His friends and family

[Ecc94454]

My boyfriend and I broke up a month ago. We also lived together so he moved out a month ago as well. We broke up not because I hurt him or he hurt me. I broke up with him because he needed to take some time to become more financially secure. I don't care about how much money he makes, but I was tired of being the more financially responsible one. He doesn't owe me any money it's nothing like that. We are both in our late 20s and I felt like because of the situation with their finances we were on two different paths. After a few weeks we both met up and decided that we would work on ourselves but continue to live separately. So now that we're trying to work things out I am having an issue with his friends and family not approving of our decision. I understand that I hurt him and I'm the one that ended things, but it's still frustrating to feel like I have to defend myself to his family and friends. I didn't break up with him because he was a bad person or I didn't love him I just wanted him to mature. I feel that in the next six months or so he'll be in a much better place and we can talk about living together again. That's what we have discussed so far. I'm just unsure how to handle the situation with his family and friends. I'm trying to be considerate of the fact that they're only trying to look out for him but I feel like he's allowing their opinions to influence him a little too much. Any advice on the situation would be appreciative. Again I am wanting to work things out, I'm just unsure of what to do with his friends disliking me.

[melancholy123]

You have to learn to tune out those who you say dont like you because you had your bf move out. It's none of their business despite the fact they care for him. You and he have to work things out and they are not a part of that. Assuming you do work out your issues over X months, then these people should see you have weathered the storm and they were wrong about you. It's hard to do but you have to ignore them as best you can.

[Ecc94454]

Ok thank you for the advice. Should I talk about this with my boyfriend or just ignore it?

[ThatwasThen]

Sometimes when we exercise a personal boundary (in this case it was you won't live with him anymore until he learns how to budget and save his money) people who don't like the boundary will start to balk at it. That's not your problem though. Let them resent you for it. The bottom line here is that we all have to look after ourselves first, have our boundaries in place and stop any enabling of poor behaviour. You continuing to live with him under the status quo would have been you enabling him to NOT be fiscally responsible.

 

You might want to tell these people, if they are brave enough to tell you to your face how they resent you for forcing their loved one to grow up financially, that you would be stagnating him from growing had you stayed with him under the status quo.

 

Here's hoping he grows from all this.

[Ecc94454]

Right now no one is saying anything directly to me. People are more just commenting behind my back. Do I just ignore it or do I acknowledge it with my boyfriend?

I think it bothers him what his friends think.

[DanZee]

You know, if you're having trouble with your relationship now, what is it going to be like if you ever get married to each other? People don't change much over their lives and you can both "work on yourselves" to make yourself feel better about yourself, but you don't really change very much. And any behavioral issues usually have a much deeper issue. You didn't mention exactly what you were arguing about other than money, but I can tell you that that's a BIG issue in and of itself and that alone breaks relationships up! There are other people in the world and maybe you should look around to see if there's somebody nicer you can date, someone you're more compatible with where there doesn't have to be drama in your lives.

[Ecc94454]

Thank you, but like i said I want to work things out.

[ThatwasThen]

Right now no one is saying anything directly to me. People are more just commenting behind my back. Do I just ignore it or do I acknowledge it with my boyfriend?

I think it bothers him what his friends think.

I think that if its bothering to the point that you needed to start a thread about it then it's worth talking with him about it.

Does he shut them down when they dis you?

If they are doing it behind your back, how are you finding out that they are talking about you?

[Ecc94454]

I'm not sure if he shuts down because I haven't seen it. I know about it because of just mutual friends telling me.