My (22F) fiancé (22M) has been lying to me for 5 months about his uni essays, AIBU to feel hurt?

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My (22F) fiancé (22M) has been lying to me for 5 months about his uni essays, AIBU to feel hurt?

My fiancé’s dissertation is due next week, along side 2 other large essays. We have been together since a young age before GCSEs and I have supported him through GCSEs, Alevels and now his degree. He struggles with being under academic pressure and never seems to start essays until they need doing, in 2nd year he handed in multiple essays that did not reflect his full effort just because he was overwhelmed with them. I don’t mind what grade he gets tbh I don’t think he will use his degree. But at the start of January I wanted to be supportive with his dissertation and so have asked him every week what can I do to support you, how is it going have you gotten a good amount of words down this week? Especially as the dissertation is such a large amount of words I knew he couldn’t pull it out of the bag last minute. He has gone to the local library every single day since January sitting there for 9 hours at a time. He usually takes on the cooking/washing up/laundry etc because my degree is more demanding (I have placements alongside my studies) so I’ve really made an effort to take some of the weight off of him, even though it’s left me struggling myself as I am also in my final year of university on my final placement(working 40 hrs a week with a 1 hr commute twice a day) whilst studying at the same time. Basically I am exhausted and ready to finish my degree but i wanted him to have no pressure on him during the last couple of months. I asked him this week if I could read through his essays and dissertation and he would not let me look at them. I thought it was weird but I had been on nights so I was too tired to investigate further. Yesterday I decided to question further as he still would not send me them so I asked what was going on. I reassured him that I just wanted to help like he does with mine but he kind of broke down went for a walk and sent me a huge message about how sorry he is and that he has been lying for months about the progress of his essays, I knew I didn’t have time to be mad I needed to be supportive so that he can try and get something written by next week otherwise he really would not cooperate, I applied for an extension for him and he now has to write 16,000 words in a week because he wrote literally zero words the whole 5 months.
I drove him home from university so that me and his parents can support him for the next week . He was also supposed to start a new job next week so I drafted an email for his boss.
It was only last night that I was thinking before bed how hurt I actually am, the constant lies about how much progress he’d made each week, asking me to wash up because he’s been at the library all day even though I’m exhausted from placement. He even copied and pasted 5000 random words off the internet into a doc that said dissertation because he knew I would ask to see a word count .
I honestly feel distraught that he felt he had to lie when I’ve been nothing but supportive of his academics.
We are supposed to be getting married next year but I fear that if he can relentlessly lie like this for 5 months what else can he lie about.
Do I have a right to feel upset? Am I going to be able to get over the complete lack of trust? AIBU to feel so hurt by this ?

Why are you bending over backwards to facilitate him, his studies and his messes? Why are you arranging extensions and rearranging his employment? Why are you taking him back to his parents?

He is an adult, he is responsible for his own actions and instead he's wafting about like a man-child waiting for you to sort everything out for him.

I can 100% guarantee you that this will never improve and he will never change. Right now it's you carrying the his shared of the mental load of university, in ten years time it'll be the mental load of juggling a career, a house and children while he tits about with his hobby every evening and weekend while half-arsing it at a job he's always on the verge of losing because of his own incompetence (and he'll expect you to pick up the pieces when he does).

We are supposed to be getting married next year but I fear that if he can relentlessly lie like this for 5 months what else can he lie about.

He doesn't respect you enough to be truthful with you but you still have time to be truthful with yourself about whether or not this relationship has a future. Does he support you as much as you support him or is it imbalanced?

You’re 22, do not make the mistake of marrying someone so early on in your life- you will regret it and feel like a fool when his lies get worse, I’m sure you love him deeply but he’s deceived you. Go out and see the world and meet lots of new interesting people, see this as natures way of helping you avoid a disaster.

@Kentuckycriedfrickin has it spot on. You're so young, don't let this be the rest of your life.

He needed to request the extension. Him not you!

