We’ve been together for 9 years and in September it’ll be 10. I don’t know if I want to continue getting married, or end things. I am at a crossroads.
Before you come for me, please understand that we were late bloomers. We graduated high school in 2014, got together in 2015. She finished college and I finally found a well paying career around 2021. We moved out together in the Summer of 2023, and had been living with our families separately until then. I thought everything was great before we moved in together.
I’m at the point now, after almost 2 years of living with her, where I’m not sure I want to proceed with marrying her. For context, I pay the full rent and groceries, she only gives me a couple hundred per month to cover a portion of the utilities. She also works full time, but spends her money on some of our outings, her clothes, CC, etc.
She’s putting me on a timeline to elope this September (10 year anniversary in Vegas) and the thought of marrying her absolutely terrifies me. Our lease is up in November for our very nice apartment and I don’t know if I want to resign with with her.
She leaves her dirty clothes all over the living room, eats snacks and leaves everything out, never wipes down the counters, has mountains of shit in our closet which is very clearly 80:20 ratio of hers to mine, leaves her shoes everywhere, and just very clearly doesn’t pick up after herself.
I’ve mentioned it several times how big of a deal it is to me, and when she sees me having a crisis over it, her verbatim is “it’s not that serious.” And “you’re being crazy.”
But it IS a big deal to me. I’m not the cleanest person ever, but I’m definitely not a slob. It’s to the point where I catch myself just picking up after her, putting her dishes away after she eats, the chips back in the pantry, the cookie wrappers off the couch, her juice cups off of the coffee table. It’s an absolute mess.
I feel like i’ve been extremely lenient with how i’ve let her free rein around our home. She doesn’t cook, clean, and we are barely intimate. I try hard to initiate it and it’s even to the point to where we are intimate just to get it out of the way. She treats sex like a chore.
I come home a few hours after she does and dinners not made, and she’s just bed rotting and doom scrolling on her tablet in the dark, pretty much saying she was too lazy to make dinner and only had popcorn or something. Then I usually make my own dinner.
She insists that when it’s her bedtime, it’s my bedtime when it’s time for me to go to the gym, and insists I lay down with her to help her fall asleep.
She doesn’t like that I’ve been hitting the gym, and have been losing weight. Not out of insecurity, but because she says she only likes me fat. It’s been my dream to be jacked and fit while I’m young and she thinks it’s disgusting.
She doesn’t take care of her physical health, eats like shit, doesn’t want to take initiative in eating healthy together, and is extremely picky with what she eats. She has no discipline with her health whatsoever, as to where I’m trying to take control of mine.
So why am I still with her? Because I genuinely love her. She is sweet, innocent, and we’ve grown and done so much together. She genuinely loves me back unconditionally, even though she says I love her with conditions. I am her first everything. She asked me to prom. She’s been with me through the hard times and me growing into a man, and i’ve been with her through several close family deaths. Our siblings are besties. My brother works with her mom. We are very intertwined as a family.
On paper she’s near perfect. But it’s SO HARD to live with her. I really would be extremely sad to see her go. I wish she wasn’t so lazy and took some initiative. Trust me i’ve had the conversations, but she puts on her baby face and voice and says “just leave me alone.” My family and hers tells me that i’ve spoiled her into this behavior and now I’m in too deep.
Am I crazy for the way I’m thinking about all of this?? She insists I’m thinking about all of this logistically as opposed to emotionally
TL;DR:
Me and my GF of 10 years are on her timeline to get married in 2 months. Our lease is up in 3 months and I’m unsure if we should continue to get married and live together. I pay all of the bills minus a few hundred. I don’t want to get married, because she doesn’t pick up after herself and takes 0 initiative over her cleanliness, our intimacy, and her health, even after several conversations about it. I pick up after her every day. She doesn’t want me to become fit and wants me to stay fat. Apart from her lazy demeanor, I don’t want to end things because we love each other very much and have been through so much together.
Comments
“On paper she’s near perfect.”
On paper she sounds comprehensively awful.
You know what you have to do. She’s shown you who she is. Do you want that for the rest of your life?
