Need some advice about marriage

[Chef209]

I really need some advice on my relationship and it is a rather difficult and odd situation. I have been with my partner for 7 yrs now and I do love him to death, we have been through a lot of ups and downs, but still found some way to still love each other and want to work through things.

We have been in a Domestic Partnership for 2 years now and with the recent court rulings that now allow Marriage in California we started talking about planning a wedding. The down fall is I am now having mixed feels about this because we have a complicated relationship.

When I say we have a complicated relationship, let me explain...he lives at home with his mom and grandma and I live about 40 mins away. There are several reasons for this including that we almost got a separation about a year ago. Since then we have tried to work on things.

I am 32 yrs old and a Sous Chef at a high end restaurant and he is 25 and currently unemployed and just looks after his grandma who is in her 80's and not well. He does not have a drivers license or ever has, yet has worked but previously relied on his grandma to drive him to work before she started getting sick.

He has no drive or motivation to move out or try to find a job or get his drivers license and always has some excuse when I ask him about it. I just worry that even once we get married we still will not be living together and that things will not change to taking the next step in building out life together again.

Please give me some advice or feel free to ask more questions, I will be happy to give you more information or details...I really need help and advice figuring this out from a neutral party.

Thank you,

Steven

[VileKyle]

My best advice is to know what it's like to live together before marriage. I was married once and I was taken off guard by the difference that makes. Different problems get in the way when you are living under the same roof than when you are having a more separate relationship. If you don't know whether you can live with those changes or not, it's best not to take the chance. If you're serious about marriage, give it some time so you know for sure. Divorce sucks.

Oh, and welcome to GS!

[Spellbound]

Oh dear. He's 25 and no driver's licence and no job and his grandma drove him to work.... and ... and....

Sorry to be unsympathetic, but you should dump him and find someone with some drive and energy. That's a good job you've got, you deserve someone better.

[trywait]

i agree with vilekyle.

if and when I get married, I will want to live with that person before marriage. a person is totally different when he/she is just visiting your place or vice versa. after living together for at least 6 months, if you feel like you can spend the rest of your lives together, then take the next step.

that's jus my 2 cents and it sounds like u have some doubts.

ps: e komo mai to gs

[Slidezone303]

There are many difficult situations in these tough economic times which might cause one to live with relatives or not get a driver's license. What really bothers me is the lack of motivation you perceive on his part. That would be a big red flag for me. Proceed with caution and be happy you are seeing these qualities in him now and not six months after you are married.

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[Pix]

Why do you want to marry him?

And it might be there's you answer right there...do the pros outweigh the cons? Nobody's perfect. He certainly doesn't sound like a good catch to me, but maybe he's a passionate artist, or he's hilarious, or just being with him makes you feel alive (make sure this isn't the brain chemistry of love that dies down after about 6 months or so)? If so, he may be worth it, especially if he's willing to run errands and do chores for you (which would be a job right there, it's just he's paid in room & board).

Of course there's the practical question of can you afford it? (In some places you do get tax breaks for being married, btw, though I understand in some places it can raise your rates, too. I understand you can even get tax credits for having a "dependent" live with you, though I'm not clear on the specifics of that.) If you can't afford it then it doesn't matter if he's worth it, you can't live off of love (though simpler living might be an option, that goes into just how worth it he is) and so it's doomed anyway.

Another possibility is disability...I'm just having a hard time fathoming why he can't get a driver's license. Is he scared of crowds? If there's an intense phobia or mental illness then it can either be treated or perhaps gain some payments (though don't expect it to cover a fair share, in fact living with you would probably seriously cut back what he's eligible for, though maybe marriage would change that).

If he's just scared of the system (that THEY are watching him, waiting for an excuse to fine him, jail him, rehabilitate him, etc, so he passively resists by refusing to connect to it) then let me know and I might be able to point you in the direction for him to hook up with kindred spirits, some of whom live comfortably off the Grid without regular jobs (one family not only harnessed their own power, but they sold excess power to the power company!). That is, he might find ways off the Grid (no DL, SSN, etc, required) to help pay his share or otherwise contribute to your material stability. Of course this assumes the reason he doesn't get a license and job is because he's rather idealistic and/or mistrustful of authority rather than he'd prefer to just play video games.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

he is 25 and currently unemployed and just looks after his grandma who is in her 80's and not well.

Just looks after his grandma....

Just... just...

I don't know if this reflects his actual duties he performs for grandma, or if you are being dismissive and flippant all at the same time. ???

It rubs me the wrong way, since I am currently a caretaker for an 81 year old man who isn't even blood relations, and I for one know how exhausting that responsibility is.

He has no drive or motivation to move out or try to find a job or get his drivers license and always has some excuse when I ask him about it.

"Some excuse"... Hmm. Again an interesting use of words which couples with 'Just looks after his grandma..' Well again I wonder what it is you are really saying. Is this dismissive of a thing he sees as valid?

It would be nice to know what some of these reason he has given.

It would also be nice to know what it was that caused a near break-up... Is it this same series of stuff or something else?


Look, Grandma is 80, and unwell - she ain't going to be on this old Earth very much longer. She is going to die, and if he is the caretaker here its going to be a horrific death for him - even if she dies in her sleep peacefully (which most likely won't be how she goes - fully awake, and not so peacefully is how these things go).

