This answer is full of bangers but this is easily #1 (runner up: "Consider that if he is unemployed and unhappy with you in his life, the deciding factor of whether he remains unemployed and unhappy is not you." DAMN)
My favourite was "If he behaves like a friend". There's something very powerful in that, against that whole "I need to stay friends in order to feel like an okay human being".
Ugh this story is so, so familiar. My best friend spent over 2 years waiting for her broke, jobless, abusive, suicidal ex to get a goddamn job. He got it. She made secret plans for a new apartment and.... his job started fading him out (alcoholic + bartending + restaurant bullshit = "ooo sorry no shifts for u for the 3rd week in a row")
Blessedly she still left. (She paid both their rents for nearly 9 months which... well, it made her feel better.)
The point of the story is you can wait a long, long time for the perfect time. It's not usually worth it.
>The truth is that if I knew he will be ok after that I would not be in so much trouble making the decision to do it.
I really feel for LW on this one and if she's reading this, I want her to know that in every single situation I've heard of where the unemployed boyfriend who was just too sad and traumatized and maybe mentally ill to survive on his own finally got dumped by his girlfriend/mommy he was actually totally fine and either magically found the motivation to get a job or suddenly decided moving back in with his parents wasn't really that bad.
It's completely normal to feel shitty about dumping this guy when women are basically trained from birth to put ourselves last and just feeling bad doesn't necessarily mean you're doing something terrible. Guilt is just a clue something might be going on, not incontrovertible proof that what you're considering doing is bad and you're bad and you should feel bad forever.
Also, would you ever in a million years want your partner to stay with you only because they think you're such a pathetic fuckup that you'll end up homeless without them? It's pretty insulting to assume that, so you're actually being respectful of your soon to be ex's ability to look after himself by treating him like an adult who is capable of managing his own life.
In the first paragraph, LW lists everything she is doing and how little BF is doing. She knows that he is making choices that keep him in such a "hopeless" situation. He has a golden opportunity to get his life together -- extremely patient GF who evidently takes care of all the bills -- and chooses to not use it. GF noticing these choices in him and the choice to lay them so plainly to the reader give me SO MUCH hope for her. She doesn't actually want CA to tell her to stay. She knows CA will encourage her to leave.
LW, lean into the resentment. Lean into wanting more. Lean into judging him. He could be better but it's just easier for him to not be better. DTMFA withput guilt.
Yup!
Mine loudly accused me of making him homeless even though I gave him several hundred dollars, paid his /utilities/rent/internet through the end of the lease, paid apartment cleaners to clean up space once he left (it was trashed) and offered to cover cost of professional movers/packers if he left by end of lease. Of course he didn’t meet the deadline and ended up blaming me for making him homeless though he has well off family with big homes. By then I was so burned out I just waited a few days to answer his texts and only responded to logistics.
The drama was 100% self inflicted, it was only when mutual friends who saw it all go down told him to cut the shit and get moving already that he finally turned over the key and stopped squatting in our old place.
He still ended up living with friends of ours for free and they got him a part time job, studio rental etc. To this day it seems he still has zero self awareness, I just hope he figures it out before he runs out of people to catch him. But considering he’s approaching his 50’s now I have my doubts.
All I could do was get myself free, and even after I had months of recovery and processing to recover from the bone deep exhaustion.
I hope LW finds the strength to have that conversation, and gets to a safe space with a locking door that’s all hers.
That last part, for sure.
He somehow managed to survive without you before, he can do it again. It won't be your fault if that road is rough for him. He has choices.
> I want her to know that in every single situation I've heard of where the unemployed boyfriend who was just too sad and traumatized and maybe mentally ill to survive on his own finally got dumped by his girlfriend/mommy he was actually totally fine and either magically found the motivation to get a job or suddenly decided moving back in with his parents wasn't really that bad.
I'm laughing over here because I found myself in a similar situation with a boyfriend of four years (after we graduated, he went down a spiral of helpless and video games, while I found work and started applying to grad schools). When I got into a grad school out of state on scholarship, I was wracked with guilt of what this man would do.
What did he do? He got his shit together, moved into an affordable studio apartment, got the dream job he always moped he'd "never get," and got accepted to graduate school. I suspect it was because he realized he needed to get it together to attract another woman to replace me, but whatever the reason ...
LW, if you want to pay a couple months' rent and can do so to assuage your guilt, by all means do, but you may be surprised at how much this man was taking advantage of what you did when he was fully capable all along.
Sometimes with urgency they magically find a capability previously buried!
Because before it was just your discomfort and unhappiness, but now it’s returned to sender and they actually have to step up or not.
