I’m going to try and include a lot of detail, so I’ll put a tldr at the start and end
tldr
\-We are discussing the idea of both of us letting go of our resentments and starting fresh together and looking for new ways of communicating
\-not sure if I believe in him to make the changes I’d want for us to have a future together
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My boyfriend is currently recieving government benefits, and has been for the entirety of our 2 year relationship. He has a small online business where he earns around $100 a week. For most of our relationship, he has slept past noon and spent most of his time in his bedroom on his computer. We do not live together or share finances, so when I express concerns about this, he somewhat rightly says that it is not my business and does not effect me.
I broke up with him around a month ago, but we quickly got back together. Since then, he has started waking up around 10am each day, has started cooking himself meals instead of getting so much takeout, has said he will likely start going to the gym again in the next few weeks (this was a big part of his routine prior to covid and before he met me, that he’s said helps to make other things fall into place). He will not look for a job as most of the jobs he would be able to get would be in things like retail/hospo/call centre etc. which can be exploitative and have limitted opportunity for progression and he has said have made him depressed when he worked them in the past.
So for now he is working on getting his health and headspace more ordered, and has said he will then start really trying to scale up his online business in the next month or so, with the goal of eventually working at it around 3 days a week from around 11-4pm, but being really efficient within these hours so that by the time he is 45, he hopes to be making 6 figures.
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I work 4 days a week as a high school teacher, am also studying philosophy part time and play lots of sports and like to lead a very structured and busy life. Being super career successful isn’t important to me, but financial security and stability are of extreme importance to me.
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I am carrying a lot of resentment over times when I have not felt emotionally supported in the relationship. I think I have also dropped my level of support to match what I have percieved his to be. I have become quite untrusting (never any concerns about him cheating or anything like that), but untrusting in the sense that he has often invalidated my emotions so I am cautious in how I bring them up, or it becomes evident to him when I do bring things up that I don’t feel like he is on my side.
He has asked many times that I try to be more open hearted, and that I stop interpreting things he says in a negative way.
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Part of me wants to let go of things and try to start again. He’s giving things a go and trying to improve his life and trying to be more supportive. It’s not fair to him that I am struggling to believe in him and his attempts to improve his life.
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I have autism and struggle with emotional regulation. I’ve done a lot of therapy but it’s still a struggle sometimes, especially when my emotions are invalidated. He believes in me. Even though it frustrates him and negatively impacts our relationship when I let myself fall into anxiety or get excessively upset over little things, he believes that I have the ability to keep improving in these areas and will not always be this way.
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Should I try to let go of all my resentment and start again? How do I even do this? I’m trying to think of having a mantra that every time I have a doubting thought, I remind myself I believe in him and he believes in me, and then maybe stop and check in with myself deeply once a month so that I’m not just throwing caution to the wind and living in fantasy land.
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He is so optimistic, and is remarkably good at letting things go and controlling where he focusses his attention, so I have every faith in him being able to let go of things. I think I will find it more difficult though and am struggling to 100% commit to it
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tl;dr
\-We are discussing the idea of both of us letting go of our resentments and starting fresh together and looking for new ways of communicating
\-not sure if I believe in him to make the changes I’d want for us to have a future together
4 comments
Things I love about him:
-talking about philosophy together
-playing tennis together
-he has really strong morals and care for animals and is super committed to being vegetarian
-he is very calm and doesn’t lose his temper
-he is a very deep thinker
Things I resent:
-he won’t get his learner’s permit even though driving really stresses me out so I mostly have to go to his place and have to drive the whole way when we go on trips together
-he sometimes invalidates my emotions by saying ‘why are you making a big deal out of this’ if he doesn’t see why I’m upset about something
-he wouldn’t get the covid vaccine
-for ages he wouldn’t open the door straight away when I arrived at his house. Maybe he wasn’t getting my messages to say I’d arrived.
-he struggles to take accountability for things eg. the door thing
-I remember once I bought up that I was frustrated and hurt that he was often late. But he said he doesn’t want to live his life with some super strict routine and every hang out to be stressful where he has to arrive exactly on time or I’ll be mad. I feel like this wasn’t really taking accountability
-the way he communicates is often very metaphorical and circles around issues and I really struggle to understand because I’m autistic and it gets really exhausting. I appreciate that he has a very nuanced understanding of most things that can’t be summarised in a short sentence but sometimes I really struggle with this
>said he will then start really trying to scale up his online business in the next month or so, with the goal of eventually working at it around 3 days a week from around 11-4pm, but being really efficient within these hours
How many hours per week is he prepared to put in to get to the point where he ‘only’ has to work 15 per week?
Because to me it sounds like he already can’t be fucked.
>with the goal of eventually working at it around 3 days a week from around 11-4pm, but being really efficient within these hours so that by the time he is 45, he hopes to be making 6 figures.
I’m sorry but I laughed at this. He can’t even get out of bed before 10am, he’s chronically late and he thinks he’s too good to work retail or hospitality. This is not someone with the personal drive or ambition to successfully run his own business. And he thinks he’s somehow going to go from making $100 a week to over $100,000k a year working only 15 hours a week?
You’re dating Peter Pan. He’s never going to grow up. There isn’t a future with this guy because he isn’t interested in being an adult.