Relationship frustration

[deerheart]

Maybe some of you who have been in L-T relationships can help me out.

I am wondering if I am being flaky/impatient about my relationship with my bf. I have been dating him for going on 3 years, and have lived with him for almost a year. I am wondering if I should move out.

The biggest problem I have with this relationship right now is the living situation. My boyfriend’s house is in a tiny town (think 4,000) and it’s 20 miles from the nearest bigger town. He drives to one city for work every day, and I drive to another city for school and part-time work. (I basically quit my career to pursue going back to school.)

I hate this arrangement of having to live in the middle of nowhere. I feel isolated, I’m depressed because of it. I have to drive a half hour to get anywhere, the nearest jobs (which are crappy anyway) require a drive, the gas prices are killing me because of all the driving, which makes me angry and more depressed, so I just end up staying home being resentful and marginally employed. It’s created a kind of inertia where I just don’t want to do anything (and this loss of ambition includes not wanting to exercise and loss of sex drive).

The bf doesn’t have a problem with the living situation because he makes decent $$$ and it’s his house (and his source of pride).

Add to this the fact that he’s disorganized and never made an attempt to clear any of his clutter when I moved in. He seriously has one room that looks like it should be on “Clean House." It frustrates me because he doesn’t see it as a problem.

And now for my flaws: I know I am very impatient and a bit of an escape artist. I have moved an average of once a year in my adult life (turning 30 this year), mostly because if something’s not going my way or if I see a better opportunity, I’m outta there. I think life is too short to deal with some types of bullshit.

I guess I’m wondering if anyone thinks my issues are grounds for moving out, or if I somehow should just toughen up and deal with it for the sake of the relationship.

[KCboy]

how have the discussions about moving gone? it doesn't sound like you are married to your career, why not talk about moving to the town that he works in?

seems like you both need to examine your priorities - house vs. relationship. Is his house more important to him than you? And is your frustration about living in a small town more important than him. I'm sure if you both realize that the other person is more important than a house/location, a compromise can be made.


If that doesn't work, try remembering that people in big cities have to sit in traffic for an hour to get to work. Each way.

[steph78]

To be perfectly blunt, I don't see where you have listed ANY positives about your current living situation. Everything you wrote was a negative. Maybe you need to sit down and make a list of positives and negatives about the situation and if the negatives still outweigh the positives by far, then take some action to improve things. If your relationship with your bf is any good at all, surely he will understand that the unhappiness/isolation/frustration you are feeling warrants some sort of change to improve things, whether that's him making an effort to clean up and make you feel more at home, or more outings to help you feel less isolated, or something. If he doesn't understand, then you probably don't want to be living with him anyway.

My husband and I lived together before we were married, and the first year we lived together we were both poor grad students and had a third person sharing our apartment to help keep costs down. I was absolutely miserable after about six months, the third person was driving me NUTS - when I told my now-husband, he was seriously ready to break our lease and find a new place to live if I was really that unhappy. (he is normally a VERY frugal guy and he was all set to pay the ridiculous penalties for breaking the lease if that's what I wanted) That's when I knew he was a keeper!

[wordsmith]

Know that many people are not going to be amenable to moving every year. Your feet may be itchier than most. I know that when I was 25, I was so thrilled to finally NOT be having to move to a new place every year; that got old, since I did it every year from 18-25.

As a person who admits that you tend to pack up and move on if something's not going your way, you might consider that this is an opportunity to try a different approach...flexibility is always a good thing to learn.

[winneythepooh7]

Does he own the house? If so, I can see how that may complicate moving, especially in today's housing market. Unless you want to move out and have your own place and just see him on weekends or something.......

I like the idea about making the pros/cons list on whether or not to stay in this relationship, as it sounds like overall from your post, you are just genuinely unhappy with it.

If that is not the case, and you want to try to make things work, why not look into getting a job in the town your boyfriend works? Maybe then you can commute to work together and save $$$$ on gas that way.