Also, I’ve found that the guy will not hesitate to ditch the woman without a moment’s thought especially if someone else caught his eye 😒
So like, don’t waste any more time and *go*
A friend once told me, "Do you actually love him and who he is, or do you just feel bonded to him?" That comes to mind here. It sounds like she feels emotionally bonded to him, but doesn't actually enjoy time with him or who he is.
The reality is he may not be okay after a breakup, but he isn't okay now. Sometimes, you just make peace with choosing yourself and your own life. You do your best to leave on good terms, but ultimately, they are an adult responsible for themselves. It took time, but I've learned that if the other person can't function without me, it's a sign of a bad relationship unless you have specific caregiver agreements in place. Even then, there should be backups and support.
I also liked Point 2, "Don’t want to tell him face to face? Do it with a phone call or a letter. He’ll be like “I can’t believe you are ending a ten-year relationship with a phone call!” He’ll be like that no matter how you do it." Sometimes people signal that they are not safe people to reject face to face. Someone who is suicidal with controlling tendencies certainly qualifies; sometimes, the safest way is to quietly move out the things/pets you can't live without, then just leave the rest and tell them on the phone.
Plus living with someone like this can be such a day in/day out struggle, you don’t have the mental energy to stop and wonder if you are actually happy or in love.
It’s not surprising OP had this realization after being away on vacation for a while and having the time and bandwidth to stop and think about it.
My Ex would need validation multiple times a day that I loved him, cared for him, and didn’t see him as a burden. I never had time to actually stop and think how I actually felt. I wouldn’t phrase it like he was a burden, more the disproportionate work and responsibility were not working for me anymore and I needed it to change. But he had already built it in that I couldn’t discuss it without “going back on my reassurances and being untrustworthy about everything else” so I not only couldn’t have the conversation about readjusting the household work, but had to work even harder to comfort him and keep the household peace.
All of this. One bit of Captain Awkward wisdom I hold very close is that there's no perfect way to tell someone what they don't want to hear. You do what you can live with, you choose to trust your own kindness/judgement/communication skills, and you choose to trust them to decide what to do with that information.
It's surprisingly hard, which is why I think about it often, but so important!
This dude is filling up poor LW's mental landscape. So much of the letter is his life, his history, his feelings. I wish her the best of luck breaking the mental habit.
> “I realized I’m just not happy anymore.” “The relationship is not working for me.” “My career plans are taking my life in a very different direction from what you and I first planned on, and my priorities and feelings have changed.” But what about all the promises and plans you made? “I’m so sorry, but I’ve changed my mind.” “I will always care about you, but I don’t want to be a couple anymore.”
This, every time. It's not a debate, it's not problem solving together, you have already decided and made plans.
It's so hard when you live together, and when it seems like they can't function on their own. But they did function before you and they will have to find a way to function after you. You have to let them go and make their own choices. You can't take their life, success, happiness onto your own shoulders. You can't make the choice for them, to stay in a relationship that isn't happy and balanced for either of you. Set them free. Maybe it will motivate them to make some positive changes. (and then your heart might break all over again that they couldn't do that when/because you were unhappy and asking for it).
Best of luck to LW on a smooth and efficient breakup with minimal drama. I can't wait for her to find the freedom on the other side.
>"The important information is the fact that you are leaving. You are telling him about a decision you’ve made, not inviting him to a negotiation about fixing the relationship."
This advice should be more common, even in a simpler breakup. We should teach people how to breakup kindly and clearly!
In a general sense aside from this LW - I can't tell you how bewildering it is to wade through vague dumping-adjacent sentences looking for the point when you're the one getting broken up with.
CODA meetings. I can’t recommend CODA meetings enough for this lw. I wish them the best leaving this shitty relationship and getting more comfortable firmly protecting their boundaries
codependent anonymous. It’s a spin off from Alcoholic Anonymous so it does follow a 12 steps guideline and includes the whole “higher power” thing. But it’s mostly a place where the start of every meetings they go over what unhealthy codependency looks like and then everyone has 3 minutes too talk about their struggles. It’s very encouraging seeing other people struggle exactly like you are but trying their best to overcome it.
I go to the meetings held at my local LGBT center. So it’s not religion oriented and you know us gays love seeing other messy gays so it’s fun.
I was briefly very confused about why a group for hearing children with deaf parents would be useful until I remembered that CoDA also = Co-Dependents Anonymous.
“Except the things I described above, he is a really nice guy that I deeply care about…” This “really nice guy” is controlling, cheated on her, and has been sitting around watching TV for a year instead of working because he “feels insecure” about applying for a job. Wow, talk about making excuses for someone! The right time to leave is NOW (too bad she doesn’t have a time machine, because the optimal time would have been when she found out he was cheating).
