Boyfriend so irresponsible

[imcuriousok]

Not sure if I'm posting in the correct place but just wanted to vent and to know if I am unreasonable to be driven crazy by this!!!

Me and my boyfriend have been together since age 16 and we're 23 now. We've always had a good relationship and are like best friends but one thing about him that drives me mad is that he is just so irresponsible.

A few examples..
He got a parking ticket, didn't pay it on time so ended up having to pay almost £200 instead of the original £30 fine.

Gets speeding ticket, 'forgets' to pay it so now he owes almost £400 for this speeding ticket which was originally £100.

Goes on night out, loses his wallet which has a lot of money in it.

Can't cook anything for himself and will wait until his mother is home to make him dinner - he's almost 24 for gods sake!!!

We don't live together or have any children but sometimes I think how the hell would he cope having to look after a child if he can barely look after himself.

So AIBU to find this behaviour really really annoying when there are no other problems in our relationship? Opinions and advice please even if it is brutally honest and to tell me that I'm being a diva!

Why does he have to wait until you finish university to get his own place? Why doesn't he move into a flat share. It sounds like he is waiting for you, so you can sort it all out for him. I wouldn't even consider living with him until he's learnt to look after himself.

Years of nagging my son about getting organised, keeping to a budget etc had zero effect compared to when he went to university and had to pay his own bills. I did at least insist he could cook a few basic meals before he left though. How difficult is it to do a stir fry, shepherd's pie etc?

@Greenwingmemories well we're both saving for a mortgage on a house so it would be abit silly for him to move out in to a flat now where he would be throwing money away on rent etc when that could be saved toward the mortgage.

But I agree with you, I think it would do him good to live alone where he'd have no choice but to be more responsible for himself

YABU how can you expect him to sort his own meals when his mother is clearly still breast feeding him and that's why he needs her 😂

Seriously though, he needs to live alone for a bit. My ex went straight from his mum's to us living together and he didn't bother learning how to use a washing machine or much cleaning as I ended up taking over the role of his mother and it was exhausting.

My current partner lived alone and it really shows as he is reliable and can cook and clean.

@PixiKitKat

What you say is quite right. My DH has owned his own house and lived alone for some years before he met me. He's therefore well able to run a home, which makes such a difference! He gets on with things without needing prompting from me.

The only complaint I have is that he always expects me to have planned the meals. So when he gets the tea ready he always asks me what's planned. I just say that he's as capable as I am of looking in the fridge and freezer to see what's there.

I understand what you mean Imcuriousok, it's just it would be a risk to get a mortgage with someone who hasn't had to look after themselves in my view. Once you've bought a house together, it is a lot harder to split up. I'd want to be absolutely certain it would work out before financially tying yourself to your boyfriend. A big part of that would be ensuring he could be independent, manage rudimentary household tasks and budget properly. A house share wouldn't be a massive cost and he would have to learn the give and take of living with others instead of his mum sorting things out for him.

There is SO so so much more to life than a manchild. The cooking, the being a git with money, are HUGE issues. This person is not an adult. You are. You would be a complete and utter fool to have a child with this manbaby or tie yourself financially to him. Fuck all this 'he's still young' 'men mature later than women', bullshit. He's the type who will find others to enable his immaturity for good, drag you down with him, and make you life miserable. He doesn't 'forget', he can't be arsed. He's lazy.

Grow up yourself and realise your teenager relationship has run its course and live your best life including dating only adults.

But why doesn’t he learn to cook now? He could do it he wanted to. Just be careful as this will be your life, only you’ll be the substitute mum.

Run for the hills.

It's not the cooking thing - my OH never cooked for himself and lived at home until we bought a house together. He didn't cook, simply because he didn't need to as his mother did everything for him. He didn't do his own washing/ironing, or any gardening, or housework/cleaning, or DIY or anything else like that. BUT, he was a very quick learner when we got our house and very quickly did his fair share (and more) of the household chores, etc. So, just because the OP's boyfriend doesn't do it, doesn't mean he doesn't want to or can't - it's more than he doesn't get the chance. If BF's mother is anything like my OH's mother was, she'll be suffocating and won't allow her son to be independent re domestics.

The real issue is his flippancy with fines etc. Bad enough getting parking and speeding fines in the first place (100% avoidable with a bit of care), but then not paying them is just sheer stupidity. That is the REAL issue, not the cooking - it's his blase/flippant attitude. That kind of thing is a big red flag to me, not just for prospective partners, but also for friends/colleagues etc. Flippancy/lackadaisicalness is just something I can't tolerate in either a personal, family nor business environment, even moreso when it costs money.

Why do you want to buy with him before you've lived with him? That's quite a big commitment to make, if it goes tits up and you're stuck in a house you can't leave it'll be awful.

Why don't you rent for a year or so, really make sure you can live with each other. Don't think of it as throwing money away. A year of rent money could be a v wise investment indeed.

Buying a home with him would be a massive mistake. I don't know how long you've been on mumsnet, but there are countless posts from women who have wasted years and years of their life on a useless man child, and then they finally reach breaking point and leave. Like you, they saw all the red flags but were deluded and thought he would grow up and change. You will be one of those women if you stay with him.

