I feel stuck.

I’m 29 years old and I’ve been with my first and only boyfriend for 3 years.

I grew up in a very religious homes school household where social interaction was deliberately kept to a minimum and dating was prohibited.  I was also discouraged/prohibited from learning to drive or getting a part time job, so I didn’t move out until I was 23, when  logistical circumstances forced my parents to facilitate my moving out.

Even with the freedom to date, I wasn’t necessarily in a hurry to glom on to any willing man.  For the next few years there were a few people that I liked who didn’t like me back, and a few where it was the opposite way around.  And then, one day there was Mike!  Mike and I truly have a very special bond; for me, he is the easiest person in the world to talk to, or to share a silence with.  He is unfailingly kind, appreciative and encouraging.  Every day he tells me that I’m beautiful and that he loves me.  I feel the same way about him!

but Mike has a lot of quirks, hang ups and bad habits that make living with him difficult.  In his defense, he struggles with OCD, depression and anxiety, but some of it is just due to immaturity and laziness.  We moves to Denver from Iowa about two and a half years ago.  Denver has always had a certain draw for me and had been on my “some day” list for years, but part of what motivated me to pull up steaks was just to be with him.  I transferred my minimum wage job at Target and set about finding us housing on Craigslist.  Mike didn’t have a job to transfer in the first place, and everywhere I found wasn’t good enough for him.  We’ve come close to being homeless a few times because he wasn’t willing to take any of the places I could find and he kept making us late to apartment tours.  We finally found our current place through a lease takeover and were able to be grandfathered in for a new lease in spite of out low income status.  Of course, Mike complains constantly about this place too.  He’s often late about paying his half of the rent, he won’t deal with lease renewal documents unless I nag him for several months, he won’t set up online banking or get a check book to make these grownup logistical stuff easier.

Mike is still unemployed.  He didn’t even look for a job for a whole year, and then he got too sick to work.  The illness is partially due to his being a very unhealthy vegan for 10 years (his diet still consists exclusively of vegan cheese, vegan mayo, lettuce and chips).  The only modification he’s made is to add white meat and eliminate grains.  I believe that much of what he complains about may actually be symptoms of anxiety or even hypochondria, but he is unwilling to consider these possibilities.

Mike never wakes up before noon and I don’t feel that he makes hanging out with me much of a priority.  He putters around the apartment, working on projects that he’s still engrossed in when I get home and then he acts like I’m ruining things for him by coming home and invading his work space.  Because I work full time, I value my weekends and free time.  Mike and I are always making big plans for the weekend, but he invariably sleeps in and often isn’t even available to leave the apartment until 3 p.m..  I wait around until 2 or so, go out just to be doing something (never what I actually wanted) he calls to say he’s ready and asks “what do you want to do?  We’ll do anything you want.”  but by then its to late to do what I wanted.  I’m probably putting too much pressure on him to fill my social needs, but I also feel socially isolated here in Denver in a way I never was in Iowa.  It’s hard to make friends or invest in hobbies with so little time on my hands just trying to pay rent.  I want to move, and find cheaper housing so I won’t be flat broke and anxious about working a full 40 hours a week, but being attached to him means finding affordable accommodations for both of us and all his stuff and he isn’t one to help look or even cooperate.  I love Mike and the time we spend together, but I’m barely spending more time with him than I did when we lived separately, he won’t even come to bed before I fall asleep. I love Mike very deeply, when we’re together, it’s wonderful, I know that if I left him, I would miss him a lot (I know he would be heart broken too), but I’m not enjoying the shape of my life right now.  I’ve talked to him a lot about how important spending time with him is to me, but we’ve had that conversation a million times and nothing ever changes on his end.  I feel guilty for always being mad at him and asking him to change, I never wanted to become that kind of person and it isn’t fair to him.  What should I do?  I don’t really want to end things with Mike, but I do need to change things in my life.  Before I met Mike, I had many hobbies and passions, I spent my time skateboarding(badly, haha!), trying to learn foreign languages (also badly), studying electronics and computer programming, hanging out at my favorite coffee shop and discussing philosophy and litterateur, learning to sew etc, but there was always this aching loneliness, I wanted to be in  love: to find that one true friend.  Meeting Mike felt like coming home, and it still dose, when he’s around, but he isn’t enough for me in himself.  I don’t even know what I want out of life or what I expect from myself anymore, so deciding what to do away from Mike is difficult.

Sorry for the long, rambling post.  Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks