Leave, or stay.

Either way, quit complaining about your choice. You have one. Make it. Own it thereafter.

This reads like someone who has fallen victim to the Sunk Cost Fallacy--the idea that because you've spent time/money/effort on something, that's a reason to sink MORE into it. Don't waste more time and effort on someone who uses something as lame as "I'm not a criminal! I deserve love, affection, and support because I stopped dealing!"

LW, have you ever heard of co-dependency? Al-Anon? you might want to check out both.

I do like feeling important to this person

Because that's apparently all you think you have to offer. If they don't need you, then they won't want you.

I'm also confused about the time. Out of three years, you've had nine nonconsecutive months of your boyfriend being sober, so you were doing some pretty hefty ignoring/enabling for a good two years. I'm betting you actually only complain to your boyfriend about how much work you're doing for him so he'll know, not so he'll change. He's no good to you in blissful ignorance, he has to recognize and appreciate all you do to keep him from swan-diving into that giant pile of cocaine from Scarface.

Obviously your brain is telling you something's wrong, or else you wouldn't be writing in. It's just what's wrong isn't what you want to be wrong. It's not that your boyfriend won't change, it's that he's not enabling you in your addiction. Get thee to a Barnes & Noble with Amy's reading list.

Best. Line. Ever.

"Some women do volunteer work; some women date it."

He has remained drug-free, helps with cooking and cleaning, and pays half the rent and bills.

Look, I agree it's not her job to hang around and look after him, and he really shouldn't be using it as a tool to pressure her. But that is pretty good. Could be a lot worse.

"I do like feeling important to this person ..."

"I do like feeling superior to this person."

There. Fixed it. Feeling a little punk this morning...

Sounds like she is near her breaking point, and who wouldn't be.

Now, it IS great that he's clean and legally employed, and I assume his hours getting cut wasn't his fault. But none of that gives him a free pass to fish all day while she shoulders the greater work and financial burden.

Give him one more chance to rise to the occasion. Tell him plainly, "I am unhappy. I need you to do more, or I will leave." More could include finding a second part time job, pounding the pavement for a better full time job, going to school (on his dime!) to earn better credentials, doing ALL the household stuff instead of just "helping" while she presumably works full time. Whatever it is, he needs to make major, tangible efforts toward a fair partnership. We are what we do, and he is currently still a user... of her.

If he refuses, or pulls more "I've come so far, therefore you have to keep taking care of me" bullshit, then yeah, she needs to make good her words and LEAVE. Given their histories, it probably won't be easy. The right books and therapy can really help.

I think that she should weight her pluses and minuses. If she gets from him as much as she gives i think that they should remain together. Sometimes a hug when u come back home from work would do a lot more than all that day. If you add a kis to that hug, you are a winner.

...and he spends lots of time fishing.

Yeah? Fishing for what, exactly?

When I say I'm exhausted pulling this much weight, he uses his sobriety as a tool, saying, "Look how much better I am; I did this all for you."

Nope. Nope. Nope! How many fish has he brought home for dinner? How often does he go? Who does he go with? I'm not buying, sorry. How often does he see his probation officer or submit to a wizz quiz? Are you SURE he's clean?

And why, oh why would you even consider staying with a guy who's been in prison for selling drugs? You actually waited for him to get out, convinced his mom to send him to rehab, and then got an apartment for the both of you? In whose name? Yours? How about the utilites? Everything's in your name, right?

YTS says: We are what we do, and he is currently still a user... of her. and I have to agree. This isn't a relationship, it's an enablership. As long as you're there to support him, he'll keep on taking and you'll keep on being "Weary". Something's got to change, and chances are, it won't be him.

Can we stop with the word enabling already? We wonder why nobody is nice anymore, why nobody helps anybody else, why we see rude people...has it occurred to anybody else that we've pathologized the fuck out of being nice to others? To see the good in other people?

Yes, being nice has backfired on this girl. It happens. But why are we calling her names? Why are we saying that she's broken? It's sick. Really, really sick.

I was once in a workplace where I was exhausted because I was the only one doing any work. Literally. My co-workers were going on smoke breaks together, at an average of 35 minutes per hour. When I went to my boss and asked for help I was called a martyr. Now, I know my boss was borderline illiterate and did not know what the word martyr meant. Nobody else that I've told this story to thought I was being a martyr. And I don't think this girl is has a martyr complex, or needs to be superior to anybody else to make herself feel better, or is even an enabler. She's just a kind, loving person who is now realizing she got chumped. She needs gentle guidance to get out of the relationship and see the signs earlier next time, not insults.

Rachel Flax- i was thinking the same thing!

LW my therapist recommended a wonderful book you might want to read. It is called
Codependent No More- the author is Melody Beattie. It is a wonderful book that has helped me and also other people I have spoken to about it greatly!

Sorry. No sympathy from me. You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. LW chose badly. Learn from it, smarten up and move on.

