I have been with him for 10 months. Emotionally, he treats me well and is always extremely kind and understanding. However, he is very irresponsible and shortsighted when it comes to his financial decisions. At the moment I live with my parents but save and invest a majority of my paychecks because I want to move out within the next few years.
It all started when he moved back in with his parents and quit his full time job. He wanted to go on a trip with me and said he would start his job search after two weeks of relaxing, so he could save for our trip.
Somehow, five months had passed by and he still didn’t have a job. He dwindled his savings down from a few thousand dollars to literally $1.30, and started furiously searching for a job when we looked at the ticket and hotel prices. He assumed that tickets were still $100 like the way they were during the pandemic. He got a job, but still kept overdrafting his account and didnt mind.
He also took months to pay me back for his half of the hotel stay and even missed the generous deadline I gave him, which also stressed me out.
He then said he would have to borrow more money from me, since he only had $250 to spend for food and transportation on the one week long trip. I told him I can’t lend him money, and he was confident he could make it last. However, 3 days in, he ran out of money because he spent $80 on weed the very first day.
My respect for him plummeted down to nothing and I couldn’t take it anymore. I was sick of paying for everything because he couldnt afford it. I told him if he didn’t wait so long to get a job this probably wouldn’t have happened, and how could he insist on going on a full blown vacation when he couldnt afford it? He started crying and saying I need to have faith that he will learn to be responsible.
At this point, I don’t want to teach him things he should already know. He is an adult already, and it’s possible he will change, but in the past year wr have known each other, he hasn’t even tried to fix his habits. Since the trip, I have felt so distant from him and like I just don’t respect him.
tl;dr: boyfriend is so shortsighted with money while I think saving and investing is very important and I am at my wits end.
10 comments
It’s not your job to teach a fully grown person how to be financially responsible and him relying on you to do so only reinforces the fact that he can’t/won’t take accountability. I would either give him a timeframe to get better by or breakup.
So why not date someone who IS financially responsible NOW instead of waiting for this guy to get his shit together? And no, “because I love him” is not an answer.
Stop financing him. You really aren’t compatible. Find someone who has their life together.
>He started crying and saying I need to have faith that he will learn to be responsible.
Speaking as a person who was myself financially irresponsible when young: this will take years and years and years. Don’t waste your time on this guy.
It’s a breakup.
You don’t need to be mean about it. It’s just a breakup.
You are not comfortable with debt and with risk the way he is comfortable with these things. You have different values. You have different beliefs about what behavior is respectful and acceptable when it comes to money and planning.
You’re incompatible. Leave it at that and move on.
If he currently owes you any money, do yourself a favor and tell him to consider it a gift. It’s worth it, I promise you, to not have to have regular contact with him about the debt he’ll probably never pay back anyways…
You do not respect him (quite understandably so), so break up. You can’t date someone’s potential. You either date him, and you do not respect him so that is a no-go, or you do not date him. Thus, don’t date him.
Using his tears instead of just getting it together… that’s a toddler. No ma’am.
I would break up with him. You’ve lost respect and aren’t obligated to hang around while he figures out how to be a responsible adult.
When you are dating someone you are either dating for marriage or for heartbreak. Meaning if you dont see ur future with them, then you are just spending time with them getting feelings and preparing yourself for getting hurt.
But would you marry someone whos financially this unstable? When you start your own life you will realize that being financially concious is very very important. If this bothers you already now it will just get worse.
He is a broke irresponsible lazy loser with a drug problem. When he spends your $80 on weed jeopardizing the entire vacation it is indeed a problem.
Sounds like my EX, hence the EX part…