I need letting a break up happen, or initiating one

[bader929]

I have been with my boyfriend for over 6 years. He has been living with me since January 2018. I have been wanting to break up with him for several months now. He has never wanted to get married, saying that he doesn’t believe we need the piece of paper (he was married for 17 years and I met him about 5 years after his divorce).

 

I need to give you some history: Our relationship has had many lows. I met him on line while separated from and divorcing my husband of 25 years. I broke up with this man once before when we had been dating about 9 months. He was acting strange and one night my gut instinct went on overdrive and I went into his phone and had found his was active on several dating sites, reaching out to women to date. The breakup was horrible, he denied being on dating sites and turned the situation around on me saying I was insecure. We were broken up for about a month and got back together. Stupid mistake on my part.

 

He has trouble finding and keeping jobs. In the 6+ years I have been with him, he has been unemployed about 50% of the time. He did manage to hold onto a job for about 2 years, but they fired him in July 2016. After going thru unemployment insurance, savings, taking money from his parents, he finally ended up moving in with me in January 2018. Moving in with me was not his choice, if he had a job he would not be living with me. He finally got a job in May 2018, but they fired him at 90 days without giving a reason, and he has been unemployed ever since.

 

Living together has been very difficult. When we have arguments, he says “I will move out,” After using this several times on me, I said we needed to figure out how to work together, that using that phrase hurts me since I know he doesn’t mean it, it’s a bluff. After 3-4 times I told him that if I ever say those words (“Here’s the door”) that I would mean it and there would be no turning back. With each argument we have, I inch ever so closer to asking him to leave.

 

He suffers from depression, and it manifests in what I perceive as meanness. He doesn’t’ fight fair, I can’t get a word in because he just talks over me, and he almost always twists everything around on me. He swears, yells and I can barely say my peace. Een before he moved in, our fights were like this, usually with him telling "there's the door, leave." Why o why I have never left and just kept on going, well, I need help and therapy to figure this out.

 

But what is worse, is that he has made ZERO financial contribution to helping with bills like electricity, gas. In fact, he uses a lot, like my utility bills have doubled. He does get food stamps of about $200 per month, but my grocery bill has remained the same as before he moved in, so the food stamps really only cover what he eats, so the food stamps do not my grocery help (and I can say it doesn't cost me anything to feed him.

 

Even when he was working from May-August 2018, he kept saying he would give me some money towards bills, but never did. I however, stupidly, used a credit card transfer check to bail him out of a debt he owed that had turned legal. I am now stuck with that debt payment. I am a teacher, a graduate student, and I tutor part time on the side to make ends meet, to pay off my own debts and try to save for a better life. I world basically seven days a week and I am becoming wiped out.

 

I finally earlier this year told him that he must get a job and make a contribution. He said any work he would get, they would just garnish his wages because all the debt collections are turning into legal demands. So I suggested he file for bankruptcy to remove that impediment to finding a job. I offered to pay for the bankruptcy lawyer and filing fees (and I am now stupidly have that debt as well, as I used a credit card transfer to pay).

 

In January of this year, he started the process to do a kidney transplant for his best friend, who could die without it, I had never seen my boyfriend move so fast, work so hard and push to make something happen. It took me by surprise. When he WANTS to make something happen, he does. I know we are talking life and death with his friend, but he has no trouble living off me (and his 80 year mom, who will give him $1,000 checks so he can pay his car, cell phone and car insurance).

 

He has threatened to move out 3 times since January 2019:

Mid January 2019: We had a ridiculous fight one night in January over the way I was opening a bottle of wine. He questioned me and I didn’t answer then he became enraged because I ignored the question, yelling and screaming at me in front of my 15-year-old daughter. He apologized, but I asked to talk about things, because the fight made me realize just how wrong and lopsided our relationship is. When I said how I was feeling about things, we argued and he said he would move out. The next day I was out of the house with a friend, and when I came home I found that had packed some suitcases and left them in the bedroom (for me to see??? I am not sure). We went down and actually had a calm discussion about it. He said he didn’t know where he was going, that he was leaving to give me a better chance, that he didn’t make me happy, etc. He said he would pack up his car that Monday while my daughter was at school. I was honestly relieved he was leaving. However, I felt SO guilty, I talked him out of leaving. I pictured him living in his car in January, I worried he wouldn’t be able to donate the kidney to his friend because he had no support, no home. I started to think about the good times we had and I talked him out of it. My girlfriends were very frustrated that I took him back. Their view is that he is not being a grown man, that if he actually cared about me he would get any job he could and help me. They think I am crazy for asking him to stay.

