Me [30F] with my BF [34m] of 3.5 years – Trying to figure out if I should leave and how I leave if I do.

To be put bluntly, we really haven’t been a couple for about a year now.

When we met, we had a lot of fun – we met on a dating app, met for a date and had a 2nd date a few days later. Within a month we had an accident on his motorcycle and he took care of me since I couldn’t move around much and honestly…I was embarrassed to go back to my house right next door to my parents.

Within a year I asked if I could move in since I wanted to rent my house out to a family member, I was basically living over there anyways, I barely spent any time at my house.

We used to have fun. We’d go out adventures, go out on dates together, watch movies. We were a happy couple.

At the start of our relationship, I had just gotten legally divorced. Separated from the ex for almost a year. I’d never drove or even had a license. So, about 4-5 months before we ever even start talking I’d gotten my license and shortly afterwards gotten my car. I was making money by flipping stuff on eBay and was doing well for myself. I could pay my small amount of bills and be able to buy myself stuff occasionally. I was happy with where I was.

Then he started in that I needed to get a ‘real job’. So, I worked at a brick/mortar retail tech store installing radios in cars, that wasn’t enough so I went to clean houses for a few months, covid hit during that time and I was let go, and then I moved to remote work. I’ve been at my job for about 2 years now and honestly, I like what I do. The money isn’t the absolute best but I do enjoy what I do at the end of the day. That’s what matters to me. Not to mention I make my own schedule, I barely do any work because I run the night shift and there really isn’t much to do but someone has to be there in case there is. I don’t want to be stuck at some job I hate somewhere. But this has been a constant issue in my relationship. The fact that I have such a relaxed job and can basically do anything I want, because I don’t “work”. Whereas, he took 2 years of our relationship off work completely to stay home and just do nothing, claiming he worked his ass off to do that. Half of those 2 years I took care of all the bills – that is up until he got a job about 4-5 months ago. I also feel I should mention he makes 5 times more than me. Now we split all of the house bills, but I pay more in bills as I have some personal bills that are not his responsibility at all. At the end of the day, the bills are all paid.

The issue is we aren’t really a couple anymore. I’m the instigator for any and all affection, and even then I don’t get any. We have probably been intimate a total of 4-5 times in the last year, usually when he’s been drinking. He stopped verbally saying I love you about a year or so ago and just would hum the tone of I love you back and now he just gives me an uh-huh back.

I do honestly wish we could get back to where we were. In my mind, once you love someone – that’s your person. I don’t enjoy leaving, I don’t enjoy breaking up. You can get frustrated with someone, have your disagreements, but in the end…you picked each other to share your life with so why ruin a good thing, you know? In the past 3 years, we’ve lived together through 2.5 homes. First was his place, then we moved in together in a home his parents gave him and now we live together closer to where we met and lived originally, in a warehouse with a small apartment in it with the majority of our belongings in another state at the 2nd house we lived at.

All in all, as much as I want to work on things and maybe become a better couple together, realistically I don’t think it’s possible. As much as I’ve been trying, it’s not enough for him to recognize that I genuinely am trying to fix our relationship. To him, all I do is sleep all day and play games on my computer at night during work. (Which I work call center during night shift, we barely get calls but someone has to be there to answer calls and I always do. In between calls there’s nothing for me to do but wait.) But in reality, I clean and organize a good portion of the day, take care of the dogs, run errands, play my games and sleep. I cook 3/5 days a week after he gets off work. I go to the cleaners and wash our clothing almost every single week and that cost a fair amount of money for what it is. But to him, I’m lazy – I don’t do actual work. I’m not progressing in life at all and in the end that’s what the root of the problem is. His life’s goal is to be rich and never have to work a day in his life once he gets to that point. Whereas I’m comfortable doing what I’m doing.

2 weekends ago I asked him if we could go out to eat together, he told me to pick somewhere and we’d go. I found 3 very different places and suggested them to him and he just blew up on me. Telling me he told ME to pick and not him, that since I can’t make my mind up we’re just not going. This turned into the stupidest fight we’ve ever had, and we barely ever fight! In the end, he asked me why I thought he would want to marry me or have kids with me? What do I bring to the table for him? This turned into him saying he understands I enjoy my life as it is, but he doesn’t want to be with me. He asked me to move within the next week. Once I calmed down from that (I was really really upset, I could barely even talk) I asked him again if that’s what he really wanted, was for me to move out. He just responded with ‘I don’t know.’ and that he didn’t want to talk about that right then.

This past weekend, I asked if he’d like to go out to eat. Again, stupid fight. I just wanted breakfast, something like waffle house or if he wanted somewhere nicer we could go there. We laid in bed a little while longer, he went upstairs to kind of do the morning routine everyone has and when he came down I asked him if he saw that our neighbor’s/his best friend’s ex-gf was at his place last night. His response? Good why don’t you go be roommates with her. I asked him for the 2nd time since the original argument ‘do you still want me to move out’ and he just told me that because I felt like I deserved to go out to eat that I just made him feel that way all over again. We dropped it and that’s been that. I’ve just been continuing life as usual but he doesn’t know I was looking at places, just to be safe.

I have a friend of mine who I’ve been friend’s with for around 4 years that we check up on each other every so often. He offered me a room at his house for rent. Basically the same price as just my bills here too, maybe just a little less. I went over there yesterday and took a look at it. We sat down and ended up just talking for 5 hours straight. We check up on each other, but it’s just through FB messenger, never calls or anything. So it was really nice to just sit down, vent my frustrations and he did too, and just talk about everything that’s happened since we stopped hanging out so much. He’s a good person. I could easily see myself living over there and potentially becoming something more later down the line but that’s not a focus *at all* right now. Originally I was just going to move back in with my mom or in my tiny house that my father is renting from me, neither are the best ideas because internet is terrible over there and my remote work might not be supportable on what is available.

Here’s the issue. I could stay and keep trying and feeling like I’m beating a dead horse for a lack of better words. I could stay and eventually something will click and it’ll get better. I could move, he could come to some realization and see about getting back with me. I could move and that could be it. But in the end, I’m absolutely terrified of making the wrong decision – terrified that I’ll be the one to give up and it could’ve been the wrong thing to choose.

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**tl;dr**: BF and I are in a limbo of our relationship. He almost broke up with me 2 weeks ago and now I’m unsure what the next steps are. I have options but do not know what to do anymore. Please help me grasp what to do or atleast be my voice of reason.