Hi all!

This is going to be a long post, regarding my fiancé. I have been with him for four years now. I met him through an online source, me living on the West Coast and him in the Midwest. With a lot of effort, we both moved to a bit lower down on the West Coast (I am Canadian and he's American so we have some immigration things to sort out before we could have a permanent home together). In the meantime, I am going to school here. He spent a lot of money---put himself in a LOT of debt-- and drove 3 days with me, pulling a U-haul trailer to reach the coast, so he certainly put in a lot of effort. When I moved down I had a desperate situation with school, finances & family and so he came to help me and got fired from his job for doing so. He's been unable to find a job for about eight months since. We didn't know what a crappy job market this town had when we picked it.

I've been working my a** off at school and I also got an on-campus job here so altogether I'm really burning the midnight oil. He plays video games and talks to his friends online. He is very chatty with neighbors and his friends, but I get no real conversation out of him daily, only regular responses to situational stuff. When I do have free time, he never wants to do anything fun. I suggest things we could do--free stuff and going-out-stuff, and he declines everything. Even if I want to watch something like a movie or a TV episode (we both like the same stuff), he says 'Maybe in a little bit' or 'not in the mood' and then plays games with his friends till he goes to bed. Yet when his family visits us--parents and now brother on separate visits--he plans out a super-fun week and goes and does all this really cool stuff while I am struggling at school. He's been watching stuff constantly with his brother. He didn't wait for me to come home from school to buy the new grill he's been talking about for months, but went out with his brother, picked it and cooked a delicious dinner... meanwhile I was at class, being ridiculed by a teacher I dislike. My stomach/guts have been acting funny all week, and I told him I am going to eat simply for the next few days to see if giving it a rest would help... so I come home and he's having awesome looking grilled food that I can't have. Seemed kind of mean when--during his recent incident with a perforated colon--I stayed up for about forty eight hours by his bedside in the hospital, during finals week, and then for the most part ate the same diet as him for weeks after. I freakin picked seeds out of tomatoes for him, so he could still have some interesting foods.

It makes me so hurt and angry that he does these things because he always tells me I'm his best friend, but I don't think this is best friend treatment. I end up feeling like I'm not special enough for him to spend time with. I've told him this before, tried to sit down and ask him very nicely, but it doesn't change. Yet I don't think he doesn't love me, he does treat me well in helping me get things done, gives me rides from school and when I need to vent about something else he always listens and tries to make me feel better. I've asked him to talk to me, that if he wants to vent something, or talk about something I would be so happy to listen, but he doesn't for the most part. (Keep in mind- it's hard to measure conversations. He does talk to me, I just feel he prefers hanging out with other people for socializing purposes, if that makes sense).


He also binge drinks, very rarely but when he does he has no concept of when to stop. He's not at all violent when drunk, just chatty, but I worry a lot for his health, and I don't like drunkenness (tipsy is fine sometimes, but truly drunk? I can do without that). That colon perforation I mentioned earlier was from diverticulosis, just a few months ago and he's currently going through the investigations process as they try to figure out what happened, ergo my worry about his health. The other night he went out with his brother, and I asked him to please not get drunk since he had a colonscopy just on Wednesday; he promised he wouldn't and then knocked on the bedroom door six hours later wobbling and barely able to see straight. I had a talk with him the next day, expressing my feelings in a kind way, and that if he felt this lifestyle is what he needs then I have to respect myself and go a different path. He seemed to take it to heart and promised to work on counting how many drinks he has. It remains to be seen if he can actually do it.

My main question here is about the socializing aspect, his not spending time with me (because I feel that the drinking is resolved for now). Is this a part of a normal relationship, or is this leaning in the wrong direction? I understand his unemployment probably has a lot to do with it (as per his reasoning to me, when I asked him why we never do fun things). But I don't see why he wouldn't want to spend time still, since not everything costs money.

Thanks for any thoughts you might have! I apologize if anything is confusing. I hope I don't come off petty... I try really hard to not have serious discussions with him when I'm angry, I wait to cool off so I can be non-confrontational. He IS a good guy and I know he has a good heart. He does do things for me like I mentioned--a huge effort to move here with me, and little things every day. He's also absent minded, and friendly, to give you an idea of his personality (reminds me of a golden retriever).

~ K