My (F 31) husband (M 33) has been unemployed for 4 years

Oof this is going to be a long one. TL;DR: my husband has been unemployed for over 4 years and it has put a huge strain on our relationship. I love him but I’m very unhappy. Should I stay or should I go?

A little background: my husband (M 33) and I (F 31) have been married for 3 years, together for 5.5 years. We first met 13 years ago in college. We were friends and liked each other but never started dating in college. We both dated other people then years later reconnected and fell in love. I moved from the Midwest to New England for a job when we first started dating and my husband ended up moving there to be with me. We moved to another state in New England after 1 year and stayed there for 1.5 years. We moved back to a big city in the Midwest almost 2.5 years ago for my job and have been here since. We are hoping to stay here long term. I have a doctorate degree and a successful career with a good salary (nothing crazy but 6 figures). My husband was a business major in college and was close to graduating but dropped out and never ended up getting a degree.

When he first moved to New England he found a job pretty quickly. We ended up moving 2.5 hours away as my training program was over and I got a new job. He wasn’t having luck finding a job in this new location for several months. I gave him some grace as he had moved across the country for me then moved again. Eventually it got the point where I told him it is not okay that he’s not working. He decided that he wanted to go back to school for computer science as he couldn’t find a job. I agreed that this was a good plan. He enrolled in online classes through a university. His parents paid for his tuition with the agreement that he would pay them back when he could. This continued for another year or so. He was very secretive about his classes and didn’t like to talk about it. When I asked how much longer he would need to be in school etc he would be very vague and say it depended on which pathway he decided to take (probably true). After about a year of him “taking classes” I discovered that he had stopped taking classes for the current quarter and didn’t tell me.

Around this time we moved back to the Midwest as we wanted to be closer to family and friends and I got a great job (to a big city- not our home state). Once again he had a hard time finding a job. Months go by and several times I offer to help him look an apply and he always declined. I begged him to send me his resume so I could review it and also apply for jobs on his behalf but he never sent it to me. I even started a resume template for him that he never finished. We have now lived here for almost 2.5 years and he still has yet to find a job. He is very secretive and doesn’t tell me anything about his job search. Whenever I try to ask him questions he either shuts down or we end up fighting so I hardly ever ask anymore (I’m exhausted by the situation and I’m very non-confrontational). He spends most of the day in our spare bedroom with the door locked. I’d like to think that he’s applying for jobs, looking into boot camps, teaching himself code etc but Im pretty positive he is usually laying in bed on his phone, watching TV, playing video games, or sleeping. He stays up late and sleeps in late every day. He leaves the house to go to the gym, get groceries/run errands, play basketball or go out with his friends
, or to take our dog to the park but otherwise he is always home. I work from home most of the time so I can see how he spends his time (other than when he’s in the locked bedroom).

Unsurprisingly my parents and his parents are very unhappy about the situation. He’s been considering enrolling in a tech boot camp program to help him get a good job in tech. I’ve told him I think that’s a good idea and I would even pay the tuition on a credit card with the expectation that he would get a job after so we can pay the credit card bill. He has yet to decide on a boot camp program.

It has now been over 4 years since he has had a job. He hasn’t even had an interview or call back. I have a good salary as I said but we have NO savings. The cost of living is high as we all know.. especially where we live. I’m actually in the red right now with credit card debt (with 0% interest for what it’s worth). Not to mention I have over $200k in student loans and I’ll have to start making payments again next month. This isn’t the life that I worked so hard for so many years to have. I’m so unhappy and the situation is humiliating. I held off on trying to make friends here until very recently as I was embarrassed that my husband doesn’t have a job. I never talked about it with my best friends (all in other states) unless they asked because I was embarrassed.

Needless to say this has put an immense strain on our relationship. We tried going to couples therapy for awhile but it didn’t seem to be helping so we stopped.

His unemployment is not the only issue in our relationship. I also don’t like the way he treats me a lot of the time. It almost feels like he’s a bad roommate that doesn’t pay rent or bills. We rarely have sex (once a month tops) and we have slept in separate bedrooms for years. We never go on dates or spend time together outside of the house unless I plan everything (and pay for everything). Every trip that we go on is 100% planned and paid for by me. All family travel plans, buying our families gifts, etc… me. I have always carried the vast majority of the mental load/labor in our relationship. He is often in a bad mood and is avoidant. It is not uncommon for him to ignore me, not answer my questions, not reply to my texts, not do what I ask him to do several times, etc.

He does help run the house quite a bit. He cooks and cleans often, buys groceries/runs errands, and takes our dog to the park every day. I appreciate it so much but it’s not enough. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease 2 years ago which causes me to have arthritis in several joints and bad fatigue. I honestly considered it a blessing in disguise that he was unemployed when I first started having symptoms because I was constantly in pain and exhausteed so he picked up the slack and helped with the tasks that I used to do. Even after 2 years I have yet to find a medication/treatment regimen that works well for my condition but I am a lot better than I was before.

I have seriously been contemplating separation/divorce for a long time now. I even purchased legal insurance through my employer in case I’ll need it for a divorce.

I still love my husband and maybe I always will. We do get along most of the time and he is always making me laugh. We do still have a lot of fun together.

I honestly believe that if we were dating not married and/or didn’t have dog together that I would have dumped him long ago. I absolutely adore our dog and he is the light of my life. What happens if we split up? Split custody? I’m so worried about what that would mean for our dog.

Where do I go from here? I know we clearly have communication problems and could really use couples therapy again but I’m not even sure if I want to fight for us. I’m so exhausted and hurt i think I’d rather just end things. I feel like he has made a fool of me.