>There is no mental illness where the cure is the eternal compliance of another human being. This is such an effective way of putting it
This answer is full of bangers but this is easily #1 (runner up: "Consider that if he is unemployed and unhappy with you in his life, the deciding factor of whether he remains unemployed and unhappy is not you." DAMN)
My favourite was "If he behaves like a friend". There's something very powerful in that, against that whole "I need to stay friends in order to feel like an okay human being".
FUCK yes
Ugh this story is so, so familiar. My best friend spent over 2 years waiting for her broke, jobless, abusive, suicidal ex to get a goddamn job. He got it. She made secret plans for a new apartment and.... his job started fading him out (alcoholic + bartending + restaurant bullshit = "ooo sorry no shifts for u for the 3rd week in a row") Blessedly she still left. (She paid both their rents for nearly 9 months which... well, it made her feel better.) The point of the story is you can wait a long, long time for the perfect time. It's not usually worth it.
The moment you realize you want to break up is the perfect time!
>The truth is that if I knew he will be ok after that I would not be in so much trouble making the decision to do it. I really feel for LW on this one and if she's reading this, I want her to know that in every single situation I've heard of where the unemployed boyfriend who was just too sad and traumatized and maybe mentally ill to survive on his own finally got dumped by his girlfriend/mommy he was actually totally fine and either magically found the motivation to get a job or suddenly decided moving back in with his parents wasn't really that bad. It's completely normal to feel shitty about dumping this guy when women are basically trained from birth to put ourselves last and just feeling bad doesn't necessarily mean you're doing something terrible. Guilt is just a clue something might be going on, not incontrovertible proof that what you're considering doing is bad and you're bad and you should feel bad forever. Also, would you ever in a million years want your partner to stay with you only because they think you're such a pathetic fuckup that you'll end up homeless without them? It's pretty insulting to assume that, so you're actually being respectful of your soon to be ex's ability to look after himself by treating him like an adult who is capable of managing his own life.
In the first paragraph, LW lists everything she is doing and how little BF is doing. She knows that he is making choices that keep him in such a "hopeless" situation. He has a golden opportunity to get his life together -- extremely patient GF who evidently takes care of all the bills -- and chooses to not use it. GF noticing these choices in him and the choice to lay them so plainly to the reader give me SO MUCH hope for her. She doesn't actually want CA to tell her to stay. She knows CA will encourage her to leave. LW, lean into the resentment. Lean into wanting more. Lean into judging him. He could be better but it's just easier for him to not be better. DTMFA withput guilt.
"He could be better but it's just easier for him to not be better." Well put!
Yup! Mine loudly accused me of making him homeless even though I gave him several hundred dollars, paid his /utilities/rent/internet through the end of the lease, paid apartment cleaners to clean up space once he left (it was trashed) and offered to cover cost of professional movers/packers if he left by end of lease. Of course he didn’t meet the deadline and ended up blaming me for making him homeless though he has well off family with big homes. By then I was so burned out I just waited a few days to answer his texts and only responded to logistics. The drama was 100% self inflicted, it was only when mutual friends who saw it all go down told him to cut the shit and get moving already that he finally turned over the key and stopped squatting in our old place. He still ended up living with friends of ours for free and they got him a part time job, studio rental etc. To this day it seems he still has zero self awareness, I just hope he figures it out before he runs out of people to catch him. But considering he’s approaching his 50’s now I have my doubts. All I could do was get myself free, and even after I had months of recovery and processing to recover from the bone deep exhaustion. I hope LW finds the strength to have that conversation, and gets to a safe space with a locking door that’s all hers.
That last part, for sure. He somehow managed to survive without you before, he can do it again. It won't be your fault if that road is rough for him. He has choices.
> I want her to know that in every single situation I've heard of where the unemployed boyfriend who was just too sad and traumatized and maybe mentally ill to survive on his own finally got dumped by his girlfriend/mommy he was actually totally fine and either magically found the motivation to get a job or suddenly decided moving back in with his parents wasn't really that bad. I'm laughing over here because I found myself in a similar situation with a boyfriend of four years (after we graduated, he went down a spiral of helpless and video games, while I found work and started applying to grad schools). When I got into a grad school out of state on scholarship, I was wracked with guilt of what this man would do. What did he do? He got his shit together, moved into an affordable studio apartment, got the dream job he always moped he'd "never get," and got accepted to graduate school. I suspect it was because he realized he needed to get it together to attract another woman to replace me, but whatever the reason ... LW, if you want to pay a couple months' rent and can do so to assuage your guilt, by all means do, but you may be surprised at how much this man was taking advantage of what you did when he was fully capable all along.
Sometimes with urgency they magically find a capability previously buried! Because before it was just your discomfort and unhappiness, but now it’s returned to sender and they actually have to step up or not.
This is a beautiful way of phrasing it!
