with long term partner's lack of income, lack of progress, and him not spending time with me anymore. I love him a lot, but he's not making progress with his "esports career path" and it's draining me emotionally; I'm not sure what to do.
Edit: thank you all for your replies so far; I'm mentally chewing on feedback.
Edit 2: he hasn't been much of a financial burden because he had some savings, but the account is depleting; we kind of went into this thing with the idea that he could take this chance to work really hard and make something of it, but ye...
UPDATE:
We had a long heart to heart tonight over the situation, and I was very upfront about how I felt about things.
Progress: His website is up and active now. We have an upcoming deadline of April 28th, the date when he will know whether or not his current team is moving up in the league; after that point he is getting a job. I will kindly ask him later to contact some of you guys in the comments who could give advice in the career field. (And by kindly ask I mean require him.)
All perspectives are helpful, even the ones saying for me to leave; I will remember that advice around mid May if things haven't progressed. Thank you for all of your replies so far and for your kindness in helping me with this.
Submitted April 03, 2019 at 07:14PM by waytoocaffeinated https://ift.tt/2WEd3ZE
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