Edit – in your tldr, you’re falling for the sunk cost/time logical fallacy
You got together when you were 18. You really want the rest of your life tied to a decision you made when you were a teenager? Because you went to fucking prom together?
Break up, what’s the big deal? Untangle your shit from hers, and it was a good relationship and now it’s over. There’s nothing immoral about ending a relationship, it happens a thousand times a day.
I wouldn’t want to be living with someone like that, let alone be married. You really don’t seem happy writing this. That’s the big thing. You just seem really unhappy with this relationship
Bro whatever rose colored glasses you’re wearing, patent that shit now cause DAMN
Prom is not a good reason to stay together wtf. You are allowed to care about people and always hold them in your heart without wanting to tie your life to them when you are obviously incompatible.
Hate to say it, but life gets even more messy with kids. This is a recipe for divorce.
“she loves me unconditionally”
The conditions of her love: she doesn’t have to financially contribute equally/equitably; she does not have to do the bare minimum of cleaning up after herself; she can verbally abuse you (“youre being crazy”); she’s not intimately attracted to you; she thinks your physical goals are dusgusting; she doesn’t take care of her own health.
Look, most people do not marry their teenage boyfriend/girlfiend. Why? Because you grow a lot from 18 to 30 and are usually incompatible and grow apart. Her laziness is gross. Unless you enjoy being a parent to an overgrown child with a credit card.
Don’t resign the lease or get married (and definitely don’t get her pregnant). Let her go back home to her parents. Your families will get over it. Go live your life.
It might my HR background kicking in here, but I think it’s not fair to breakup with someone you love if you haven’t truly given her a chance to correct her behavior. You’ve softly brought it up, and that didn’t sink in with her, clearly. Time for a second warning – one where you clearly lay out what you need from her and also clarify for her what the outcome will be if she’s not able to make the changes. Not in a roundabout way, you need to tell her clearly. If she doesn’t change then the separation is an obvious next step, unless you’re willing to be a parent to your wife AND your children you have together forever, on top of being the bread winner. Choose wisely.
Think of your life 10 years from now, or 15, 20 years from now. If nothing changed in your relationship, would you be happy? If sex is already a chore, you’ll be posting in the
r/deadbedroom sub in the future.
You aren’t happy, you aren’t compatible, and you’re trying to convince yourself that there’s something worth saving her based on shared first experiences in the past.
Every year you stay for “perfect on paper” is another year of your life that you’re wasting. Perfect on paper means nothing, it’s the daily reality of your relationship you need to live with. And who knows, maybe you breaking up with her will give her the push she needs to make changes in her life. But she’s gotten comfortable and probably won’t make those changes without something drastic happening.
And the fact that she makes you go to bed when she goes to bed.. just no.
If you really want to try and save the relationship, sit her down and let her know everything that you’ve written in this post, and then see what she does. Does she actually try and make changes long term? Or does it change for a couple of weeks and then she goes back to her old ways? That right there will tell you all you need to know about how seriously she takes your concerns and your future together.
I mean yeah, marry her if you want to h8 your life even more than you do now.
She has dismissed all your complaints and does not seem to be taking you seriously. If she continues to do this, it is not a good harbinger for marriage.
My ex refused to change and ignored all of the things I was unhappy with. So glad I didn’t marry him
Damn, she is a catch! Doesnt cook, doesnt clean, does want to see you being active and healthy, doesnt appear to desire you, also doesnt pay the bills. Merry her before someone steals her!!!
Well. She sounds objectively terrible. And your relationship is incredibly one-sided.
Im sorry OP. But yeah, stop wasting any more time and move on.
Dude you need to sit her down and say you’re not marrying her if she can’t even clean or pay rent.
Sorry but she’s an adult. Grow up.
>on paper she’s near perfect
Is the perfection in the room with us? Because this paper reads flawed as fuck. On paper, it’s a sunk cost fallacy.
She sounds like an absolutely terrible person on paper. This girl couldn’t be less innocent if she tried. This was a tough read, OP. I would hightail it out of there as quickly as humanly possible.
Find your spine & end this. She doesn’t respect or share your sense of cleanliness, & you’ve let her slide for nearly 10 yrs (!).