Should I leave my fiancé over a small(ish) issue?
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The all men are lazy rubbed me wrong too. My husband works a full time job, a gig job, and still does a ton around the house. And not at my direction. He does the invisible work, the emotional work, all the work.
Listen, they’re not inherently lazy. But they’ll do as little as they can get away with based on 1) how much they value the relationship, and 2) how much of the burden you jump in and carry for them. Stop overcompensating. Your posts here scream insecurity and low self worth. You’re bending over backward to accommodate a guy’s weaknesses because you think you have to to make a guy stick around.
@Kate – can’t agree more with this.
My best college roommates were those that understood that we have to keep the room neat for each other. That our crap can’t be someone else’s problem. We made allowances for midterm and finals weeks. If I, as a drunken and emotionally crazed 19 year old, who during high school kept her room looking like it had been trashed by the FBI looking for a microchip, can understand that basic logic – anyone can.
Your bf doesn’t care that you’re handling the load. You have complained and he doesn’t care enough to listen, take action and make things better for you.
Growing up, my mom was the more career driven one, my Dad worked but he very much just had jobs. In some regards their relationship pretty traditional (she did a lot of the cooking still), but he was deifnitely the neater one and there were periods were he was the primary childcare giver.
My husband’s father was much older than his mother, and by the time he was born his dad was retired and he too did the lionshare of childcare giving, cooking, cleaning, all that jazz while my mother-in-law worked.
My husband is in every way an equal partner to me when it comes to housework, finances, and just general adult life things. We’re 34 now, and he’s been this way since we started dating, in our early 20s. When he was 29 we had been married for a year and were homeowners. I know that’s not quite the path you say you want OP, but hey, just saying 29 year old men are totally capable of being responsible adults.
Men who say they are just lazy or that those aren’t really good at those things are bullshitting their partners. They can do it, they just don’t want to, and you aren’t enforcing the expectation that they should act like the g*d d*mn adults they are.
Don’t take it. If he won’t step up, you *don’t* have to settle.
Three years is a decent amount of time to have invested into a relationship, but in the scheme of things, it’s not actually that long. You in fact can, and should, walk away from a relationship you are already having struggles in only three years in.
Not to say you have to walk away, but at this point in the game you do *not* need to have the mentality of “I should try to work it out no matter what.” You can totally call it if this relationship doesn’t serve you and there are major incompatiblity issues.
“And as for “all men are lazy” – no.”
Exactly, this is a self-destructive false meme. If LW believes that all men are lazy xhits, then she can believe that she one the mating lottery, because she found a lazy shit who doesn’t abuse her or cheat. Why get rid of such a gem?
“you are choosing to live with someone who is always going to need monitoring”
Maybe yes, maybe no. He bounced checks, yet he has enough of ‘his’ money to pay for the problems he created, according to her. So, is this all his irresponsibility or also a good part of her control. If he has his own money, why cant he make a purchase with a credit card and pay over time, rather than by check. Paying by check, especially without knowing the balance is the worst way to go. Is she opposed to credit cards and that is why everything is done by check? It seems like between them, they have at least $10K/year in walking around money, after core expenses are paid, so you’d think they could get a credit card, or he could separately.
She shouldn’t marry him and assume personal responsibility for whatever debts he may run up in future. But if they just live together and he needs to declare bankruptcy as some future time… she can get on with her life, with or without him.
We know bf works. We know he has his own money. Is he pathetically awful financially or is she awfully controlling?
I’m also skeptical that he really paid all these penalty fees. If they’re putting all their money into a joint account, he doesn’t have separate money. “They” paid the fees. Meaning she probably did.
@Ron – what I mean by monitoring is that the responsibility will fall to her on whether the bills are paid, the laundry is done, the toilet is clean – not necessarily to do it, but to make sure it gets done. No one should have to monitor another adult to take care of the normal, day to day household tasks.
Appreciate what y’all have said. Coming back for one last time
Kate: dating a coworker is an even worse idea than discussing my finances/relationships with them. It’s interesting you warned me against sharing personal info with my coworkers and then came back and said maybe I should date one?!