 

Two weeks later, we had another stupid fight (early February). This day, he had criticized for something. I let it go. Then criticized something else. I let it go. The final straw was a third criticism in the same night, and I couldn’t let it go. I said what was on my mind. We argued. At this point I had not given him a credit card check to pay for the bankruptcy lawyer, and he asked for it. I responded by saying I wanted to go over some “conditions” before handing over the money and incurring more debt for him. He became livid and said he didn’t want the money, that I was reneging on a promise to help him by imposing conditions on the money (my conditions were that he get a job, ANY job, that I was becoming wiped out from working so much that I needed actual financial help from him so I wouldn’t have to put in so many hours on my tutoring business). He said he “will be leaving the next day.” He started packing the next morning while I was at school. I came home to find bags packed, a stack of old pillows and blankets, etc, in the bedroom. He actually started packing up his car this time. Again, my initial emotion was relief that he was going. I told myself this time I would let him go, not talk him out of it, just let it be. But stupidly, again, I stopped him when he was driving away. We talked calmly, I said I'd pay for the lawyer but that he has to take a job of some kind.

 

I know it was a mistake, I know the best thing for me is for him to go, that I deserve better. I have no idea what is wrong with me for talking him out of it. Guilt? Maybe. I feel like I’d be making him homeless in winter. I have reached out to my doctor’s office to start therapy to find out why can't just LET him go when he packs up, but also why I can’t just ask, TELL him to leave. I just can't take the lack of help, the fights, the threats to leave, the criticisms, and so much more. Every once in a while he asks for cash for things like gas or parking. Its not much, like $20, but I cringe. I feel like I am his mother, like he's a kid asking for money, like if this were my own kid I would NOT give him $ but MAKE him work.

 

Since that February packing up, we have fought three times more. Twice he just said, “I am not going to argue this with you” and we just stop talking to each other for 2-3 days.

 

We just had a stupid tiff last night. On my way to bed, I just kinda paused to look at him, searching his face for the man I used to love so much. He snapped at me, so I just went upstairs. He yelled at me saying “I’m leaving, that’s it, we’re done.” I did not respond. I just went to bed, relieved, promising myself I would not stop him from going this time.

 

This morning I have been typing this, then I tutored a student on line. He just woke up and I have not spoken to him yet. I want to ask him about the “I’m leaving” thing, if he doesn’t start to pack, I really want to tell him to go. Even if he had a job and was making a fair contribution to the household expenses, the big thing for me is that he just threatens to leave all the time, and I’m done with that.

 

He doesn’t fight fair, doesn’t want to do what ever it takes to help me out. I work a full-time job, I’m a student, I am a mother to a teenage girl, AND I am building a tutoring business so I can makes ends meet, pay all the bills. He does cook and clean, but I in NO WAY feel like I have a partner, I don’t feel we are in this together. He does look for work during the day, but as I am becoming progressively more wiped out from exhaustion, I see that he sleeps late, spends a ton of time on social media, playing games and apps, watching TV. IT DRIVES ME CRAZY! The side of the couch he sits on is actually dented down due to him SITTING there all day and night. I wonder why he gets fired all the time, while employers aren’t hiring him. And there is SO much more.

 

I find myself not being me in this relationship. I feel like he is bringing out the worst in me, instead of the best.

I want to end this relationship SO much. But if he ends up homeless, I’m not sure I can handle that guilt. If he doesn’t start packing today, I need to tell him to go. Am I wrong to do this?

[assertives]

Sorry, but what partner? He sounds and behaves just like a kid. You got yourself another son. But you are not his mother, him being homeless is a consequence of his own

actions and there's no need for you to take on guilt. In case this needs spelling out, you DO NOT owe him a living. Nobody does. He is grown ass, abled-bodied man. He is unemployed and is actually choosing to be unemployed. All the time he spends on social media, games, TV, apps all day, he could have just gone out to find ANY SORT OF CASUAL WORK. But he isn't doing it because he knows you will pick up his slack.

 

Don't wait for him to initiate, tell him to leave within the week or something. He needed to have left like yesterday. You still have a teenage daughter to think about. Think about what kind of father figure influence he would be on your daughter. Kick him out of your life and please don't take him back.

[preraph]

Of course you're not wrong. There's people you can care about but just can't make a life with. So don't feel guilty. Tell him you really do want him to go now, but if he needs a month to figure out where to go because sounds like he's got no money, give him a final date.

