Oh Dear, Relationship Is Getting Rocky... | |
Well I'd think you'd need to get all the details out about why he feels this way. Saying part of it stems from how he thinks he can't keep a long term relationship is a bit vague. So he feels he can't keep one going, how does this lead him to the conclusion he should break this one off? And for the jobs, he just can't handle how disheartened you become when it falls through? | |
This belief he has, that he can't keep a long-term relationship going... is he basing this on any kind of experience? Because providing that he's telling the truth when he says he still loves you, the fact that he's willing to let that go just because of a bad 'feeling' he's got or whatever, would make him what is known in guy circles as a 'f*cking idiot'. OK, now I've got that out of the way... I'm sorry, that sounds rough. Breaking up is bad enough, let alone you seem to have nowhere else to go. However, in the end, I am of the opinion that the longer you string out a relationship where one or both of the people involved aren't happy, everyone just ends up getting hurt all the more in the end. Talk to him, get to the very bottom of how he feels and why (because his current explanation reeks of the standard guy thing of not wanting to open up to people when we're having trouble with something). Maybe you can still fix things, but if he's set on ending it then at the very least he owes you an honest explanation; and if he knows you'll struggle on your own then he should at least stop short of tossing you out on the street when you've got nowhere else to go, even if that means you have to co-exist in the same space for a while post break up, which won't be a barrel of laughs either. I hope at least some of that was helpful. :) | |
Try and talk things over calmly | |
You should really really really talk to him about that. There's got to be a reason he feels that he can't keep a relationship going, and maybe if you go over things with him and find some answers you just might save your relationship. At the very least he should explain why he feels the need to end it, and hopefully give you an honest explanation as to why he feels that he has to let you go. As for the jobs thing, just keep trying. Never give up just because you don't have the experience, there might be a job where all you do is filing. That's really all I can say about that, just don't give up, it's going to be tough and frustrating, but it will be totally worth it. | |
Right there. You need to buck up and be ready to talk calmly with him, because right now you're making educated guesses. Yes, they're educated, but you still don't have his full take on what the issues are and why he feels the way he does. Take five minute breathers with a glass of cold water if you need to, but do your best to focus on his emotions instead of yours. Your ability to communicate with him will greatly determine the success or failure of the relationship. Whether or not he can support you physically, emotionally and mentally (and vice versa!) is another big thing. If either of you have deep rooted issues, you or he might need to seek professional help. A relationship based upon keeping one or both parties from drowning isn't going to work. You both need to be able to stand on your own in some fashion before properly being able to support someone else. Also, communication. Again. Because it's that important. | |
Que Sera Sera, Whatever will Be, will Be. If you really want to be with him you'll think of something, if he really wants to break up with you than there will be nothing you can do. The fact that he hasn't yet means he is hesitant either because he doesn't really want to breakup or because he knows "not being able to hold past relationships" and you not having a job are not good enough reasons to breakup with someone you are supposed to love, so he might be thinking of a better reasons? There isn't really anything anyone can say to help you other than to tell you to really, REALLY, talk to him and both speak everything that needs to be spoken. Then everything will sort itself out and you two will be sorted. | |
In addition to what has been already stated (talk to him in a calm manner/don't freak out/etc.), I would highly suggest that you plan for potential disaster. Finding someplace to go (do you two live together in a home by yourselves or do you live with his parents?), concentrate on finding yourself a method of income (keep working on those resumes). I know it's difficult (to put it lightly) to concentrate on such things when you're facing relationship upheaval but you do have to look at things like this. I know that a doomed relationship isn't something that you want, but being prepared should it occur is also important. | |
I don't believe in being nice about things like this. Tough advice is the best advice, as far as I'm concerned. If you have a weak mindset, by all means... don't click the spoiler. It will be counter productive to you. So.... Just listen to your heart. Fate will lead you to glory and happiness... or | |
Here's the reality of the situation, he doesn't love you if he says he wants you to leave, especially if it's because of your failures in the job market. People who love each other are supportive of each other. Maybe it's your fault, maybe it isn't, the but the reality of it is that your relationship isn't as strong as you think it is. Make sure your resume is as professional looking as possible, seek out a youth employment agency while you still live with the bloke. Make sure you are checking everywhere for job opportunities, a lot of places don't post their job openings on the internet or even the newspaper. Hospitals are usually a good place to frequent, lots of jobs there usually, and they should pay fairly well. Once you get some money, see about training in medicine, medicine is overall the most secure, abundant and well paying category in the job market. A health care assistant certificate may only cost a few thousand dollars to get and take about 2-3 months to finish, they get paid pretty well. | |
How does getting a job fix it? It would avoid the disappointment part, yeah. But not her boyfriend being unsure about his ability to stay in a long term relationship, or what to do in the next week if she has to move out. Also... 'Get a job' isn't very good advice when she said she's been trying but been unable to. Getting a job isn't exactly much of a helpful solution to the problem of not being able to get one. You also don't even know how hard she's worked before. Honestly your advice sounds kind of cheesy and unhelpful. | |
You're right, replace the word 'get' with 'hold'. If you can't 'hold' a job, you have some serious problems. Sure, there will always be factors for every individual, but seriously: If you can't hold a job, you have some serious problems. My advice is to look within, and see the room for change, as opposed to trying to blame something else. Not that the OP is trying to blame something else, but I think realizing yourself, and trying to better yourself, is the most important thing for people who may not be stable, to be trying to do. Ya know?