You are doing too much already and bending for him. He is an adult, let him sort himself out.

Why are you micromanaging him? Constantly asking to see his essays, his word counts and writing to his boss all sounds suffocating. You're not his mum. He's a grown man!

This is who he is. You're not compatible.

I wish I could go back in time and tell my 22 year old self and that her boyfriend, lovely as he was, would never change.

It sounds like this is completely on brand for your fiancé. Perhaps he struggles with procrastination or ADHD. He probably doesn't mean it. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. He is who he is and if you chose to share your life with him you need to accept that you will need to continue parenting him in order to protect you both from his mistakes. It is irrelevant whether it is a case of him being unable or unwilling to help himself, because the outcome is the same. He will become a constant source of stress and disappointment and you will come to resent that.

This is what I wish I could tell 22 year old me. I am just grateful we didn't have children and that the house I saved for, researched, bought and and held down a responsible job to fund was in my name.

You love him. He's probably a lovely person with many redeeming qualities but if you stay with him your life will be HARD.

It sounds like he's overwhelmed and needs help, and should have had help before. It's not an issue of a lack of respect for you, more an inability to be honest with himself, open up and ask for help.

Honestly, I would find you suffocating. He may have needed to drop out, or repeat a year. He can’t because he has you on his back.

He shouldn’t at his age be having to account for himself to you, he should be discovering his strengths and weaknesses and learning how to make the most of that.

You shouldn’t at your age be having to put him first and take on responsibility for helping him with stuff.

You have no boundaries. It’s not healthy. You will end up trapped together without having worked out if it’s what’s right for you.

And current evidence suggests you’ll wear the trousers and he’ll never be good enough for you and you’ll both be miserable.

And I married at your age and am still married now.

Going to university is about learning to manage your time and other responsibilitys and learning from your mistakes, learning to ask for help when needs and taking the consequences when they happen either through resitting a module or doing something else. Learning to run a home whilst still being in a supportive environment. By mothering him he has lost this learning opportunity, you have done him no favours at all.

Being together for so long is sweet but doesn't allow of the development of either of you as individuals away from your parents and away from each other. You won't be the same people at 35 as you were at 15, so don't get married, he can resit or get a job and may go back to studying late, you get out into the world of work and then in 5 years or so if you are still together then decide if you want to get married.

This is ridiculous, and you’re facilitating a man child in screwing up. Stop behaving as though the final year of his degree is some kind of impossible feat you need to micromanage and ‘support’, concentrate on your own studies, and ditch WordCount ManBaby. Getting married this young is usually a spectacularly bad idea, and in your case doubly so. When you next form a relationship, ensure it’s with a functional adult who can manage his own work/life balance.

instead he's wafting about like a man-child waiting for you to sort everything out for him.

Is he though? I didn't see anything in the OP that says he asked for any of this.

He reminds me of me. I have ADHD and everything like this gets left til the last minute. It's debilitating.

I personally can't be micromanaged. I find that pressurising rather than supportive and end up struggling more. Let him sort himself out, he's an adult. You are being overbearing in your support of him and enabling this behaviour. If he's not going to use his degree and fails then it's on him. This sounds like a mother and son and even then it'd be doing too much. Focus on yourself op. You'll never regret the time you put into yourself. You're clearly very capable but you need to stop where the partner is concerned

"He even copied and pasted 5000 random words off the internet into a doc that said dissertation because he knew I would ask to see a word count ."

Why on earth would you do this? I can't even begin to understand a relationship where my partner would check up on me, micromanage and snoop to this extent. You are wrong for each other.

Do not marry this person please please have some self respect and stop using all your emotional energy on someone who is willing to lie and coast by doing no work while you exhaust yourself. "Feeling hurt" is a tiny fraction of the wrong he has done you.

It sounds as though he wouldn't have even passed his GCSEs without your help. Why on earth is he doing a degree? You know he won't use it! All that debt for nothing.

I wouldn't marry anyone so young. I wouldn't marry him in a million years.