What's he like on holidays? Has he the ability to take charge of things, like helping to decide on what to do, where to eat, booking the flights/hotel, booking transfers, and other general organisational jobs? Or does he just leave it all to you and basically comes along for the ride?

I think the idea of renting together first is excellent. Just get a 6 month lease in a small/cheap flat and see how well he performs. If he doesn't step up, you can manage a small place yourself and can escape from the commitment at the end of the 6 month term, sending him on his merry way.

Why not rent first and see how it goes?

Tethering yourself to this manchild financially is going to cost you way more than renting for a while will. A LOT. What Aquamarine said. With bells on. He will expect you to adult for your both and there will be a lot of 'forgetting' unless you police him like a child.

BIG mistake to buy a house with someone you haven’t even lived with, it’s a huge commitment.

Even bigger mistake to do so with someone financially irresponsible!

The speeding fine what few if any posters have commented on is the fact he shouldn’t have been bloody speeding in the first place! It’s just as irresponsible and dangerous as drink driving and to have been fined what he was it must have been a pretty bad incident!

I would not and could not be with someone who has such disregard for the safety of others on the roads.

Aside from that, as per pps absolutely not one good reason he cannot learn to cook now, he can start with easy stuff like pasta and sauce, stir fries, soups etc you could guide him but don’t be drawn into doing it for him. Be in the background instructing but he does it himself.

If he’s home before his mum I’m sure she’d really appreciate coming home to her dinner cooked.

And he also needs to clean up after cooking!

Does he do his own laundry? Ironing? Does he keep his own room clean and tidy? Change the bedding regularly?

He could create and stick to a budget now saving for you guys moving in together. (Some house shares allow for couples and I’d recommend doing that before buying a place together.)

These are ALL things he can do NOW to show he can be responsible, that he doesn’t want to be a pathetic man child with his mother still running round after him!

Tell him how deeply unattractive that is and how impressive - even sexy (motivation is everything!) a capable, responsible man is.

I’ll maybe get flamed but honestly I’d possibly even use sex as a reward/motivator here, days he fucks up - he don’t get none, days he does well lots of fun to reward.

Or use other rewards to train him if you wish.

But certainly tell him!

I’d also consider giving him a deadline to get his act together, say 6 months? With clear goals -

1 Sets himself a budget and sticks to it, inc regular savings.

2 Acts as a responsible driver - no more fines! Certainly I’d consider another speeding fine a deal breaker

3 Learns to cook at least 4 simple nutritious meals

4 Does his own laundry and keeps his room clean and tidy.

These are not big or difficult things to do for a grown ass adult! And whether he makes the effort or not will tell you whether he really respects and cares for you.

Reading this thread reminded me of my ex-fiancé, we were younger than you guys at the time, late teens, but he did his own laundry, cleaned and tidied inc dusting and hoovering not only his own room but other parts of his home if he saw it was needed, if I was over at his for mealtimes as I was veggie and he rightly assessed it wasn’t fair to expect his mum to accommodate that when she was already dealing with a house full of shift workers to feed he cooked for both of us after his mum was finished in the kitchen. Nothing fancy, but those easy meals mentioned, maybe a curry or chilli on occasion if he had access to the slow cooker for us.

We didn’t end up living together (long story) but we were planning to at one stage and I had no doubts that he would pull his weight on household chores. He was also very sensible with money, his family were actually far better off than mine but he still had a part time job for his own personal money and for the experience and he saved some of that money.

Once he was driving he was a sensible driver despite teasing and even pressure from friends to drive faster/do daft “tricks”. He understood it was a privilege to have a licence and a car and not to take that for granted.

If a 16-19 year old can behave responsibly your guy really has no excuse.

In this day and age when it’s so easy to set reminders on phones etc and to pay fines electronically etc he really really has no excuse!

Dear fucking god DON'T buy a house with someone you can't trust to pay a parking ticket!! It would be insane. You can't trust him with money or basic adulting. You do NOT want to have the massive financial tie to him that is a mortgage.

Tell him he needs to learn to cook now, today, and demonstrate that he fully pulls his weight in his parents' house, and then you could try renting together. But no no no no to a mortgage. Also, bollocks to this whole "he's so young" thing. He's been an adult for 6 solid years. The vast majority of people are living out on their own and managing their own lives by this age, often with marriages and children, not having their meals cooked by Mummy.

So he’s waiting for you to teach him to cook .

And waiting for you to finish uni and get a job to support him.

Sounds like a great catch to me

@Graphista you made some really good points in your post so thank you for commenting. But about the speeding ticket he was only going slightly over the speed limit he was fined more because of the length of time that he took to pay it - still completely unacceptable I know, but he doesn't drive like an idiot or anything.

Yes he does his laundry, ironing and his fair share of cleaning his house and he washes the dishes after him and his family have dinner. He just doesn't cook anything (the most he does is a sandwich, an oven pizza or beans on toast)

But the cooking thing really isn't a big deal, it's the other irresponsible things that I mentioned like the fines and losing stuff that is the issue

But the cooking will be a big deal if you’re living together.
That means you’ll have to do all the meal planning, shopping as well as the cooking. Unless you write him a shopping list.
The fines are annoying, surly doing that once would be a lesson not to do it again?