I'm wondering if the reason she's considering breaking up with him IS because he seems to have straightened out.
She had plenty of time and opposrunity to break up with him, like when he was using or dealing. Like when he was in jail for several months. To me that makes it really easy to break up with someone.
But now when he is, being clean, unambitious, and lazy, she is asking about dumping him. "He has remained drug-free, helps with cooking and cleaning, and pays half the rent and bills. His job just got cut back to 16 hours a week."

If he is paying half now, he is probably doing more now than he has for the previous years.
He is looking for more work but not as much as she would like. and doing a lot of "fishing". So sure he's lazy, or unambitious, a bit of a leech, and probably fetting some one the side, but is a better catch than what she started with. Why dumo him now?

He has remained drug-free, helps with cooking and cleaning, and pays half the rent and bills.

This is what he SHOULD be doing. He shouldn't get points for this. It reminds me of something a friend said: "People always say, 'I'm staying because he's so nice to me.' He SHOULD be nice to you! That's the way a relationship should work."

Some women date men, some women date projects.

I think we know which one she's dating.

"We wonder why nobody is nice anymore, why nobody helps anybody else, why we see rude people...has it occurred to anybody else that we've pathologized the fuck out of being nice to others? "

Well, as we've often discussed here in different contexts, there's nice and there's "nice". Let me see if I can put words to that idea...

"When I went to my boss and asked for help I was called a martyr. " Well, I take it that two things happened: (1) nothing changed, and (2) you found another job. You made an effort to improve things, and when it didn't help, you didn't sit around and pout about it -- you went and found a better place to work.

If you were the LW, you would have stayed at that job, and worked your fingers to the absolute bone trying to get your boss and your co-workers to grow up. You would have worked double shifts covering for your lazy co-workers so they wouldn't get fired, and you would have gotten them therapy and diversion programs and whatever else they needed. And let's say that after all this, things did in fact get better to an extent. At that point, you'd leave.

Make any sense? Of course not. But that's because you don't have, to use your own words, a martyr complex. Let's consider the part of the relationship that the LW probably has not told us about: the hours she's spent lecturing her boyfriend, the number of times that she's reminded him that he'd be in jail or homeless or dead without her, how he owes everything he has to her. Let's consider something the LW wrote: "My last relationship was much more equal, and I ended it because I felt like I didn't matter. " This is a bad, bad sign. It screams borderline personality disorder. It says "I'm not interested in a relationship where I don't have total control, because without that control I have no identity." It's the ultimate in codependency. (Note that I'm not saying that the LW is a diagnosable borderline. I am saying that the behavior pattern described is borderline.)

That's why "nice" is not nice. "Nice" is a soul-sucker, if it's allowed to be. I have a certain (limited) amount of sympathy for borderlines because I can't imagine not having any concept of who or what I am. However, the way to get an identity is not by kidnapping someone else's.

This is what he SHOULD be doing.

I agree MonicaP, and that's why I said he shouldn't be using that against her. No, it's a terrible look to be saying "I did this for you" - surely he should have done it for himself? But for an addict, his behaviour is pretty good, and I think some credit is due for him having cleaned up his act even that far. Whether it's enough for her to stick around is up to her I suppose.

She's just a kind, loving person who is now realizing she got chumped

She's also a person who wrote this sentence:

My last relationship was much more equal, and I ended it because I felt like I didn't matter.

Not that her last boyfriend was superindependent or didn't want her to do anything for him ever, but that they were more or less equal and she couldn't deal with it. She felt like she didn't matter in a relationship of equals. Emotionally healthy people do want to feel like they matter to their partners, but this LW seems to define "matter" in a way that reads as "mommy" or "personal assistant."

So, yes, I stand by my reasoning that LW was enabling, because, as I posted above, she's had nine nonconsecutive months of clean boyfriend out of three years together. And he didn't even start out clean at the beginning of the relationship.

I do agree that not everything is pathological and not every nice person is an enabler. Personally, I take these things on a letter-by-letter basis and I stand fully behind my reasoning here.

" 'He has remained drug-free, helps with cooking and cleaning, and pays half the rent and bills.'

This is what he SHOULD be doing. He shouldn't get points for this."

Sure he should. That is what a relationship is: two people sharing the mundane aspects of life and trying to have a good time while doing so.

While this list of things alone, without more, may not be sufficient to earn somemone "keeper" status, a person certainly tallies up "good partner" points for doing what good partners do.

" 'He has remained drug-free, helps with cooking and cleaning, and pays half the rent and bills.'

This is what he SHOULD be doing. He shouldn't get points for this."

Right Spartee in how you commented on this. Sure, it's what he should be doing - but not everyone does what they should, so you do take note when what happens.

It should be normal - fact is, it isn't. So yes, these sorts of things get put down as a good thing, not just ignored with a shrug as 'that's normal'.

On a related note, I believe that it's important and helpful to show appreciation for the everyday things our partners do for us. Sure, it might be his agreed 'job' to take out the rubbish - but how powerful to notice that he did it and just say a simple thanks.

Amy, I hope you're getting paid well to deliver this tough-love advice to the masses. It's this dose of reality par excellence so desperately needed by many.

