I don’t know where you looked this up and determined it was shallow to leave, but it’s not. You’re allowed to break up with anyone at anytime, and for no other reason other than you decided to break up. Stop caring what other people will say or think about you. You’re unhappy and he’s not even trying NOT TO FAIL almost all his classes? He’s a child and wasting his time. Stop wasting yours. There are driven guys out there, I swear.

LW, you’re planning for a future with someone who even right now is not on the same page as you. Does your boyfriend know about this, about when you want to have children, or even move in together? If you have talked, and you believe you both are in agreement, then you have to see if his actions match his words. It’s not enough to have the same interests (e.g. I would like financial security), you have to have similar values (e.g. “I will apply my utmost effort to reach that goal” vs. “I will find someone who wants to bust their butt to make me secure.”) Does your boyfriend have financial responsibilities now, does he work, does he have any idea what role his education might prepare him for? If no, no, & no, he probably does not have enough incentive or motivation to meet the stated goals.

It would not be shallow to leave him. He seems the shallow one, happy to live off his parents. He sees a long university stay as his play time. He doesn’t want responsibility, hard work, having to support himself. He’s counting on his parents and possibly on you to support him. Does he plan to inherit a lot of money from his family?

I should add that during the 4 years he was in the military he couldn’t really smoke weed, because they would test you when you got back from leave, and you really didn’t have access to it otherwise. So for those years, though he drank, he had to keep it together. You couldn’t just not show up for work or call in sick, you’d get sent to sick bay for examination. You had to be a law abiding citizen who held a job. So, sadly, that’s when I saw his true potential or so I thought. But as soon as he could honorably get out, he went right back to his old ways.

My little cousin is now doing a course in fashion merchandising. She’s a whiz at sales, and might be able to have a good career if she gets some kind of business degree. Or she could be a realtor maybe. But like… who knows.

Don’t stick this out, seriously.

Do schools not kick people out for persistent failure anymore? The universities I went to did, so I don’t understand how someone can fail all their classes and still be allowed back. But I’m also “old” so things might have changed.

Anyway, while I think his grades aren’t any of your business and don’t really understand why you’ve fallen into this dynamic of kind of mothering him over them, you’re not shallow for breaking up with him over it. Not to mention, even if he was a stellar, motivated student, life often takes college sweethearts in different directions these days.

Lastly, if you aren’t already in therapy, I think you should be. I don’t think you should be this obsessed and anxious about your boyfriend’s grades, and suspect that’s just the tip of your anxiety iceberg. And I say all of this to you as someone who was absolutely plagued with anxiety the closer I inched to “the real world.” I knew there was no blueprint to follow after graduation and that terrified me. I wanted to cling to what I knew, and what I knew was my long-term bf with whom I’d talked about being together 4eva, but increasingly couldn’t see it happening anymore. We parted ways not long after graduation. Very sad at the time, absolutely the right move for both of us. Being in school can be a lot of fun, but there are very real stressors that come with that time period in life.

I’m with Copa on not understanding how he has not been kicked out of school yet. Most universities put you on academic probation after one semester of lower than a 2.0 GPA and if it happens the next semester you are kicked out. Have you actually seen his transcripts? This story does not add up.