You will probably have a hard time getting a mortgage if he has debts.

Just remember the old saying ‘behind every good man is a great woman’
... I’m sure the PC Police will be along to bash that saying but it is true! You will make him the man he needs to be and by the sounds of it he is already pretty well-suited to you. He won’t grow up until he needs to.

“he was only going slightly over the speed limit“ what he told you or were you there? My brothers a police officer his best friend is in charge of traffic policy for their county. They rarely even pull someone over if only slightly over limit, they tend to pull if going a fair bit over limit and generally if doing so in areas where speeding can be particularly hazardous to others - eg near a school in daytime. So you may want to consider what the likely facts really are.

Good that he at least cleans/tidies means there’s some hope for him, but the not cooking WILL quickly get on your nerves once you’re living together.

My ex husband didn’t cook before we married and we (foolishly in hindsight) didn’t live together before marrying at least not officially, he was army so we were mostly long distance. I left my job to move in once we married and as I wasn’t working at first I didn’t mind doing the bulk of household chores, but when I did start work he didn’t straight away start pulling his weight resulting in a big argument, he called his mother for “backup” which she not only didn’t give she fully backed me up! Gave him a right bollocking (I was working longer hours AND had a 90 min each way commute). At which point he sulked for a bit then apologised and then behaved much better. The cooking was a bit down to his mum is disabled and so the kitchen at home was modified for her and most of the equipment specialist for her which couldn’t be used by others and then also being army it’s very cheap for them to opt to pay mess dues and mainly eat in the mess and quite honestly I don’t blame them - the food is AMAZING and plentiful. (Visitors can use the mess with passes etc and I did this myself a lot when we were dating) -

As an example:

breakfast DAILY - full English laid out buffet style, inc 3 types of eggs, as much toast as you want with every topping available, cereals, fruit, yogurt, juice, tea, coffee...

I used to love making the most of that.

The cooking facilities in the single accommodation then wasn’t great and as with any shared accommodation also niggles with others stealing and/or leaving out your food to spoil. He got so fed up with that he got himself a mini fridge for his room cos he was finding in summer his drinks and ices were getting nicked a lot.

He really lacked confidence with cooking at first and in addition was a ridiculously fussy eater back then. I taught him starting with the easy stuff and built up, it helped with the fussiness too and he’s now quite a good cook (but only does it if he really has to since we split apparently) by the time we split he was onto things like pies from scratch and Christmas dinner.

But the cooking thing really isn't a big deal, it's the other irresponsible things that I mentioned like the fines and losing stuff that is the issue

It's a big deal when you're fucking sick to the back teeth of doing all the meal planning, shopping, prep and cooking for years on end and he gives you a gormless 'What's for dinner?'

His lack of initiative is a huge problem. It shows a person who is not a grown up and believes lifework is women's work, to do or at the very least to organise. It's funny how a lot of these people do just fine at work, would be sacked for being lazy and 'not seeing' what needs done, but when it comes to lifework they're just incapable. Yeah, right.

The fines and losing stuff are MAJOR. C'mon, he's 23.

Just remember the old saying ‘behind every good man is a great woman’
... I’m sure the PC Police will be along to bash that saying but it is true! You will make him the man he needs to be and by the sounds of it he is already pretty well-suited to you. He won’t grow up until he needs to.

That's not un-PC, that's just beyond stupid.

There's nothing sexy about a child in a grown man's body.

behind every good man is a great woman

Behind every good man is an overworked, unappreciated, resentful woman. That's what you meant to write surely?

Thank God he’s only your boyfriend. Honestly honestly honestly, marry him or have kids with him and your life will be worse for it.

Have slightly higher expectations of the most important person in your life.

Some of the comments here are based purely on people hiding behind a screen, they seem harsh and very judgemental of a person they have never met.

Losing his wallet with money it.. Could literally happen to anyone.. although it makes me wonder what a young lad is doing with lots of cash? Every where accepts card or phone payments. Does he do drugs?

Hopefully he has learnt his lesson about carrying lots of money.
I'm much older, I literally never have cash.

Forgetting to pay fines, not everyone pays a fine as soon as it lands on the floor as it may not be a convenient time, personally I stick them on the fridge (I get quite a few parking fines due to the nature of my job - I can get locked in a building unable to leave due to security restraints)

In the time you've been together, I don't think that's terrible? Considering you said every other aspect of your relationship is great, he works full time, treats you well, isn't lazy, pays rent?

As for the cooking, when I was younger my cooking was terrible, my nan waited on me hand and foot (every other Sunday she still does!)

I'm now a pretty awesome cook, if I do say so myself.

Point is, for me, what you've mentioned is minor and can and most probably will change. Everyone makes mistakes, we learn from them, he has already said he wants to learn to cook, why wait.. teach him now. For a date night the two of you can prepare a meal made from scratch.