I was making some crude/tough statements that are great for everyone to abide by. I don't see how you could think I'm wrong about what I said. I can see you thinking I wasn't being specific enough, but that's different. EDIT: How does getting a job fix it? lol That's what 'she' says is the problem to begin with!!!!1 | |
From what I can read his excuse for wanting to get rid of you if how you act after you get rejected from a job. So the logical thing to do would be to not get disheartened and keep it all inside for now. Though if he really wants to get rid of you just because you're having a hard to time getting a job...well I hate to say it but you're pretty fucked it seems. | |
Realistically: Find out exactly WHY he thinks he can't hold down a long term relationship, if that IS his real reason. Saying he still loves you but wants you out, seems like he just doesn't WANT a long term relationship. He might be bored and already have his eye on someone else. But as I know very little about the nature of your relationship I can't say for certain. One thing I can say for certain is that you need to get a job. If you are still trying to get writing work you may have to put that on hold for awhile. Settle for a position in retail for he time being. As long as you can get a steady source of income, that's one less thing for you to worry about. Then you can focus on updating your resume, and keep up your practice writing letters to the editor or short stories or something like that. | |
Buck up and get a job, and don't get disheartened if it doesn't pan out. I recently got fired, and while I'm still annoyed at my former manager, I'm moving on and not letting it keep me down. I haven't been in a relationship, but from your post, it seems that your boyfriend is having a hard time coping with your defeatist attitude, as well as him carrying the financial burden for both of you while your search for employment. Have you considered asking him if he can help you with your resume, or if he can recommend you to anyone to try and help you get a job? | |
Talk things over try to fix your relationship, just be prepared for if it doesn't work; find a friend to bunk with, double up your efforts to get a job anywhere. Prepare for the worst hope for the best, also this:
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There is more going on here than you are telling us. In particular: 1) Your entire family hate you I have a feeling there are some personal issues interconnecting all of this and explaining some behavior. So what can you do about him? Nothing. It's over. Prepare to leave because its only sympathy keeping you there now. What can you do about yourself? 1) See a youth employment centre, have the resume checked out, get help on interview techniques, and redouble your efforts to find a job. Good luck. | |
You two need to have a long chat about your relationship. Get him to tell you everything that you're doing wrong and you tell him anything you feel he's doing wrong. Talk about how you can fix things and maybe also talk about how you could feel closer to each other again. In my last relaionship I found that after a while we just stopped doing all the little things that made each other feel special. It wasn't what broke us up but it does contribute to not feeling as loved anymore. Just make sure you don't get angry, it was the biggest mistake I made because when you get angry you don't think as straight and you might not explain what you mean very well. As for the job thing, I'm not sure if you have this chance when you live but here there are some free short training seminars for hospitality, buisness management, that sorta thing that can get you experience and knowledge to help find a job. Volunteering also looks good on a resume. | |
Get some high-quality ice cream. It will help you deal with everything until it's starting to get better. You won't regret it. Seriously though, there's nothing anyone on this forum can tell you that you didn't already know or figure out on your own. But I understand that it sometimes helps to ask and share anyway, that's perfectly understandable. But I can't personally say anything that would help. Except that you really should get ice cream... captcha: Silver Spoon. Yes, you can use one of those to eat said ice cream. Good thinking, Captcha! | |
Try asking mom and dad anyway. They might allow you to come back home. If they don't friends maybe. Find some places that allows you to pay by post. 25-50 dollars a post might not sound worth it to you, but do enough of them, it will add up. After you sell enough to get a writing portfolio going, something like 5-15 quality pieces, use it to get better paying jobs. While you are doing the smaller end cheap things, do some volunteer content writing for websites. Writing is something you need to practice. Also, do enough of it for free and other editors are more willing to pay you. The point is don't give up. Don't get frustrated. Just keep trying. | |
If he does dump you, you can come be my girlfriend........... what, im desperate alright | |
Really sounds like to me that you don't want him to leave you because you will be homeless. Yeah because most girls I know would be out in a flash if their boyfriend said something like this. Can you do something to make your family happy with you again? After all, your boyfriend knows he has all the power in the relationship. Really nothing stopping him from cheating on you at this point. Don't give him that power, get out of his life now before he becomes a huge prick just for the sake of it. | |
I kind of pointed out how terrible that kind of 'advice' was. It's like saying I know how to achieve world peace. You just tough it out, work hard and... go and get world peace. | |
