Q&A: I Pay While All He Does Is Play. Should I Stay?

I Pay While All He Does Is Play. Should I Stay?

I live with this guy. I wasn’t all that eager to move in but he convinced me that he would be a better man if I was living with him.  He promised he would get his life back on track. He said he would get a job, and we would be happy together.  I believed him. Now it’ two years later. Things did change but not for the better. He had an accident and is not working. He gets some disability and all he does is go to doctors. We haven’t been intimate for over a year. He is moody and uncommunicative.  I have tried to make the relationship work. I’ve bought him expensive gifts and dinners. He never reciprocates since he has such a limited income, but he has never even bought me flowers or even a little gift. We split the household expenses for the most part, but I pay for everything else (e.g. movies, gas, clothing).  If he lends me $5.00 he will hound me for it until I return it to him.  Although I’m at work all day he doesn’t do anything around the house to help out. He says he does, because he makes his own lunch while he sits in front of the TV all day. Thank heavens we don’t have a dog that needs to be walked!   Despite all of this, he says he loves me. I just don’t feel any respect or love coming from him. In fact, I just feel used and angry.  I just want out. Am I wrong?

Call me Kylie the Caregiver

I’m not sure if he can change.  Should I stay or should I go?

Tony’s Take:

Kylie:  Moving in together is normally a step toward total commitment to each other. It is the process of seeing whether on a day to day basis you can make a relationship work. Perhaps in the beginning your intended was sincere in his intention to develop a real partnership but with the advent of his accident he has decided that he wants a roommate who provides other services rather than a life partner. Unless he is paralyzed he is using his disability as an excuse and just spending his life on small entertainments which by their definition do not include you.

Should you stay?

To have stayed with him this long should assuage any guilt that you might have about leaving him. You have done more than enough and he has done nothing to contribute to the relationship. Yes, it is nice to have somebody there, but you have to know that somebody has your back. it is pretty clear that your intended, does not and that some time in the future when it is the worst possible time for you, he will end up abandoning you. Or, he will become so dependent that you will not be able to deal with the pleas, and the false promises he will keep giving you. Understand that the accident ha focused him inwards and he has compassion and understanding only for his problems not for you or yours.

If you wish to save him, or wish to see if there is a future, you must have a long and serious talk with him about everything that bothers you about everything that he is giving you emotionally and every place where he is using you as a servant not as a friend and a lover. If he tries to deflect or fight you on it or refuses to hear you then you have absolutely no hope for the future. You need to find a guy who will actually love and care for you, and hold you and caress you.

Alison’s Take:

Kylie:  Should you Stay?

Tony paints a glum picture of any future you might have. I’d like to be more positive, bit honestly, I agree with him completely.

Many men will promise the moon and stars to get a woman to do what they want?  He sweet talked you into moving in with him when you superior instincts told you (or should have warned you) that people do not change.  A man who is lazy. A man who has no money. A man you need someone else to make him happy and motivate him to be a functioning human being is not going to suddenly become a prince charming.

What you saw when you met this man is exactly what you got. I’ll grant you that his accident (you didn’t write what it was or how severe so we can’t comment on it) probably made him more depressed and moody and uncommunicative. So now he needs you more than ever, but not as a life partner, just as a crutch.

Are you wrong to ditch him. In a word. NO. You miscalculated but the next time you meet someone who seems to have real flaws, note them and do not fall for the “If you love me and stick by me I’ll be a changed man routine.”