To everyone asking about my fiancé’s contribution to bank account:
We make pretty much the same amount of money. Neither of us have credit cards and we have some combined debts (a car payment for instance) he works longer hours than me which may account for his lack helpfulness at home. Neither of us have any savings because we both stand to inherit a decent amount of money in a few years. We move around a lot as I mentioned. I’m sure we would probably save money if we ever stayed at a job or location long enough to ever make a significant amount of money. We don’t really work career jobs. We don’t believe in asking our families for financial help.I also don’t vent my relationship frustrations to EVERYONE. I was involved in a situation where my small group of friends was venting about their partners so I chimed in. It was the day of a particularly frustrating overdraft so I guess I might have been a little heated so that’s on me.
I explained all of this to my fiancé. The vent session, my friends reaction, this post and the weird situation with my coworker friend who likely wants to date me. In the end he agreed he would make more of an effort to monitor the account and limit his spending. Instead of a debit card we both just decided we would make all non bill purchases with cash and we each get 100 dollars a week to spend. If he runs out then he’s shit out of luck til the next week as he gave me his debit card (I didn’t ask for it, he just gave it to me) We also agreed that when our lease is up in 2 months we are going to move to a new place. While I like the friends I made here I don’t really trust them now. I think I’ll take everyone’s advice and keep my relationship to myself in the next town.
Everyone here seems to have the same views and that’s cool but just because I’m 35 doesn’t mean I absolutely have to be like every other 35 year old in the world. There was a lot of of “you’re 35 you should..” And “he’s 29 he should…” in these responses. It was a little overwhelming. I hate the stress of overdrafts and my landlord not liking me don’t get me wrong but what I think I would hate even more is not being able
to live my life with my best friend. A big thanks to everyone who didn’t completely trash my fiancé. He may be thoughtLess and immature at times but he’s not a bad guy at heart and honestly my friend and this forum will never know his side of any of this.I think my biggest takeaway from this whole experience is I need to spend more time communicating with my partner and less time discussing our personal issues with people who don’t know both of us well. I will be seeking out a financial advisor as well because that can’t hurt!
Thanks again to everyone who commented (even the people who were a little mean or obviously didn’t actually read my post) I enjoyed getting to see all of your perspectives. I hope everyone stays safe out there.
Do you move around a lot because you don’t like the people you befriend? Doesn’t that get costly? I know that it is, because I have moved around a lot for work. Do you get new jobs each time?
At 29- he should be more responsible with money. That’s not offensive. He’s had plenty of time to learn about it, especially when you guys live paycheck to paycheck.
If you both can afford to play around with $100 a week- there is no reason not to save some money. That’s $10,400 a year you could be saving. Even partially saving. Please, get your own account for your own sake. You might need a credit card one day. You might need a car loan, and your credit rating is important. If you don’t get married, and you are careful- one person in your relationship stands a chance of having a good credit rating.
I hope you aren’t banking on a relative dying to inherit money. That’s to be seen- probably not a definite thing. And they could live longer and use that money. Be careful. Saving for retirement is not bad advice, even if you do stand to inherit some money.
Um okay then.
Best of luck.
You don’t have to lead a conventional life if you don’t want, but do try to stash away some money once in a while. You can’t count on the inheritence retirement plan.
You never know – there may be less than you think there is, there may be liens and debts that the estate must pay off first, then estate taxes are no joke, and there will be little left after all that. Who knows, maybe these family members will live for a long time still but need substaintial care for years. We pay $9,000 A MONTH for my mother-in-law’s care. She’s stable, and only 65. She could live for years, for decades. We are assumming all of her savings will need to go for her care and there will be nothing left in inherit, which is totally fine.
I’m not saying you or your finance need to live like corporate drones, working nine to fives until you retire to some souless golf course retirement community, but be a little forward thinking so you build yourself some amount of cushion.
Life throws curveballs, a rainy day fund is never a bad idea.
