thanks for the replys

the hardest part is that he is right in that i am significantly better friends with him than with her. i have seen and hung out with him numerous times since the last time i saw her, which was in Sept, even though we live in the same city. she cheated on him and was super manipulative and emotionally abusive to him. I knew this.

However, when they broke up he assured me that he didn’t want me to choose at all and that he recognized that it sucked that I was in the position that I was in in between the two of them.

But she also was crap to me afterwards as well, crossing boundaries, talking complete shit about him and trying to get me to hate him. She lied to me. I tried to patch it up because I was too terrified of inflicting the emotional pain on someone that i had had inflicted on me time and time again as a youth by people who i thought were my friends but were not. I didn’t want to do that to someone.  I was bullied and abused by friends for like a decade as a youth and I didn’t want to just abandon someone who had been my friend for a decade. I tried to patch it up because I didn’t feel comfortable to walk away from her because of my own insecurities.

I know that if I had not asked her to be in my wedding party I would not have tried to patch anything up I would have just let it die.

That’s the hardest part. I don’t want to kick her, but if I don’t I will 100% lose this person who I am much closer to and way more friends with.

“You are clearly uncomfortable with supporting her financially, especially when you see a pattern of financial irresponsibility or lack of attention, on her part. You are also, clearly conflicted. This has been a good relationship for the most part.

But you were not in the situation before where you had to support her financially, like you are now. You knew of her debt, but you were not in the position of actually paying her bills, not to this extent and not on an ongoing basis. So this is a new situation, correct?”

I am a bit frustrated. I don’t mind supporting her while she looks for work. She dropped her life to move here with me and I get that there is a transition period. It’s only been 2 months. I was well aware of her financial situation so I knew that I would be supporting her for a bit and paying most of the bills for a bit.  This is very much a new component to it. We were living together and I was paying about 65% of the bills but that was because we decided together that that was okay because then she could commit more to her debt (which she was able to reduce by about half in 8 months)

What I don’t like is that she is expecting to commute to school 2 hours a week come September when she doesn’t have any money for gas (so I’ll be paying for it) and then she will also be taking the car so I’ll be required to take public transportation, another expense that I’ll have to cover.  I’m already covering 80% of our expenses and it will jump to 100% by the end of May if she doesn’t find work.  Then those expenses will go up by $300 a month if she decides to drive back and forth every week. Plus come September she will be having class as well as doing placement so she will 100% not really be working so I’ll have been covering all the expenses for us both from mid Feb of this year until summer next year. Probably around 16 months. And when I bring this up and try to talk to her about how it would maybe be better if she lived with her sister for the 10 months she was in school so she could get a job there and pay for her own expenses and be stable she thinks I’m trying to get rid of her and leave the relationship.

Then she gets a job interview and starts having second thoughts because it involves going into clients homes and she is (naturally) uncomfortable with that. I don’t want her doing a job she hates and having anxiety and getting depressed about it, but I also don’t like that she is so quick to dismiss this potential job when I am the one who is covering all the bills. It makes me feel taken advantage of and I have talked to her about it on occasion and she talks about how much she hates being unemployed and it isn’t enjoyable for her. And I know it isn’t. I don’t want to not be supportive but I don’t think she understand how difficult this if for me.

“At this point, this is not a good relationship for you, not anymore. It may become one but it is not at this point, because of your distress. Your thoughts/ feelings?”

That’s the issue. It isn’t positive right now. But I also am well aware that it is impossible for it to be positive forever and never hit rough patches and I can’t tell if this is a rough patch or if it is just going to continue along in this way for a long period of time. It feel very situational because of the move and she isn’t working and that is messing with her mental health, and I know that once she starts to work it will get better, but this is really taking a toll on me and it’s impacting my mental health and is making me think of use. I know that isn’t the right choice but it is still where my brain goes automatically when in get in high stress situations and this doesn’t appear to be resolvable until she gets a job that “she wants” and I don’t know if that is going to happen any time soon. My mind is that she needs to just suck it up and work for a bit and stop being so selective and feeling entitled to work that she completely enjoys, but that is easy to say from the position I am in.

At that point she is not ready for anyone’s help least of all yours.

This really resonates. She mentioned at some point that she doesn’t want any help and thinks that the way I help “doesn’t work for her.” The biggest issue is that she would constantly try to connect and chat and “catch up” (she asked me for my spaghetti sauce recipe at some point in our talking) and it just feels very “mixed message”-esque to the point where I get the impression that she wants to chat and talk about stuff, and be friends, and then she expresses she wants to make changes so my immediate response when friends say that is to talk about that change and interact in a way to help facilitate that in any way I can. I usually do it well, but I feel like our history doesn’t really allow me to do that because I recognize that if this one barrier was overcome by her, her inability to communicate and have depth with me, that we would get back together and be happy because everything else outside of her immaturity is what I want in a partner. That knowledge puts me into “fix it” mode when she talks about making changes and then she get annoyed and upset with the way I try and do that. I really think she just isn’t ready at this point to make big changes. I just can’t interact with her as a friend if that is the case then because in my opinion, friends help each other and ask for help and interact in that kind of way and that doesn’t seem to be something she wants or is capable of having with me.