JC is right. This personality you see is what you get. He’s 26, his personality is pretty set at this point. He obviously needs his rituals and routines. He’s not going to wake up one day and say, you know, I have a disability, I’m going to get help and fix all this. He’s not. But I see you falling into the trap of, oh, he has a disability, wouldn’t I be a bad person if I left him, this isn’t his fault, underneath the disability he’s a wonderful guy, etc.

You absolutely have to get back to Toronto and finish your degree. You’re making a serious and dangerous mistake to keep putting off the time when you start a career, earning a good income, saving for retirement. You need to say to him, look, I’m going back there on x date to finish my degree. I have to. I’d love for you to come with me, but if you can’t, you can’t. And then DO it. Rent an apartment you can afford, and go.

The fact that he says he doesn’t want to end things doesn’t really mean anything. That’s exactly what I’d expect him to say. You’re part of his routine and security blanket, *as long as you stick around on his terms.* And let him keep listing out his doubts and criticisms and still stay and cater to his idiosyncrasies (to put it kindly).

What I see happening if you don’t snap out of it now and move back for school – based on personal experience and years of reading these forums – is this: You’ve accommodated him and agreed to his terms for years now (since the very beginning). The terms of the relationship are that he and his career and education are important and yours are not. He will continue to lose respect for you. You will be increasingly sad, stressed, and unhappy. The relationship will deteriorate over the years, but he won’t end it. Nor will he propose to you or take solid steps to start a committed life together. He will just let you hang in there, hoping to be good enough to overcome his doubts, trying desperately to lose weight and hating yourself. You’ll have less and less sex until it stops. You’ll spend less time together. Finally you’ll snap and end it, but you’ll be 30 with no degree or relevant career experience or dating experience. You’ll have to rebuild your life, and you’ll watch him marry the next girl he dates.

Seriously.

Hi LW, If you move to the small city where his parents live you will regret it. You will slowly resent him over time. You will also come to think of him as a selfish person. He is reluctant to stick with your original plan because he doesn’t want to do it. He wants what he wants. This is a sign of selfishness in a relationship. You put your goals on hold to be with him, but now he doesn’t want to move for you. I know how these things eat away at you over time because I have been with my husband for 24 years, and it is very important to be equal in the relationship and compromise for each other. It’s his turn to compromise and he doesn’t want to…he is showing you his true self.

And again, I’ll point out that he was able to overcome his condition when it was for something that’s important to him. He left his parents and went to a whole new city. He CAN do it. He just doesn’t want to.

When someone wants something they will move mountains to make it happen. When they don’t want to do something they make multiple excuses and drag their feet. Your bf is creating roadblocks. He doesn’t want to move and he likely never will.

Is this unfair? Absolutely! But regardless of how fair it is or not your two options at the moment are to either leave it to continue being the one doing all the heavy lifting in your relationship.

You deserve an equal partner.

Let this be a life lesson. Never put your dreams on hold for someone else. No one else will care about your schooling and dreams as much as you. If a relationship requires you to step away from what is important to you it is not the right relationship for you.

Just because he doesn’t want to end things doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. You’re allowed to break up with him. You have that power. You’re so deeply in the habit of accommodating him that you’ve forgotten you have the right to walk away, with or without his ok. He does not have the right to keep you in his pocket as a back up. You’ve been together for way too long now for him to be keeping you in audition mode. You are allowed to stop trying so hard. You are allowed to walk away.

And, sidenote – maybe it’s a matter of degree, but every single one of his worries (with the exception of your weight which is a whole other can of worms) is TOTALLY NORMAL. Many, many, people have those exact same questions about relationships but dive in anyway because the relationship is worth the risk. He’s telling you you’re not worth the risk.

LW, you need to take back your power. You do have it, you know – the power to break up with him. The power to make the decision to leave and go back to school because YOU want to. You don’t have to wait around for him to drag his feet and make those decisions for you. Every update you posted is that much more evidence that you need to MOA. You have no obligation to stay with him. Don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy. You don’t have to deal with bullshit because he has a disorder. If someone has a disorder (for which they refuse to get treatment) that causes them to punch me in the face every day at noon, I may refrain from punching them back because I know it’s the result of the disorder, but I’m still gonna GTFO of there and find someone who DOESN’T have an untreated disorder that causes them to punch me in the face every day.