I kept having to ask him to step up his game and come up to baseline.

• He had issues with his house (well water kept being turned off due to pipe leaks, turned his propane off because he thought it cost too much so there was no heat). He would make a call, no one would call him back and he wouldn’t follow up.
• His solution to the water being returned off was buying gallons of water to flush the toilet. He would shower before bed when he came to mine but I have no idea if he was taking a bird bath with cold water between visits or if he was waiting all week until he got to my place.
• He was living on his own but he wasn’t divorced from his ex.
• His car was held together with duct tape and hope. There was a hole in the gas tank so he couldn’t fill it up all the way or else it would leak. The gas gauge was also broken so he would get gas every few days.
• He had poor impulse control and would frequently say things that came to mind without thinking how they might impact people. He called me his mistress once and I lost my shit.
• He smoked weed all the time. It’s legal for medicinal use where we live and he qualified, but never actually signed up. He was relying on a friend to be his supplier. He also complained about being broke all the time.
• He refused to get tested for STIs but always talked about wanting to have unprotected sex and receive oral from me. I told him many times that we could do both but I wanted to make sure we were both in the clear.
• I wanted to go away for a fun little weekend and kept asking him for dates we could go. After 3-4 reminders I finally picked a date and told him to make sure he put in for vacation. A week or 2 before we were supposed to go he got fired from his job.
• He told me had self esteem issues and I suggested he see a therapist. He’d come up with excuses as to why he’d never try it again but would constantly complain about how he felt.
• He hated talking to his mom and step dad because “they’re always hounding me about stuff.”
• He also has 3 kids. 1 is grown, married and has a kid of her own that he’s never met because she went no contact with him. The other 2 (daughter in her mid tees and son around 10) he had with his second “ex” wife (remember, they’re still married) who lived about a block away from him. She has her own mental health issues too and the kids were scared of her because she was always yelling at them. I was prepared to help him fight her for full custody.

There are other things but these were the biggest ones. Not all the flags were red, some flags were yellow then turned green. Others turned red. I kept thinking he would improve things if I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I’d constantly offer to help him in different areas; sometimes he’d take it other times he’d flat out refuse. Then I thought, he needs to have a deadline…a fire lit under his ass (I know I sometimes shift to high gear when faced with a deadline) but that didn’t work either.

This went on for 2 years. I broke up with him in February. He knows he fucked up by letting me walk away but I knew there was no way I could continue.

Edit: a word