Ok this was long but I really need advice.
Like the title says I love my boyfriend. He is great but he is flat broke. I mean broke. We have been living together for 3 years now and I pay the majority of the bills because he doesn’t have any money. For context, I am an accountant, I earn roughly 120,000 per year, he works a dead end job as a customer service representative for a company nearby earning $40,000 per year. I have tried to be very patient with him. We’ve been together for four years now and he always has a certificate or a program that he’s enrolling into better himself he never actually sees the program through. He takes his time completing it and I’ve just grown tired.
We can’t do anything really unless it’s on my dime because he does not have any excess money so there are no trips (minus the ones I’ve paid for), we rarely go on dates he doesn’t have his share of the bills on time even though we don’t split it 50-50 I pay about 70% and he pays 30% he still does not ever have his share time.
I’ve worked very hard to get to where I am and I want to get married. I want to have children. I want to buy a home. Those are obviously things he is not ready for because he is so financially weak.
To make matters worse, he inherited $30,000 from a family member and he did not do anything with it by do anything with it I mean, he gambled it all away, trying to make fast money and was left with nothing. that was really a game changer for me because I was very certain that he would use $30,000 more wisely considering his position I mean, he didn’t even use it to buy me a ring or to put money aside for our future. The money is completely gone. He confessed to me after it was gone he had a gambling addiction. He spent all of the money, but that he wouldn’t do it again that was about 6 months ago. He said the gambling thing would never happen again and quite frankly he doesn’t even have money to gamble at this point.
He is now again enrolled in a program where he’s trying to obtain another certificate. I don’t really know how that’s going to bode or if it’s going to pay off. I am now sitting here pretty much waiting while he plays catch-up because of the decisions that he has made.
Since he confessed that gambling addiction to me, I have been totally unhappy in this relationship. prior to that I didn’t like where we were I knew that I wanted him to be stronger financially, but I was understanding. I thought that he was really working towards something and that when he got a windfall, if he got a windfall, he would use it accordingly, but he blew it.
I’m now at a point where I don’t know what to do in this relationship I feel as though I’m waiting for nothing. He has wasted my time and as I said, I want to start a family. I’m very comfortable. I have a savings.
I also know that most relationships fail because of finances. I don’t want to seem shallow or that I’m leaving him because he’s poor however, I really don’t know how much longer I can wait for him to get it together. He’s already 32 years old.
We just renewed so we still have about 11 months left in our lease. I don’t want to give him an ultimatum, but I’m at the point where if I don’t see a major shift soon I’m going to have to move on really I start to wonder sometimes if I’ve waited for too long already I also think I’m growing resentful towards him. He is in the same position that he was in when we got into a relationship four years ago and I feel like I have grown and made advancements in my life and in my career.
I really need advice and want to know how to go about dealing with this situation?
EDIT: starting over at this age also terrifies me because what if I don’t find anyone else? That is really why I’ve been holding out hope that things will change. Starting over at this age terrifies me. I know I deserve more, and I hate that I gave him so much of my time. Time I could’ve been spending with someone else. I almost feel stuck.