AITA for wanting to break up with my boyfriend who moved to Barcelona with me but has been acting like a parasite for a year?
Hey Reddit. I really need an outside perspective on this because I am completely torn and drowning in guilt.
I’m 20F and my boyfriend, let’s call him "Mark," is 23M. We met two years ago in our hometown through work. Things moved fast, we started dating, and eventually moved in together. Everything was absolutely perfect. Mark was incredibly caring. To give you some context: back home, he used to work two jobs with zero days off just to save up enough money to get me a nice gift or a beautiful bouquet of flowers. He literally bent over backwards for me.
A year ago, I got accepted into a university in Barcelona. When I told him about it, he immediately said he couldn’t let me go alone and was ready to move with me. I was totally on board, thinking it would be an amazing adventure for us.
Fast forward to now: we’ve been living here for a year. And he does absolutely nothing.
Mark takes language courses, but that only takes up 4 hours a day. The rest of the time, he just sits at home playing video games. We live in an apartment that is fully funded by \*my\* parents. Meaning, he is living off my family's money. He doesn’t buy groceries, he doesn't contribute to the household bills—nothing.
I’ve told him multiple times that this can't go on and that he needs to find a job. He made a half-hearted attempt and did a few interviews for remote positions, but nothing came of it. To get a local job here, you need to know the language, and his is at a total beginner level.
Mark keeps feeding me promises like, "As soon as I learn the language, I’ll find a proper job here in Barcelona." But honestly, after a year of this, I’ve completely lost faith in him. I am so incredibly exhausted by the fact that he has turned into a houseplant that just consumes my parents' resources and plays games all day.
I am completely stuck and don't know whether to break up with him or not. On one hand, I’m held back by the memory of who he used to be back home, working those two jobs just to make me smile. On the other hand, he moved to Spain \*specifically for me\*. He uprooted his entire life, left his job, his friends, and dragged himself to a foreign country just to be by my side.
And here is the shittiest part: I know that if we break up, he will have to pack his bags and go back to our hometown. He has nothing of his own here—no job, no money, no place to live, since my parents pay for everything. So if I end things, I am quite literally throwing him back to where he started, ruining everything he sacrificed for me.
I feel terrible. I love the guy he used to be, and I appreciate his sacrifice with the move. But I just can’t respect a man who has spent a year freeloading off my family and playing video games all day long.
So, Reddit, AITA for wanting to break up with him and send him home, despite the fact that he moved here for me?