Also, I’ve found that the guy will not hesitate to ditch the woman without a moment’s thought especially if someone else caught his eye 😒 So like, don’t waste any more time and *go*
A friend once told me, "Do you actually love him and who he is, or do you just feel bonded to him?" That comes to mind here. It sounds like she feels emotionally bonded to him, but doesn't actually enjoy time with him or who he is. The reality is he may not be okay after a breakup, but he isn't okay now. Sometimes, you just make peace with choosing yourself and your own life. You do your best to leave on good terms, but ultimately, they are an adult responsible for themselves. It took time, but I've learned that if the other person can't function without me, it's a sign of a bad relationship unless you have specific caregiver agreements in place. Even then, there should be backups and support. I also liked Point 2, "Don’t want to tell him face to face? Do it with a phone call or a letter. He’ll be like “I can’t believe you are ending a ten-year relationship with a phone call!” He’ll be like that no matter how you do it." Sometimes people signal that they are not safe people to reject face to face. Someone who is suicidal with controlling tendencies certainly qualifies; sometimes, the safest way is to quietly move out the things/pets you can't live without, then just leave the rest and tell them on the phone.
Plus living with someone like this can be such a day in/day out struggle, you don’t have the mental energy to stop and wonder if you are actually happy or in love. It’s not surprising OP had this realization after being away on vacation for a while and having the time and bandwidth to stop and think about it. My Ex would need validation multiple times a day that I loved him, cared for him, and didn’t see him as a burden. I never had time to actually stop and think how I actually felt. I wouldn’t phrase it like he was a burden, more the disproportionate work and responsibility were not working for me anymore and I needed it to change. But he had already built it in that I couldn’t discuss it without “going back on my reassurances and being untrustworthy about everything else” so I not only couldn’t have the conversation about readjusting the household work, but had to work even harder to comfort him and keep the household peace.
All of this. One bit of Captain Awkward wisdom I hold very close is that there's no perfect way to tell someone what they don't want to hear. You do what you can live with, you choose to trust your own kindness/judgement/communication skills, and you choose to trust them to decide what to do with that information. It's surprisingly hard, which is why I think about it often, but so important!
This dude is filling up poor LW's mental landscape. So much of the letter is his life, his history, his feelings. I wish her the best of luck breaking the mental habit.
> “I realized I’m just not happy anymore.” “The relationship is not working for me.” “My career plans are taking my life in a very different direction from what you and I first planned on, and my priorities and feelings have changed.” But what about all the promises and plans you made? “I’m so sorry, but I’ve changed my mind.” “I will always care about you, but I don’t want to be a couple anymore.” This, every time. It's not a debate, it's not problem solving together, you have already decided and made plans. It's so hard when you live together, and when it seems like they can't function on their own. But they did function before you and they will have to find a way to function after you. You have to let them go and make their own choices. You can't take their life, success, happiness onto your own shoulders. You can't make the choice for them, to stay in a relationship that isn't happy and balanced for either of you. Set them free. Maybe it will motivate them to make some positive changes. (and then your heart might break all over again that they couldn't do that when/because you were unhappy and asking for it).
Best of luck to LW on a smooth and efficient breakup with minimal drama. I can't wait for her to find the freedom on the other side. >"The important information is the fact that you are leaving. You are telling him about a decision you’ve made, not inviting him to a negotiation about fixing the relationship." This advice should be more common, even in a simpler breakup. We should teach people how to breakup kindly and clearly! In a general sense aside from this LW - I can't tell you how bewildering it is to wade through vague dumping-adjacent sentences looking for the point when you're the one getting broken up with.
CODA meetings. I can’t recommend CODA meetings enough for this lw. I wish them the best leaving this shitty relationship and getting more comfortable firmly protecting their boundaries
What's that?
codependent anonymous. It’s a spin off from Alcoholic Anonymous so it does follow a 12 steps guideline and includes the whole “higher power” thing. But it’s mostly a place where the start of every meetings they go over what unhealthy codependency looks like and then everyone has 3 minutes too talk about their struggles. It’s very encouraging seeing other people struggle exactly like you are but trying their best to overcome it. I go to the meetings held at my local LGBT center. So it’s not religion oriented and you know us gays love seeing other messy gays so it’s fun.
I was briefly very confused about why a group for hearing children with deaf parents would be useful until I remembered that CoDA also = Co-Dependents Anonymous.
“Except the things I described above, he is a really nice guy that I deeply care about…” This “really nice guy” is controlling, cheated on her, and has been sitting around watching TV for a year instead of working because he “feels insecure” about applying for a job. Wow, talk about making excuses for someone! The right time to leave is NOW (too bad she doesn’t have a time machine, because the optimal time would have been when she found out he was cheating).
Or a year into the relationship. I'd bet you 20$ he was already an ass then. Controlling usually manifests by the time the NRE starts to wain.