Joblessness causing a rift...

[surfhb2]

Michelle, your rent is 600 a month!? I'm coming to live where you do!

No Shit! I one Bedroom flat here cost $1400 a month

[lalalita]

No Shit! I one Bedroom flat here cost $1400 a month

Same where I am in the US. Uhg.

[michelle23]

lol iv a 3 bedroom modern beautiful house with 3 bathrooms,.nice furniture, large kitchen, large sitting room, small front and back garden and a driveway. i live in a town though. closer to the city it would be 1000+ for this house. our wages are lower here though and so is cost of living. id be extremely happy on a salary of 35-40k. thats my aim in the next 5 years and i hope my bf will be earning the same. we could have a fantastic home and life with that income

[xrobotlove]

Our one bedroom is 700, compared to 1000-2000 like where I'm from (that's why we moved here.)

Okay so anyway. He buys his own weed. He buys his own cigarettes. He ordered the movie channels. These are the things he wants to spend his extra money on (and the only way he can veg after a long day of hard work) and was able to freely before me. I'm not going to make him quit smoking so that I can be jobless, I'd feel way out of bounds. Also why does everything mean "break up"? This is a tiny issue, one that will go away easily and one that doesn't affect other aspects of our relationship. Breaking up is not the answer when the issue is purely situational. Also, ill be done school in march, not 3 years (Not sure where that came from?) so it won't be that long even if I don't find a temp job until then (but I will.)

So as for an update on the issue, this morning there was no fight. We talked more blatantly about it last night, plus I had gotten good news about a job. He was still seriously depressed and clearly unhappy this morning, but he didn't take it out on me! I think the answer is to slowly direct the anger away from me and toward something else (since the anger itself won't be going away until he changes careers) or to try to be angry with him against a mutual target. I hate his job too, and honestly if it weren't for his work stress he wouldn't care what I was doing. But he does demolition on homes and buildings that were destroyed by natural disasters, sewage, fires, etc. The physical and emotional toll it takes on him gets carried home. (Emotional because sometimes family members died in the disaster, and anyone with a ruined home is very distraught and he takes it upon himself to console them.)
So, things are looking a bit brighter... But he's still so depressed and I don't know how to console him when the only answer is to change careers. I said I'd help look while he's at work. He texts me all day with more and more sh*t getting dumped on him, like just now he said they set a job up for him at 6. He's supposed to get off at 7:30 but any jobs set up after 5 have him coming home closer to midnight (making it a 13 hour shift). They just screw him constantly. I'd be mad too.

[stilldoubting]

Does he but cigs and weed for you too with his money??

[stilldoubting]

Are you sure he is angry at you and not just angry at the fact that he has to work long hours and doesn't like his job? Why doesn't he consider doing a part time course too so in the future he can aim to work less hours for more money?

[xrobotlove]

The weed is 300 a month or so, and I put in $100 and also take care of all of the "return money" on it from friends so it ends up being free. We buy our own separate cigarettes cuz we smoke different brands.

@stilldoubting, you hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. He just hates his job so much and doesn't know how to deal with the stress. When his parents call, he ends up accidentally yelling at them too. When I'm done school, the plan is for him to take a month off to do absolutely nothing and then go back to school. If he had a different career I'm convinced we would have the picture perfect relationship we should have.

[surfhb2]

Maybe some counseling can help. I mean we all work 60 hour weeks and most of us would rather be doing other thing. I spend 3 hours a day just getting to and from work! I don't want to minimize your SOs depression over the job but imagine what life would be like without it? It's good that both of you are exploring the ideas if new careers and education !!

Also it is your place as his partner to let him know where you 2 could improve in life. It all about growing and change. It doesn't stop....it's a constant uphill job. I may sound like a parent but smoking away 600 a month when you're living pay check to paycheck, underemployed( yes....you live with him), depressed is just childish.

I mean you'll figure it out sooner then later but I know how your boyfriend feels about his job,what smoking cigs and weed does to the mind and body and what it's like to live with the fact that if I lost my job I'd be on the streets within a month. At some point you may want to rethink some choices.

[xrobotlove]

Woah woah 600? Noo I meant 300 worth lasts more than a month lol. And we "smoke for free" by helping out a couple close friends. It's only 300 because its cheaper to buy in bulk, we actually only smoke maybe 1/4 of that, and like I said it ends up being free. But yeah, the smoking is really an after work and weekend thing that he's used to relax for many years. That's his wind down, much like most people drink a beer or two, but we don't drink a drop of alcohol. We're kind of "hippies" ;p He's only 22 and just moved out of his parents house when we moved in together on March 1st, so it's a given that we both have growing up to do. We're in the larval stage of living together and we talk about the future a lot, and being fiscally responsible is in that future. We do plan on getting a house and getting married later down the road, but for now we're working on finding our careers. Once I'm in the animal hospital, he's going to school and that's when we plan on buckling down and figuring out what we want to do. We haven't been together for very long, but we know we've found the one we want to share a life with, so were still figuring out what that life is.

[surfhb2]

Whatever the number is....it's a lot !!!

Hey! Might as well start now. No more excuses....do the budgeting thing today ( you have the time ) . Write down everything your money goes to. Not asking you to stop smoking right now but have an idea where all the money goes and put it in a drawer somewhere.

You're going to need about 20k for that house so that's going to take several years of savings

Don't be like the rest of America who have no saving and retirement and constantly fret about keeping a job because they are destitute without it in a month or 2

You guys start now and you won't have to work past 50 years old....that's just a fact Hun!!

[surfhb2]

Just ran the numbers and 600 bucks saved a month between 2 people - you will have 140k in 10 years

About 75 bucks a paycheck. Pffst that's a bag of weed, a gas tank and a burger these days