I (27M) am terrified of leaving or marrying my (26F) girlfriend
Preview:
Me (27/M) and my girlfriend (26/F - let’s call her April) have been dating for 5 years. I love her deeply, but her personality seems unaligned with how I’d like to spend the rest of my life. I have never faced such a difficult decision.
Detail:
We first got together in our early 20’s, right after Covid. I had just ended a traumatic 3 year relationship, which involved a plethora of bad things, but I stayed out of fear of loneliness, even though I frankly despised the person. April had also gotten out of a bad relationship, ending an engagement which I believe in total lasted about 2 years if I remember right. April mentioned how toxic the relationship was - specifically talking about how the guy would be so aggressive about her getting a job, asserting that she needed to apply to hundreds of places - and would lash out and perceived laziness. Frankly, while I was listening to that story, I couldn’t help but think it made sense. After all, April was now in her 20’s and should have employment by then. April also mentioned how her ex-fiancé’s parents would express concern that she was “weak-minded”, which is a shitty thing to say about someone. This ex-fiance was the son of 2 conservative immigrants, so while I don’t condone, I understand the behavior. April was also raised Mormon, if that adds any meaningful context to the rest of this post..
Fast forward about 6 months - April and I have been seeing each other relentlessly. She still lived with her parents, and would visit (with invitation) on a near daily basis, staying the night a majority of the time. At that point, she was working a de-facto hospice care job, making relatively normal money for a person at that age (about 22?). I was making something comparable but slightly more reliable as a manager at a fast food joint. Our chemistry was absolutely smoldering, and she was already basically staying over every night, so I formally asked her to move in, and she accepted. I expected that with both of us making similar money that she could help with the rent that I was already able to pay on my own. I wanted to make sure she had a financial cushion however, so before she started chipping in for rent, I allowed her to save up some money for a few months.
Fast forward another 6 months, it is now winter. The first major red flag appears (among other things that happened during this year). It is now Christmas Eve - it’s coincidentally both of our traditions to open a single present before Christmas Day. I give her some merch from her favorite band, and she gives me… a collage of professional candid photos she took of herself. She was inspired by her older sister, who did the same thing for her husband. These are really really nice photos, things you would take for a wedding type of deal. I asked her how much they cost - it was well over $1000. She burnt all of her savings from the past few months on these photos, for Christmas, for her boyfriend of ~1 year. So no more financial cushion, gee I sure hope she doesn’t lose that kind of hospice job. My rose tinted glasses went right on, and I just looked past it.
I’ll start speeding up the pacing now - as the following will describe a pattern that lasts for a few years. Our chemistry is still great, I am a really weird introverted kind of guy, and it’s very rare for me to find someone that makes me feel so understood and accepted, so I will continue to struggle with enforcing my needs to keep things in that comfortable zone. I ended up getting a nicer office job - and think that we should be good to move into a slightly nicer apartment. April really does not like working for this old decrepit lady, and decides to get a job at a local kids art studio, teaching art for kids up to 3rd grade. She ends up hurting her ankle during a snowstorm, and has to go without work for a few months. When she gets back - she ended up quitting or getting fired. The reason I say “or” is because I can’t remember, as over the course of the next 4ish years, April quits or gets fired from like 11 different jobs, including a nice WFH call center job.
Note that her most successful stints are at jobs revolving around art - this is one of her passions/hobbies.
Around the 3 year mark, her older sister (not April herself) seizes the initiative to find April free healthcare services. There’s a non-profit center nearby that provides free diagnosis, prescriptions, and therapy for people under a certain income limit. She ends up getting diagnosed with what is essentially a mild form of bipolar disorder and anxiety. Cool, now it makes a little more sense why she can’t keep a job. This is also still around the time that she also had the nice WFH job that she ends up getting fired from. When that happened, we had some kind of confrontation where I expressed how annoyed I was that she wasn’t taking accountability for things, and she ends up for the first time, cutting herself on her lower body. I am absolutely unequipped to respond to this, so I just try to coddle as best as I can. She tried to find a job later but ended up getting scammed for $2000. I am now in a situation where I’m paying for all of the bills of a grown woman at age 25, including car troubles, rent, food, healthcare, as well as providing the emotional support for her ongoing/reoccurring mental health crisis
It is now clear that I cannot rely on April whatsoever for material help. So I move us out of our nice apartment, back into a cheap one, and continue paying for all bills, food, and incidentals. It’s now at about year 3.75/4 - things shift a little bit from quitting/getting fired from jobs, to just not seeking employment at all. This only lasts for a few months before she gets tired of not being able to eat whatever she wanted, or buy novelties - and she ends up getting a part time job as a taste tester, where she works at to this day. This pays hourly, and the schedule is wildly inconsistent. There will be entire consecutive weeks where no hours are scheduled. On top of that, the hours are only 4-5 hours a day, 3 days a week max. So what does April do with all of this free time? School, job search, self improvement of any kind? No - sleep, TV, or art time. I believe it was around winter where April had 2 weeks off where I began boiling over again, completely ignoring her, being passive aggressive, until she finally asked if I still loved her, where I exploded all of my grievances about the current situation. Breaking up was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn’t do it. She promised she would do more around the house, and to her credit she did - but we’re talking doing laundry every other day, doing dishes, and dusting/vacuuming once a week. She has since clipped back into her do-nothing phase. Yesterday she got home at 12:45 PM, slept until 6, ate, then went back to sleep. I remember asking sometime recently for her to try and sell art, or do some kind of streaming gig - her response was she doesn’t want to make her hobby a job.
Question:
I want to build a life with this person - I still love her, which is hard to see on this post because I’m airing out so many grievances - but she is still my person, and she loves me deeply that I am certain of.
However, she is not interested in building anything, and I must decide if I want to accept the role of her sole provider - responsible for her healthcare, bills, and incidentals, all of which will increase over time due to aging complications, on top of saving for retirement for 2 people. I crunched the numbers, and I will need to start making well over $120K to accomplish that, but I’m only at $75K
Would you end the long time relationship with true love to build a future with someone more aligned, or would you thug it out and try to make it to upper middle class to provide for you and the person you’ve been with for years?
I wish I could be more descriptive and non biased, but this post has to end at some point lol