I would honestly say the massive piece of advice is... dont push anything onto him or it would force him away more.. a calm talk is fine but come across as desperate because this tends to turn against you quite easily. As for the job front.. keep applying someone will have to take you sooner or later. | |
Yeah, I'd suggest no. Rebound relationships never work out for anyone's benefit. | |
If he still loves you, why would he want to leave you? Who did you live with before you lived with him? Could you go back to living with them? No friends you can live with? I don't know if America has a job centre, but there should be someone who can help you in finding a job or at least a few interviews. Don't forget to update your resume too. You'll have to talk to him about it, how it looks like you have no where else to go right now until you can get the money together for your own little flat (I'd consider doing a house share, I know in the UK they're mostly all bills included in the rent so it works out much cheaper, and you don't have to be alone) and you may have to stay there until you can get back on your feet. He owes you an explanation as to why he wants to finish it, if there's anything you two can work out. Maybe he just needs the space. I can't get inside a man's head... I'd be a lot happier if I could >.< | |
Whatever happens, just remember that a broken heart is not the end of the world. | |
You seem to be a in a similar situation that I ended up in with my ex. Admittedly we didn't live together, and my family are supportive of me, but everything else sounds similar. We'd been together for almost five years, and I'd been a graduate for about a year and a half. I'd struggled to find good work, then any work, before ending up working for Starbucks. I'd known for some time that my ex wanted badly for me to get a proper job appropriate to my degree (politics), and she had done her limited best to help me. My ex is a couple of years younger than me so she was at university while this was going on. Eventually (Feb last year) she said we needed to talk, so I went up to see her at uni. Essentially, at the time, she felt I wasn't able to move on with my life and career because I was too attached to her. Like I said I'd known something like this would come along eventually if I didn't get a proper job, and we'd had almost breakup discussions before (many months in between however), so I accepted what she said, we broke up more or less calmly, and I went home. There was still love there, but I suppose I just didn't want to continue to put her through my depressing life of that time. Obviously you can't go home. If in the event that you do in a sense 'break up', I would like to think your bf would understand your situation, and at least let you stay at his place until you were on your feet. Naturally that doesn't address your desire to stay with him as his gf, but you can't force someone to think differently. If he still loves you he should at least want to help you. I can't see why he would want to break up with you given the reasons you've put. I can't address that "he thinks he can't keep a long term relationship going". I just don't understand that. If he genuinely thinks that he must have psychological issues, or is just a massive prick, because to be frank, that's a bullshit reason for breaking up with someone. Moving on from my profanity... What I'm saying is that if he doesn't genuinely believe "he can't keep a long term relationship going", then there must be other reasons. I believe that was the case with my ex. While she originally framed our breakup in terms of wanting to not stay together and only ending up resenting each other, I now believe that she had more or less fallen out of love with me. I was pretty unlovable at the time, so it wouldn't surprise me or upset me if that was her reason. In closing, you need to steel yourself for a frank discussion with you bf. You need to get him to be honest with you and open up about his reasons for wanting to end things. Finally you do need to ask him for his help until you find your feet. I realise I'm a guy and so can't fully understand how you'll take a breakup, but just know others have experienced something similar. In this day and age we can't let romance dictate our futures. For our generation our ability to support ourselves must come first; you must keep that in mind when having your frank talk with your bf. Wow that's a long reply. I hope I've helped somewhat. EDIT: Just noticed you were born on Feb 14 - cute. | |
It sounds like he has already decided to break it off and he is pulling the "it's not you, it's me" card in an attempt to soften the blow. Considering he has been unhappy for a long time and it has actually gotten to the stage where he wants to break up instead of talk it out, I would say the relationship is beyond the salvaging stage. I suggest attempting to come to a reasonable agreement until you get back on your feet and able to find an alternative living arrangement. | |
Initial thoughts, discuss the relationship as calmly and rationally as possible. Speaking as a male crying (even if it seems appropriate to you) just makes things worse. Find out why he feels this way, find out if they are reconcilable or not. Next what are you doing while he works? Obviously looking for a job is important. So you should be doing that if you aren't already, online, in papers, with professional organisations and you know just going and asking. But if that doesn't work you should still be doing things, short education courses, volunteer work etc. All of this stuff improves your future chances for a job and gets you out of the house and motivated. And if you must stay home, cook and clean the house. I'm not being sexist I'd advise the same in a reverse gender swapped situation. But if someone comes home from a hard day at work, it's incredibly frustrating if the person at home has (apparently) been doing nothing. Keep the same hours as the boyfriend, make him breakfast, etc. Think of it as a support role, till you get into the game yourself. | |
