tl;dr I’ve been dating him since the beginning of the pandemic. In 2020, he gave me an ultimatum- if I don’t make things official/ exclusive with him, we can no longer talk. So, I continued to talk to him and make things official.
Fast forward to now… we’re living together and I love him like family. I truly think he is one of the greatest people god had ever created. He is my absolute best friend and I do love spending time with him. However, I just don’t feel like we’re on the same page. I am a very motivated person who would like to be with someone who is the same, and he gets upset at ANY conversation I try to start that has to do with the future, because he knows I recognize the difference in our motivation. I fear that I could be further in life if I hadn’t spent so much time with him.
In all, I’m not sure what to do. Since I live with him and love him with all my heart, it breaks me to imagine a life without him. However, I fear that living a life without him is necessary.
If you have any pieces of advice, I’d love to hear. I’m just super lost.
4 comments
Good for you for being brave enough to take a hard look at your future. I know you love him, but loving him when his life choices will stall or damage your future is never in your best interests. Without a plan you don’t stand a chance, life will keep making the decisions for you if you don’t make them yourself. This is the time to be motivated and figuring out your life, staying with someone that just lets life happen means you will go down with him. So figure out your path and start working hard towards it, create the future you want and don’t let him hold you back.
At the end of the day, being conventially successful isn’t for everyone. Unless he’s a complete pothead, you may even complement each other if you start a family and he’s happy to be a SAH dad. While I sympathise, perhaps being less judgemental would help him open up about it
Love is a two way street. If a partner cannot tolerate talking about the future, that’s not love. At your ages, talking and planning and taking action for the future is absolutely what you should be doing. Don’t drift along and become a victim of circumstance.
Use birth control.
Write down a list of reasons why you should break up, and sit him down and say that you’re planning on ending things unless some things change. Come up with an explicit plan to change things (with a little compromise) and give him a few weeks to see if he actually does it, and then check in on that list every few months to see if it’s a long term habit or not. That way you don’t waste years with him but also give him a shot.
You should end things if he doesn’t change, but most people are blind to their faults. If he genuinely wants to change and doesn’t like those things about himself, you should see if it can work.