Our relationship started when I was in a place of self-doubt and financial stress. I have never been able to keep a steady income because of emotional issues, though I try. I told my now boyfriend, whom I’ll call “A,” we could date, but I didn’t want to be in a relationship with anyone for a long time. I even said I was going to date other people. He said that was okay, but he wanted to help me out financially. I objected at first, but frankly didn’t have a lot of other choices at the time.
Well, it has been a little over a year. “A” eventually started calling me his girlfriend, and I never did work up the courage to date anyone else before that point. How would that even feel right if “A” was taking care of my bills? He never meant it as a control thing, by the way. I’ve been with the “generous” and “nice” guys who use it as a kind of manipulation.
No, “A” is just sincerely supportive and we have relationship that is probably about as healthy as it gets. In my time of self doubt, I thought this was a good reason to see if things went anywhere, even though I knew I didn’t feel any sparks for him at first. He was handsome and supportive and stable, and at that point I just figured everything I felt or wanted was wrong, so maybe love would grow out of this sparkless situation. Maybe the lack of sparks was due to the fact that, all in all, we have different values about some important areas of life and the status quo isn’t going to protect us from that for very long.
Almost the exact day I realized it wasn’t going to go anywhere and decided to end things on good terms, he started to call me his girlfriend. I couldn’t bring myself to object and he probably took my lack of objection as agreement that, yes, I was his girlfriend.
From then on it has been a game of waiting for “the right time,” which we all know is a mythical creature that only exists in our daydreams. He always has big events in the near future of every day. Now I am leaving for a couple of months, a trip he is planning to pay for. I don’t want him to buy my tickets and everything when I feel unsure about our relationship, and I was getting ready to talk with him about all of this yesterday, when it seemed like he finally had a break from big events, but he got news of a death in the family. This news has really hurt him and it obviously doesn’t seem like the right time, but I also have to leave at the end of the week. I don’t want to break up over the phone or through email, but I also don’t want to drag this out for both of us for the next several months. The other part is that I am like his main source of emotional support. Even without the death in his family, that has been weighing on me as well. This situation seems so impossible. Any advice would help. Thanks.
tl; dr: My boyfriend is perfect, but we’re not compatible and I never developed feelings for him. However, there is never a right time to break up because he’s always busy and now just found out he had a death in the family. I am afraid of losing financial support, but I’ll probably be okay. Mainly, I am his main emotional support, he is my main emotional support, and I actually still question whether or not I am wrong about this relationship being wrong because I can’t imagine another one being this healthy.
