TL;DR BF’s job is demanding/has become his life but doesn’t benefit our relationship (financially and in quality time). I can’t complain because he loves what he’s doing.
Let me start off by saying I’m happy for him because one can only be so lucky to find a job that you actually like doing, but I feel like it’s affecting our relationship. For context, we met in college but have been LDR since the pandemic cause I had to move back home. We chat everyday and I do see him for a weekend every month or every other month. He also comes to see me once or twice a year. He’s kind and loving, and I do see him as the father of my future children.
About his job: he works in a government office and he feels really passionate about “making a change”. But I have 2 issues with it: 1) it’s demands a lot from him and 2) it doesn’t pay well.
I’ll start with 1. Every day, he gets up at 6, works overtime, gets home at 9 and is asleep by 10. After graduating college, I’ve picked up some hobbies while he has left behind his. I find it really difficult to connect with him now because I feel like we don’t have much things to bond over anymore. His time mostly only allows him to work now, and I just can’t relate to him especially when I work in a startup where my managers are much more understanding about work life balance. We do talk everyday but now it’s just mostly about how our days went. I always ask him if we could go on a trip together, but he always says he can’t take a leave from work and he just doesn’t have the budget for it (even when I offered to pay for his plane tickets one time). Which brings me to #2.
Given how hard he works, I feel like he just doesn’t get paid enough. They don’t get paid for holidays and leaves so his salary isn’t fixed. They don’t get any government mandate benefits (ironic, I know) and sometimes their salaries are delayed for up to 2 months. Last year, his manager told him he was getting promoted, then after a week, told him they couldn’t after all because of budget cuts. We’re at this point where we want to get married. Our financial plan in the next 2 years is for him to build his emergency fund while I build our wedding fund. I know it’s fair because technically we’re both going to be saving, but I can’t help but feel the burden that if I don’t save enough, we’ll never have he married.
We have a lot of dreams for the future, about living a nice life together once we’re married. But right now it feels like that’s all there is—just day dreaming about a future we have no assurance of. I can’t even enjoy the now with him.
2 comments
Based on what you wrote about yourselves, it seems that even if the relationship wasn’t LDR, you’d both still have very little time together to bond, travel or have fun as a couple. The low salary of his job is something to worry about, I won’t lie; but it doesn’t seem to be the worst among the issues.
I can feel thru your text that you do feel an awesome connection with him as a partner, but isn’t that connection a bit heavy-weighted on the NOSTALGIA of what you “were” as a couple in your past?
You used to spend way more time together, and so on.
So my general advice here is: either you guys try to make things feel the way they did before (example: move to the same place/town again, and meet in the middle regarding his job and free time issue), or you move on and try to find a new partner which makes the relationship feel 100% right to have your emotional and time investment.
Sounds like you should have two separate talks: one about your desire to spend more time together, and another about financial planning for your future.
I wouldn’t directly bring up that you take issue with his work, because his choice of employment is his decision to make. Instead, express how you’re concerned how your time together and slow progress towards financial goals make you feel. He can come to his own conclusions of how to reconcile these issues.