I have been doing this, but since we have roommates, we both agree that I shouldn't be the sole person who's cleaning the place, since they and their friends quite often leave the place a mess. So I usually don't clean up everything/ the place top to bottom, which he doesn't mind. And the original post has been updated with what I've found out. | |
Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. It sounds like he just flat doesn't want to be in the relationship any more but is trying to be nice about it. I think it's time to rip the band-aid off and put an end to it, rather than trying to "change/stop/etc" yourself. The fact that you are promising to change yourself to better suit him is a pretty good sign that this relationship isn't good for you either. | |
Ah, the guy's answer to the friendzone: "It's not you, it's me." Equally silly, if you ask me. Though, after reading the OP update, it looks more to me like "It's not you, it's me...but I'm still blaming you!" now. Which is a higher degree of silliness. Now to stop being all pretentious, what can I say. Relationships end. It's never nice, but it's never the end of the world either. You really really shouldn't go out of your way to change yourself to suit him. Because that generally ends up "You're not the same person I fell in love with anymore." Your best bet is to break it up and find your own way for a while (I'd argue against hooking up with someone else for the sole purpose of not being single). Obviously, he can't seem to make it clear, but someone has to. If it's not working, it's not working. Dragging such a relationship on will turn it into what I personally call "Zombie relationship: Dead, yet somehow still walks." You don't want t be in one of those, nobody does, it just takes some people longer to realize what it's doing the them. | |
The best thing you can do right now, is to back off a little. Try not to throw yourself at him at every opportunity. The gaming thing is not an issue, it's just a little thing that he is bringing up because he is frustrated at how things are going. Don't be disheartened about the job thing. Go over your resume, take a deep breath and redouble your efforts. You have to show him that you really want to get a job, because if you're getting disheartened at every turn it is going to have an effect upon him, as well as making you look like you don't really want to bother. I'm not saying that you don't really want to find a job, just that it is the impression people can get when you find yourself getting fed up of all the rejections and the difficulty of it all. The mother thing too is just a reaction, it isn't really part of the problem. If he doesn't have a good relationship with her then he will be trying to avoid being anything like her, and if you have any nuances that remind him of her, it will be difficult to get over. Conversely if their relationship is good then he might be over concerned that he is just with you because you remind him of his mother. Again it's not the issue here, he is just clutching at excuses and reasons where really all there really is is a feeling that your relationship has gotten somewhat stale and he is frustrated with that. On the other hand if he is just making up excuses to soften the blow then you will soon realise, because everything you do to try and make it work will still end up with him bringing up the breakup. It is hard but you will get through it. You need to talk to your family, I find it hard to believe that they actually hate you. They might have been angry at you, but if things are final then you may need them. Try talking to them, you have nothing to lose. If they are still being awful to you then at least you will know for sure. | |
So today, the boyfriend has told me that he has been thinking about breaking up with me for some time, and that I may have to find somewhere else to go, but that he still loves me. Part of it seems to stem from how he thinks he can't keep a long term relationship going (I believe he can though), and the other part is because I have a hard time getting a job. I've been close several times, but each time it falls through I become disheartened, which is hard on him.
Naturally, I started crying since I love him dearly and I don't want to loose him, which got him going a bit as well since it's hard on him. He said that he'll bring it up again in a week.
I don't know what to do though. I have nowhere else to go since my family hates me and largely wants nothing to do with me, and due to my lack of job experience I have a hard time getting a job. To make matters worse, I have a sinking feeling that the resumes I recently put out have dated information on how to contact me since I found an old resume in my bag.
Can any of you guys help me with this? I really don't want to lose him, and I simply don't really know what to do.
UPDATE: Ok, he has confirmed that it's due to how he doesn't think he can keep a long term relationship and due to my trouble with getting a job. He also said it was due to how I remind him a bit about his mother (look, attitude, and birthday wise [I've met her and I don't believe that I look or act like her, and the fact my birthday is right after hers, I can't help]), I smother him a bit (this I get because I do love snuggling with him), he doesn't like people (but I've seen evidence that contradicts that), we don't like the same shows or games (this is partly true), and as he said, it's 'a million other little things', which he hasn't told me. I told him that I can and will do my best to change/stop/etc. some things, but I pointed out some of the things aren't really a problem (such as the not liking all the same games & shows).