[FMW]

It's way past time to tell him to go.

 

At this point your well-intentioned help is just enabling him to remain non-functioning as a productive adult while making you broke and miserable.

 

Cut your losses and give him a deadline (a few weeks at most) to move out.

[bader929]

Thank you so much for your responses. I always second guess myself, always feel like I am the one who is in the wrong. It's good to have conformation that he has, in fact, caused all this on himself, and that I am only enabling him to continue to go day after day with no job.

[bader929]

UPDATE:

 

I spent all day out of the house with my daughter. I had hoped to return to find him packed up. While I was out, he did some cleaning and a little organizing, but no packing of any kind.

 

So I tried to talk about what happened, with a plan on asking him to leave, was going to give him some time to work out where he would go, not just put him on the street.

 

Of course he was on the couch, where he always is. I sat down next to him and here is how the conversation went:

 

I asked if he was ready to talk about whatever the heck happened last night.

 

His response: The fact that you don't know what happened means there is nothing to talk about.

 

Me: OK, I guess there is nothing more to say then. Paused a moment, then I began, "I cannot take these fights every two weeks.... (he cuts me off, of course, I rarely get to finish a thought, he just cuts off, talks over me, yells, swearss, whatever)

 

His cut off: Don't worry, I will be gone by this time tomorrow, this time for good.

 

Me: Ok

 

And I left the room. I did not want to engage in further discussion, I was afraid I would end up feeling guilt and talking him out of it again. I didn't want to end up in a pointless fight. I don;t know if I could have handled this better, but I am tired of feeling responsible for him, for his feelings. I think I have finally gotten a clue that my own feelings and emotions count, and all these fights we have had are because I am actually asserting my own rights, and he doesn't like it.

 

So I am gonna let him go. I don't know where he will go. He does have family, friends, exes even that he has stayed in touch with.

 

I feel relieved on the one hand, and very, very sad on the other. I feel guilt, I feel like there is more I could do, but most of all, I just want to let it go. What happens is out of my control. I want out of this horrible cycle.

[assertives]

I suggest that this time tomorrow, don't be around when he's supposed to leave. Stay out, at work, spend the day at Disney land with your daughter or something. Come home only much later at night so you don't end up being guilted into getting him to stay.

Edited March 18, 2019 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[bader929]

Thank you, Assertive. That sounds like a good plan. I MUST let him leave this time. For my own well being, and more important, for my daughter. I do not want her growing up thinking a man should treat her this way and that she has to be the sole responsible party in a relationship.

 

For months I have been thinking, if my daughter was in a relationship like this, I'd be telling her to run and never look back. If a friend were in a relationship like this, I'd be telling her to get rid of the guy.

[bader929]

I just had a horrible thought:

 

In the past he has mentioned that he does care what happens to him once he donates the kidney to his friend. He has mentioned that he is a failure at life since his divorce. I am worried he may attempt suicide. I am not sure what to do, who to reach out to.

[assertives]

Are there not any suicide intervention kind of organizations in your area? Also, he has siblings and family too. If you think he may be suicidal, call them and preempt them to keep a watch out for him.

[preraph]

Do not bring up your fears with him or he will just use that make you let him stay. If he is that far down he is the only one who can lift himself up. if you donate that kidney and during the process he starts saying crazy things around the medical staff they'll get him help. if you have a relationship with his parents you might give them a heads up that he is supposed to be moving out in that they might want to give him a little extra emotional support.

 

What you said about not wanting your daughter to grow up thinking that this is the type of man that it is normal to be with truly is the most valid point of all. Be sure that wants its over you let them know that his habits and behavior were just unacceptable and that she should not ever pick a man like that and if she finds herself in a situation to just get out of it as soon as possible.

[d0nnivain]

I want to end this relationship SO much. But if he ends up homeless, I’m not sure I can handle that guilt. If he doesn’t start packing today, I need to tell him to go. Am I wrong to do this?

 

You are not wrong to want this to be over. It hasn't worked for a long time. If he ends up homeless that is on him, not you. As an able bodied person he should be able to get a job doing something. He will find somebody else to sponge off of; they always do.

 

I had a guy like this who I had to get out of my house. I ended up giving him $500 to move. It was a good use of the money because it got him gone. He did try the "I have no place else to go" but he ended up moving in with a buddy & eventually got himself a new sucker girlfriend to support him.