TL;DR: My boyfriend makes a lot of money but immediately spends it all. He also lives in fantasy future world where we'll have lots of money to do stuff. It's making me wonder if this is a huge, break-up worthy red flag.
First, I've been with my boyfriend for a little over a year and a half now, and I'm evaluating if this is something that can work long-term.
My boyfriend is 36 and still living in a house with roommates. Granted, he gets killer rent on this place - about 1/3 what anyone else in the neighborhood is paying. His roommates are fine, but there isn't enough room in the house for the 3 of them, and it shows.
For the past 6-7 years, my boyfriend has been talking about moving out and finding his own place. He made a very good salary, more than me (and I live alone), but used it all up by living paycheck-to-paycheck and buying expensive things. He has no savings, and he does still have student debt that he is only paying the interest on. He "forgot" to save money for his taxes last year and ended up having to take out a loan to pay his taxes. He just paid that back.
He got laid off in the Spring and claimed he needed time off to clear his head. That's fine, although it made me nervous since he doesn't have any savings. His severance and unemployment was up in September, and he still hadn't looked for jobs. He started job hunting, but he didn't have anyone review his resume and got no calls back. This didn't make much sense to me, since his previous job was very good, and he clearly is very skilled at what he does.
He picked up a couple of contract gigs, and they have him set to work paycheck-to-paycheck again for awhile. It's tough though, because he can't easily afford health insurance.
There are other small things that build on this, too - buying expensive camping gear (we never go camping) and just expensive stuff in general. Leasing a brand new car every 2 years when his lease is up.
All in all, I just feel like his financial literacy is not what I was expecting. In a way, I might be fine with this (as in, maybe I'd be fine supporting myself and having him cover his expenses), but he keeps setting my expectations in this fantasy world. He keeps talking about moving into his own place, having savings, getting a dog, and us moving into a cottage with extra rooms and a workshop. But I keep thinking like...how could we do that? I certainly couldn't afford it on my salary alone, and it doesn't seem like he's making all that big of an effort to contribute. Like he sets my expectations about these things we're going to do and build our lives together, but then there's literally no follow-through or action on his part.
I feel like at 36, I either need to accept that this is the way he is, or get out of the relationship. At the same time, maybe I am the asshole, and I just need to change my expectations? He's never asked me to support him or pay for his stuff (so he's like, hinting at becoming a hobo but not full hobo). But like, maybe I just need him to look at his life more objectively: If he wants to live the paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle, fine, but then together we should probably talk about moving to a less expensive city, or what it means if I'm going to be the main breadwinner of our home.
Submitted October 30, 2019 at 02:21PM by meangrandpagene https://ift.tt/2ptxLk3
No comments:
Post a Comment