I have been dating my girlfriend for about 6 months. When we met, she had just quit her part time retail job and said she was going to get a new job. I recently told my parents about her and they want to meet her and I’m embarrassed for when they find out that she doesn’t work and didn’t go to college. Her days mostly consist of playing video games and texting me. I’m the one person she talks to constantly and I feel a burden of pressure to reply, even if it’s something meaningless because I know she’s just bored at home and wants someone to talk to. It’s definitely having a negative impact on her mental health which is making it harder for her to look for a job, so I really do feel for her, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much effort being put into this. I’ve helped her with her resume and I’ll let her know of any job opportunities I hear of, but that’s all I can really do without overstepping and stressing her out too much.
She’s renting right now and burning through all of her savings and is intentionally trying to get below 40k so she can get on disability. She does have a chronic health condition that causes her pain, but even she knows that she’s able to work through it as long as the job doesn’t require standing for extended periods of time.
This is really the only thing in our relationship that I’m iffy about. I had a conversation about this with her today and expressed my concerns and she says that she does want to go to school eventually, but she just doesn’t know what she wants to do and has no ambitions. I suggested working a casual job in the meantime so she’s not just ruminating all day, but she didn’t like the idea. I don’t know what to do. I know it’s her life and not mine, but this is for her own wellbeing.
Is it too much of me to want my partner to be a self-sufficient adult and show that she’s determined to meet life/career goals? How do you cope with an unemployed partner while also being supportive and not making them feel like shit about themselves?
1 comment
To me, it sounds like mental health could be playing a huge role in how your girlfriend doesn’t really know what she wants to do or currently have any ambitions. Given that she suffers from something that causes chronic pain, I think there could be a correlation there.
I think I personally would be suggesting therapy, if that’s not something she’s already in.
From there, she might be able to get the support she needs to find ambitions and develop career/life goals. I have a few friends with conditions that cause chronic pain who really struggle in that air and fall into quite deep periods of depression where they isolate themselves.
Naturally, you get to decide whether all of this is a dealbreaker for you. I think I would be in that boat, I want my partner to be actively living life and wanting to do things together so this would be an incompatibility for me, personally.