#selfishness

Should I tell him or not?

The Confession That's Really About You

When someone confesses an affair "because they deserve the truth", stop there. Look at who is being served by that sentence. The betrayed person was living their life. They had a reality perhaps imperfect, perhaps built partly on false ground, but *theirs*, functional, the basis of their daily existence. The confession destroys that. It cannot be undestroyed. There is no version of that conversation where they come out better than they went in.

So who benefits?

The one confessing. They get to put down the weight they've been carrying. They get to feel clean. They get to see themselves as someone who, when it came to it, "told the truth" which in their internal narrative makes them, paradoxically, a person of integrity. The affair was a moral failure. The confession redeems them. In their own eyes. The other person pays for that redemption entirely.

"They Deserve the Truth" Is a Costume

It is one of the most effective pieces of self-deception available because it takes a selfish act of unburdening yourself and dresses it in the language of respect for the other person. "I owe them this. They have a right to know. I can't keep living this lie." Bullshit. All of that is about you. The "they" in those sentences is grammatical, not real. You are not thinking about what they will feel at 3am six months from now. You are thinking about what you will feel tomorrow morning when you wake up having told the truth. This is not honesty. It is ego laundering through the vocabulary of virtue which exactly what Nietzsche was describing i Will To Power.

What Genuine Care Would Ask

We’ve been together for a year now. I think he’s perfect for me in almost every way. The one thing that keeps coming up is our differences in the way we work, and our ambition in life.

I (f26) am established In my career, I live on my own, pay all my own bills, ect. I like stability, knowing I have money in my savings to fall back on in emergencies.

My bf (m31) lives with his mom, he also has a 10 year old daughter whose mother has custody of, so he only has her every other weekend. When we met, he was working part time at a vape store, and he would always blow off work to have more time to hang out with me. I told him to stop going in late/asking to leave early, but he kept saying it was fine. He ended up getting fired from that job in July. He not very adamant when it came to getting a new job, he would just enjoy his time off and say he wanted to work on something creative or try to start his own business.

When it comes to him wanting to start his own business, he has no idea what that means. Every week he has a brand new idea, that he forgets about when the next idea comes. They are always ideas that he’s never had any kind of passion for before. (Ex: I’d be watching a slime video on TikTok and he’ll see it and be like “that’s a great idea I should start a slime business, they get so many followers and so many people buy, I should do that.” And he thinks about it for a few days, and after that he has another new idea that never gets put into action.

After 2 months of no job, he started working delivering Amazon packages, which was luckily full time and he made a decent amount of money. In January, the company he worked for that was hired by Amazon, closed down, so he was without a job again. He again did not have any kind of urgency to get a new job. I understand it’s not easy out here, but when he was looking for jobs he’d just find little part time jobs and he said “well if I work two part time jobs it will basically add up to a full time job” but I just don’t see it that way.

He finally got an interview at Starbucks, and they originally wanted to hire him on immediately as a shift manager. He told them he’d take the job, but to start him as a basic barista. Part time. I was so annoyed with this because why would he not take the manager position.

He’s currently there at Starbucks, and I guess that’s going fine. I’ve told him I need him to find something that will build into a career, and he said to give him time (I’ve told him this a while ago and he’s had time but he hasn’t done much to build him that direction).

Also with his business thing, I ask him about the logistics and stuff, and he just says “oh it’s so easy I’ll just take out a loan” (he has bad credit from a credit card he had years ago that he forgot about and still hasn’t ever paid off) then I ask what if it doesn’t work out and you can’t pay back the loan. He just says “then I file for bankruptcy and try again” and I just can’t with him thinking that it’s just chill like that. I feel bad bc he says I don’t support him, but I like stability, and keeping a decent amount in my savings for emergencies (he has no savings).

Also while he was jobless, the bank took money out of his account for child support (as they do) and he noticed that and took all the money out of his account as cash so they can’t do that.

I just don’t know when to keep giving him time to get hisself figured out, and when to stop. Again he lives with his mom, and he’s been saying he wants to get out but he has no urgency for it and isn’t job searching for something that will support him and a place on his own. I guess I just need opinions, lmk what you’d do I guess or if you feel like this is a dealbreaker.

I LOVE my boyfriend. We have been dating for about 8 months, and he is a stellar, attentive boyfriend. The sex is great, he makes me feel special, and I know he is there for me. He is an immigrant from Dubai, and to add a layer of drama, he is married in order to obtain citizenship. The marriage isn't real and all parties involved are aware of the situation, so this is mainly extraneous detail. Mainly. He works two jobs because he has to support both himself and his wife to an extent. When she temporarily lost her benefits, he was responsible for everything. Most nights are spent at my house. I wouldn't mind, but we are both light sleepers so we don't sleep in the same bedroom. He never asks, and has even insisted he would sleep in the living room, but I'm having a hard time asking for him to do that. I want him to have a safe space after his long days. But I am human, and I want my bed, y'know? The other issue is that he's a tornado. I do laundry, clean, help cook, typical house-husband stuff, but I have a full time job as an area director for a restaurant group. It's getting frustrating to clean, watch the plates pile up, and then do so again on repeat. It's getting to the point where I'm getting behind on laundry and I just. don't. want. to. do. it. On another topic, the other day he asked me to drive to a town 30 minutes away to buy a speciality meat (1 hour total trip). While I don't work the same hours as he does, I still value my time. Sometimes I just want to be lazy. Is that acceptable? I really care about him and I'm happy to do things to show I care. To me it's about the frequency. He's such a caring, wonderful guy. None of the things I mentioned are ways he is trying to "take advantage." I just need to find a middle ground. I'm not sure how I should approach things in a way that conveys I am willing to do many things for him but need to see some concessions in other areas (maybe like a, you cook it you clean it mentality?) . I also don't want to be so rigid that he feels he can't ever ask me to do things. Relationships always include doing things out of love and not convenience, so I don't want it to seem like I'm only here for the parts that benefit me.

First, I need to disabuse you of a notion. His marriage IS real. A marriage is a legal contract. That's real. That exists. The romantic/sexual relationship may or may not be real, but the marriage is extremely real.

Now.

You mention being a house-husband, but you don't mention this man supporting you. You are very specific that he supports himself and his wife. You have your own job. Full time. Therefore, you are not and cannot be a house husband.

If he lives at your place, whether that's full-time or most of the time, then he helps out with domestic duties period. That's how living together works. If he is unwilling to do that, then he cannot stay at your place. That's just taking advantage of you. I mean, is he even pitching in on any of the bills??? He lives there, that'd be bare minimum. He's causing the costs to rise, he needs to at least offer to cover that. Like, I'm sorry he's found himself in a tough situation, but this is the situation he chose. If he can't give any of himself to another relationship outside of his wife, then he needs to sort out his situation before dating around.

Realistically, I also need you to sit down and get extremely honest with yourself about what the long-term viability of this relationship is. What do you want from a relationship and can this one provide that to you? What is the timeline for him and his wife getting a divorce or is he always going to be financially supporting another adult outside of your relationship? Do you ever want to get married? How would him being married to someone else impact you if you wanted kids? What if he and his wife have kids for cultural/familial reasons?