Hi everyone, before I proceed with this post I want to say that I am not a bad person, and I hope that my verbiage of certain things of how I am feeling emotionally right now doesn’t get in the way of who I truly am. I care very deeply for others, and often too much I get way too sucked in. Now that my preface is out of the way, I will proceed with my background with 19M.
My mother had introduced me to 19M. They are coworkers, as my mom is a restaurant manager and he was front of house. I come in one day and with me showing general friendliness to all of my mom’s coworkers we are introduced. I thought he was an attractive and nice guy, so we sit down and talk for an hour or so. We then make plans to hang out outside of his job and everything was going well.
It was casual hanging out, going on walks, going on food runs, at that time I was genuinely content with the pace. He doesn’t come from the best home life, and has been kicked out 3 times since the age of 16. Well two weeks in is all it took for things to go severely down the drain.
He gets locked out of his house one night after coming to see me. His parents lock the door, and no one lets him in. Me being the kind person I am I never turn anyone away or want them to sleep in their car, so I let him stay one night. He goes home the next day but this is when tension arises.
A few weeks later, the same thing happens, except this time he is kicked out of his house for two weeks. During this time, he begs me to stay at my house, which my parents allow and I don’t feel like that was the best choice after knowing someone 3-4 weeks. 19M clinged onto me and I had no privacy in my own home. I felt terrible for telling him he had to go, but he would say very manipulative things to me such as “oh so you’re trying to get rid of me? That’s fine no one wants me” and kept suggesting harmful behaviors for himself.
Eventually, we get him out of our house and his parents still haven’t let him back over the last month. He has been couch hopping and I feel so bad. He is 19, homeless and his car is no longer working. He uses his friend’s grandma car to get himself anywhere. He is also working on his GED.
I think he is a great person, but I mean this in the most humble way—I think we are on two totally different paths in life. I am a college senior, and he doesn’t even has his GED. There is nothing wrong with that, but he hasn’t even started college yet. I am thinking very proactively about my future and spending it with someone stable financially and mentally. I don’t consider myself a bad looking person and although I was never looking actively in the dating scene but a lot of men my age or older with stable careers wanted to give me a chance. I feel horrible for feeling like there is something better for me.
I’m scared to leave because I don’t want him to do anything bad to himself. He is very clingy to me because of his vulnerable situation but the clinginess has gotten obsessive. When I don’t respond how he wants him to, he yells violently at me. He blames it on the stress of his situation. I detest his behavior and tell him that as a woman I will not be spoken to like that. The cycle starts all over when he apologizes and I can’t take it anymore. He is like a leech.
My mother is the worst enabler here. She sees 19M as if he is Jesus or something. Whenever I console or vent to her, she’s so quick to defend him. It’s hard talking to her about any of my feelings of not wanting this anymore because she always takes his side.
I know I can just leave, but I don’t know how I’m going to handle the guilt of it. I don’t see him as my person at all. But I care about him deeply. I feel horrible about his situation and watching it all unfold. I don’t want him to be on the streets, and that’s what I’m scared about; him having no one without me.
TLDR; Homeless 19M is draining me mentally and I want to leave but I am feeling guilty about the potential consequences of doing so.