Boyfriend [29M] is dissatisfied with his life, but afraid to change because of me and out kids [26F, 4M, 2F] How can I help him understand we support him?

Boyfriend and I have been together for five years. I’m using the word “boyfriend” here for clarity, but in all respects except the legal one we function as a married couple. I am committed to him for life, we have children and have shared a home for years. For the last couple years we’ve tended to just refer to each other as “husband” and “wife” when talking to others.

We both work full-time, he makes a bit more than I do. He is good at his job and skilled at it, and it affords us a lot of things.

So lately, maybe the last couple months give or take, I noticed he has been in kind of a funk. Not quite depressed, and most people probably wouldn’t know anything is wrong, but I’ve been around him long enough that there were just some small things I could pick up on that let me know something was getting to him. He can be Mr. Stoic a lot of the time, so sometimes it’s hard to get him to open up about stuff, but one night after the kids were in bed I made him come and sit with me. I just told him that I could tell something was bothering him and I wanted to know what it was.

It took a little sweet-talk to get him to open up, but we were able to have a very long and honest conversation (the wine we were drinking may have helped). Pretty much, he told me he is just not happy with his job anymore. He doesn’t feel fulfilled by it, and he’s not happy with the prospect of doing it the rest of his life.

I asked him what he would do instead, and at first he told me that he can’t do anything else, the current field is the only one he is qualified to do right now. I told him to forget that for now and just tell me what he most wants to do. He kind of shyly admitted to a job he used to want to do as a kid. It’s a good job. I know I am being a little intentionally vague here, but he frequents reddit and I’m not trying to be too obvious.

So, I told him to go for that job he wants. But he said he can’t, because he needs to get a degree. So I told him the obvious answer is he needs to go back to school and get a degree. He was in the military just before I met him and we could pay for it with that GI Bill he still has available.

But he said he can’t do that because the kids and I are relying on him to make money right now. He feels like he can’t leave his current career because of how it would affect us.

I told him I can carry the heavy-side of the bills for now, and we could cut back on things for a few years so he can go to college. But he was dismissive of that.

I tried to tell him that I support him, and the kids want their dad to be happy, and we would be okay living on a little less for a while. But he said he wouldn’t ask us to do that.

There was more back-and-forth, but it didn’t advance much beyond that before we both needed to get to sleep. But the whole situation has me sad now. I know we are important to him and he has proved that for years, but he is important to us, too, and we can totally cut back and make due without his income for a while.

But he won’t entertain the idea of going to school because he doesn’t want us to cut back for him. Which isn’t sustainable because I’m not going to let him be unhappy for my sake either, as long as I can do anything about it.

How can I get through to him that we are okay with carrying him for a while so he can get that cool job he wants?

Is there a way to convince him that me and the kids are behind him doing what he wants to do in life?

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**tl;dr**: Boyfriend is unhappy with his current career but afraid to leave because it provides a lot for me and the kids. How can I get him to see that we are okay with cutting back in order for him to pursue what he wants to do?