u/ThrowRA_98182740

We’ve been together on and off for about 7 years. There’s a lot of love between us and when things are good, they’re really good. But we’ve also had repeated issues around lifestyle, finances, and stability. We broke up twice.

Right now the main conflict is this: I’m about to buy a small apartment on my own (with my savings + some family help), and he is very against it. He thinks I’m being selfish and that in a real relationship we should do everything together—live together, build together, buy together.

He has been saying that the apartment is a shoebox and that he wont be able to fit his PC and all his stuff (he has A LOT) of stuff.

He wants me to wait and rent a place together until he has his finances sorted and then buy a big house together, using his pension and my family’s money. At the same time, he makes snarky comments about me having help from family and he doesn’t.

The thing is… I don’t feel safe doing that right now.

We already tried building a life together abroad (his idea), and it failed financially. I ended up covering the majority of the costs, and even now, almost 6 months later, he hasn’t started paying me back his part, although he has been paying off other debts to other people. He earns well, but tends to live paycheck to paycheck because of spending habits, hobbies, and spontaneous expenses. He has no real savings or structure, and when I bring it up, it doesn’t really lead anywhere. He only relies on his pension money for purchasing a property one day. What troubles me is that he quit his job abroad knowing that he has no savings, that I will have to cover majority of the rental penalties, and that we will have to live at our parents places, separately, when we get back home. He also spent money on unnecessary things on the first month abroad, like expensive air plane tickets and a gaming laptop, because he would get bored at home…

That alone makes me hesitant to merge finances or take on something like a shared property.

On top of that, there are also day-to-day lifestyle differences that really affect me. When I stay at his place nowadays, I often end up taking household responsibility that I feel like should be done by him. Things like changing bedsheets, cleaning the toilet, or maintaining the space don’t get done unless I push for it or do it myself. At one point recently I literally had to beg him to tell me where his mother keeps spare bedsheets and change his sheets myself because they hadn’t been changed in months and started to smell. Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than fine with cleaning and stepping up with house chores, but I also think every adult should have accountability and clean their own living space. Additionally, he blamed me for not sleeping over enough, and when I expressed my discomfort, his ego would get hurt and nothing would change. I would always cave and spend the time there anyway, not to cause problems in the relationship.

I understand that he is likely not feeling good about himself and he doesn’t want to stay in a rundown place either. I don’t expect perfection, but it makes me feel like I need to take care of basic hygiene in his own place, because he doesn’t.

Here’s where it gets confusing:

He previously refused to live with me in the apartment I am buying, when I suggested it and even got angry about it. Now, after months of calling me selfish, and not being able to find his own place to rent, he suddenly wants to move in and is open to it—but it feels off to me. Like the timing and motivation have changed. Like he is testing whether i will accept it or not.

On the other hand, I want to live alone for 6–12 months, set up my apartment the way I want, feel stable again, and then see where we stand before making bigger decisions together. I want to see that he is making plans, handling his money and that he has a structure in place and that he is handling his OWN life well first before merging with mine.

But he sees that as me rejecting him. He says I’m selfish, that I don’t want him, and that relationships aren’t supposed to work like this.

From my side, it’s not about not wanting him—it’s about not wanting to repeat the same patterns and lose my sense of stability again.

I feel guilty, and I fear that I’m ruining the relationship, and that what I see as my boundary is actually just my selfishness. I know he feels insecure about everything that happened and I know things are hard for him too.

Overall, we get along really well and have built a strong connection over the years. We’ve grown used to each other’s personalities and ways of communicating, which makes being together feel natural and comfortable most of the time. We can laugh, spend time together effortlessly, and genuinely enjoy each other’s company. He’s caring, affectionate, and brings a lot of warmth and spontaneity into my life, while I bring structure and stability, so in many ways we balance each other. That’s what makes this so hard, because on an emotional level we do work well together and there is real love there.

So I guess my question is:

Would I be wrong to not live with him right now, even if it upsets him?

Is this me protecting myself, or am I being too individualistic and not acting like a “real partner”?

I work in sales and I’ve been with the company for two years. The other three people on my team are fairly new. Since I started, I’ve been profitable and consistently hit my goals. I’m the main generator of revenue for the team. The others are still struggling and don’t bring in enough revenue to make their own commissions meaningful. I also have a solid base salary, and on top of that, I earn commissions directly based on the profit I bring in.

My company and my direct managers have always been supportive and I have a great work-life balance in my current role, with full flexibility and minimal stress levels. I’m happy where I am, but I am also willing to grow and expand. I’ve been taking care of the team and stepping up a little bit in the past few months, but the main managerial function has been done by the current team leader.

Now, the company wants me to move into a leadership role. This would mean I’d take over many responsibilities from my current team lead, including managing the team, motivating them, mentoring them, tracking their performance, and helping improve their results. They also expect me to start leadership trainings immediately. I wasn’t asked beforehand if I was interested, and this change was being planned behind the scenes since at least November. I only found out recently. The decision was made to restructure the team and reduce the workload from the current team leader.

The problem is, this change would drastically shift how I earn and how much control I have. My current income comes directly from my own work, but in this new setup, a big part of my earnings would depend on the team’s performance. Right now, the team is underperforming and has even been in low profit or negative for months, and my boss has already expressed that he’s not happy with some team members. So I’d be responsible for improving a situation that’s not under my control, while my own income would depend on that improvement.

At the same time, to protect my earnings, I’d likely still need to maintain part of my own portfolio. That means doing my normal high-performing sales work plus taking on all the leadership responsibilities — effectively working two full roles at once. On top of that, there’s no base salary increase, and the extra compensation they talk about would come from a small, unclear team commission that may not be meaningful, and is also dependent on external factors.

In short, I’d be taking on significantly more responsibility, more risk, and more pressure, with no immediate financial benefit. The only upside they present is potential future growth, but right now, the trade-off feels very risky and unfair. I feel like I’d be doing all the heavy lifting — fixing the team, motivating underperforming members, and maintaining my own work — just to hope that the team’s performance improves enough for me to start making good earnings.

Is there an angle I’m not seeing here? What would you do in such a situation?