An absolutely fantastic response.

Ian

Some people arent happy unless they have something to complaign about

"He has remained drug-free, helps with cooking and cleaning, and pays half the rent and bills."

I know a lot of women who don't pay half the rent and the bills and their cooking and cleaning is a poor excuse. You have it a lot better than a lot of the guys out there.

"His job just got cut back to 16 hours a week"

It just got cut back. When it has got cut back long enough for him to stop paying half then rent and bills or if he does not want to take over the cooking and cleaning with you doing the helping, then you probably have a valid reason to crib. It's a tough economy, jobs are hard to come by and applying alone does not guarantee an offer.

Sort of ironic, isn't it, that if he went back to dealing it could solve a lot of their problems. Plenty of help with grocery and utility bills for her, and plenty of time for fishing in between gigs for him.

Codependent no more is an excellent book.

If the LW is happy about him quitting "for her" she is going to be thrilled when it is her fault when he relapses. A real recovery from drug addiction is not for anyone else, it is for the addict, and then it takes quite a long time for the addict to stop acting like an addict. Frankly I am betting he has already relapsed. If the LW is letting him use that he got clean for her as a weapon or as a way to change or end the conversation, she needs help.

You need a good therapist who specializes in co-dependence. You need to find out why you need to feel like more than equal in your relationships.

He is acting like an addict, you are acting like the mother of a 13 year old, buying him clothes, buying the food and entertainment. You need to step aside and let him be an adult. You are treating him like a child and he is letting you. This is not healthy.

Find an Al-anon meeting or a nar-anon meeting. There are a lot of things you need to learn. I have to ask LW, was there an addict/alcoholic or chronically ill person in your home growing up? If so his bad behavior feels normal to you.

Get yourself some help and find out why you would not only date someone like this but repeatedly wait for him during incarceration and rehab. Once you know why ask for ways to change your behavior and attitudes. You cannot change him but you can change your attitudes and your reactions to him.

Finally having gone through a long term relationship with a high functioning alcoholic/addict, I know all about this subject. I got lots of help both meetings and private counseling. My Advice here is RUN, pack up all your stuff and RUN! Then get help. but for right now RUN!

If you are exhausted now, how are you going to feel in 2 years? How are you going to feel after you have had a baby with him? Even if you are still with him and you have some kids with him understand you are going to be mom and dad, doing everything. If you have to go to the kid's school for some reason it will be you alone not you and him as a team.

If your child does something wrong and has consequences to face or you want to set consequences, he will be the nice fun Dad to your mean mom! He will undermine you with your own kids to be the nice guy and because he hates consequences, and he has no boundaries.

BTW - his mother already is enabling him. Why should a parent spend her money for him to go to rehab? There are charity and state supported rehabs everywhere. If he needs rehab perhaps he should be paying for it himself, or finding one that does not have hot tubs and pools.

He has it good, Mommy to pay for somethings and Mommy II (YOU) to pay for other things. Why in the world would he try to do any better? He has it good.

Run, run fast, run now and do not look back.

Razor: Best. Line. Ever. "Some women do volunteer work; some women date it."

I loved that line too.

LW: He has remained drug-free, helps with cooking and cleaning, and pays half the rent and bills. His job just got cut back to 16 hours a week. He has applied for a handful of positions but isn't consistently looking, and he spends lots of time fishing. . . . I do like feeling important to this person, and I do like the love, affection and kindness he shows me.

Believe it or not, it is possible to find a guy who will be loving, affectionate and kind to you and willing to work and earn money instead of spending lots of time fishing.

If this guy is that exceptional (aside from the lots-of-fishing thing), then stay and accept him for who he is. Otherwise, strongly consider leaving.

@ Joe J - "I'm wondering if the reason she's considering breaking up with him IS because he seems to have straightened out.
She had plenty of time and opposrunity to break up with him, like when he was using or dealing. Like when he was in jail for several months. To me that makes it really easy to break up with someone."

Precisely. This is why I suggest Al-Anon/codependency work; LW sounds like xillions of other people (many of whom write in to the Goddess) who choose addicts or otherwise unsatisfactory partners, then wonder (on those rare occasion when the partner becomes clean/sober/what they thought they always wanted) why they are still miserable. I can tell you: it's because they mistakenly thought that sobriety (or whatever) = maturity/perfection/something that I promise will fall short. These codependents don't understand that they actually function best with a partner with a huge addiction or other issue so that they can feel useful; hence LW's quandary. Her dude is somewhere in between, and she doesn't know what to do with that. Let me tell you what the solution is (it's another way of saying Spartee's comment/the first comment on this thread): pick a lane. Decide whether you want to change (I agree that the book Co-Dependent No More or Al-Anon is a good place to start) or admit to yourself that this is where you're comfortable and shut it (meaning, leave the guy alone. He's not going to "man up" any more by being berated). But if you can't admit to yourself that you're engaging in some sort of dance (and not for the first time) that you're getting something out of, no one can help.