He most likely is doing a lot more than you think he is doing for her, and most likely is carrying a lot of doubt, fear, worry about her health. She is his grandmother - and clearly they have been pretty tight.

IDK - maybe I'm wrong and the old bird will live to see her 120th year.

Dismissing his 'just looking after her' is the wrong way to approach that aspect. In fact you would most likely do better slapping grandma in the face in front of him.

He may not be aware of this, but there are state and Federal Programs that pay money to family who tend to their sickly relatives. The thing is, grandma's pension has to be somewhat low. The man I am currently tending too has way too much money.

http://www.caregiver.com/regionalresources/financial/

http://usodep.blogs.govdelivery.com/2012...-get-paid/

http://www.agingcare.com/Articles/how-to...135476.htm

Are three places YOU as the husband to be should start looking.

Yeah, I'm going to make this bit YOUR JOB since you are the wanna be husband. Why? Because I want you to take a walk on the wild side of being a caregiver and do some leg work and get to know a bit about what it is to be a caregiver.

I think that once you arm yourself with some of that data and start looking at these programs, maybe even start reading posts about other caregivers you will have a better understanding of where you husband to be is at right now.

Perhaps if you dig deep enough and come up with a strategy for him, his mom and grandmother you might also get him interested in getting the driver's license so he can get paid a wee bit more for being a chauffeur. however I suspect he has a real good reason to not get behind the wheel of a car and may be terrified or embarrassed to talk about it.

If you can't or won't do this leg work and try to help him, then I strongly suggest you let him go now and forget marriage.

[Slidezone303]

[It rubs me the wrong way, since I am currently a caretaker for an 81 year old man who isn't even blood relations, and I for one know how exhausting that responsibility is.

This is something that I hadn't thought of in my reply. Thank-you for pointing it out.

[Chef209]

I want to start of by saying that I am by no means saying that taking care of the elderly is easy and a lot of work. At age 16 I had to take care of my grandfather who had cancer all throughout his body and watched him slowly and painfully die over the course of a year then the following year cared for and watched my grandmother die from breast cancer.

When I say that he looks after his grandmother it pretty much consists of him waking up around noon, asking how she is doing, and doing simple chores like dishes and getting the mail. He doesn't have to do things like bath her, give meds, laundry, cook or run errands. He spends most of his day on facebook, on his phone talking and texting his friends or watching tv.

I have lived with him before, two years the first time and at the end of that time I left because he was cheating on me. We ended up working it out and then last year we separated again because he didn't want to spend time with me anymore, we never did anything and basically became room mates, he always put his friends and self first and never included me into anything and would just take off without saying anything.

As far as his license goes his biggest excuse has always been nobody ever took the time to teach him. I have tried to encourage it and several time went and picked up books for him to study for the permit test. I paid and took him to take test twice and he just never studied and failed both times. I have offered to teach him how to drive as well as several of his friends and even offered to pay for professional lessons, yet he is unmotivated to take it seriously and often lies to people about having his license.

Don't get me wrong, I know that nobody is perfect and that he is young and so I have tried to be patient and understanding over the years and allow him time to "grow up" and be supportive as he figures out what he wants to do in life. He refuses to go to local college because he doesn't want to take public transportation and doesn't want to run into friends. He has tried taking online college and has now been to 7 different colleges, after a few months he loses interest and starts missing assignments and is usually because he spends more time on facebook and other social blogs or reading up on cellphone sites.

I love him to death and do everything I possibly can to be there for him and provide for him. I love him because he makes me laugh and smile and feel better when I have a long day at work.

My concern about our relationship comes and goes from time to time. Now with us thinking about marriage I have had a lot of close friends who support me in whatever I chose to do cause they want to see me happy have raised a lot of questions for me to think about. I just don't know if I am being too critical or if I have just been brushing off the issues as it should be my responsibility to help with these things and take on all the burden.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

OK so he isn't really 'taking care' of grandma. Forget all I said about caregiving - apparently he really isn't doing that.

ADHD? Aspergers? Seems to me there is something else under all of this other stuff that impedes him.

All of this other stuff aside, I would say the biggest impediment to a marriage here is his ability to cheat on you. If he has done it once he most likely will do it again and again. Maybe that is just my personal experience - however a lot of people who I know that have had a cheater in their life ends up with the same tale of woe - the cheater just can't seem to stop.

A selfish person never actually gets out of that phase either.

ADHD/Aspergers or something else may be at play here. His behaviors strike me as atypical of 'normal' behaviors. Especially this apparent "fear" of learning how to drive.

He has tried taking online college and has now been to 7 different colleges, after a few months he loses interest and starts missing assignments and is usually because he spends more time on facebook and other social blogs or reading up on cellphone sites.

That can be indicative of either Aspergers or ADHD. A subject gets his interest and then he drops is - if he throws himself into the subject completely for a while, then stops totally it is more of an Aspergers thing. If he starts a lot of stuff and ends up getting distracted/walking away it may be indicative of ADHD.

So there may very well be a cause here, a medical issue... Of course without a professional to test him and work with him a diagnosis is going to be hard to make.

I don't know how much more you want to invest here in this fella - but maybe you can get him to a doctor to run tests and do a few things to see if his 'issues' are medical and not just attitude.

I think there is more to him than just lack of interest or laziness. It may look like it, but with everything you said in this second post it points at an underlying disorder which may be treatable, or something he can work around to achieve real goals.