You are mummying him and enabling his avoidant behaviour by treating him like a child. Find a man who doesn't lie to you and who is capable of organising himself like an adult.

The dynamic you both have together sounds really unhealthy and smothering.
Why on earth have you made his education your responsibility when you also have a qualification to achieve? You are a defacto mother to him.
Honestly I don't think you have a future. But if you want to continue this relationship I would slow it right down, shelve getting married until you've had a few years of life as working adults under your belts.
I think a lot of relationships that start young end up with a "can't live with you, can't live without you" with the people involved not really suiting each other as they've grown and changed, but also not being able to break the habit of being together.

This reads like one of those heartbreaking cases where the two people grow up at different speeds / in different directions compared to when they were 14 or 16.

You have matured and taken on increasing levels of responsibility as the years went by. You’re conscientious in your studies, apply yourself at work, and still want to help those around you by trying to alleviate their emotional load. This speaks to your maturity.

He, sadly, hasn’t grown up just yet. I have seen this happen many, many times with my couple friends who got together really young. Sometimes it works, but many time the 2 people just don’t progress at the same rate. He has not developed into the conscientious, hard-working person you have become. His current maturity level does not match yours.

OP, I know you love him and want to help him, but taking on his share of the housework, writing his emails, organising support for him, is NOT your job. And it’s not something that will ever, ever help him in the long run.

It’s sad because when these issues arise, it doesn’t mean there is no love or commitment anymore. I have learnt to understand that sometimes it’s just inevitable that people will grow and take responsibility at different speeds. He might need a kick up his arse which will make him get on with it (doesn’t sound like it, since you’ve been trying to do this for months). Or he might just be one of those people who instead of maturing at 21/22 when life starts to get serious, will mature at 29/30. And that’s OK.

Please make sure you look after yourself in these last few months of your degree too. Use the summer months, or whenever your placement gives you a break, to think long and hard whether he would really want to commit to an adult, responsible life in your marriage. Paying bills, taking on debts / mortgages, making long-term plans and having children - are these things he’ll responsibly and maturely react to?

The lying is bad. Don’t let yourself become more and more entangled in this man’s life if he doesn’t show any initiative to stop the lying and own his actions. You are too young, and you sound too great!

This relationship sounds like a nightmare. He's a major procrastinator, you're suffocating as hell and you're both clinging to it because you were childhood sweethearts.

Why are you playing at being a 40 year old married couple - arguing over who does the washing up and checking his work for him? Why are you even living together?

You're a 22 year old student. Live with mates, eat super noodles, do vodka shots from a water pistol! Don't get married at 23 to a boy who can't even email his own boss ffs.

This degree he's supposedly working towards is meant to be a reflection of his knowledge and research skills. Also, it would be used for a future employer to offer him a job one day - based on those skills.
How can this ever happen if you are propping him up and he never learns the consequences of his actions.

The man sounds crazy too to have put together 5000 random words off the internet to avoid the truth - surely less effort just to start the essays.

Please don't marry him, a future with him sounds challenging at best, but a real nightmare with a family, mortgages and a job - all full of lies.

If he's not going to use his degree and fails then it's on him

I both agree and disagree with this.

100% agree that he'll never learn to manage his time if he's not allowed to fail. Failure is an essential part of the learning process!

However, in a relationship - particularly a marriage or one where joint finances are involved - the effect of failure is felt by both parties. It's not just "on him". He was happy to get her to take on extra household chores because he'd been working so hard and her standing aside and letting him lose his job (not emailing for him) would only put greater financial pressure on her.

Sometimes it is just simple incompatibility.

Couldn't agree more with all of this. Why an earth are you marrying him? He seems so incompatible.

Both myself and my husband (married 10 years, together over 25) met young and were at Uni together. We lived separately throughout (officially) and gave each other space despite being together. We then stayed together whilst living in different cities on placement and made it work long distance even when he worked abroad with no WiFi (literally the jungle). We did end up getting married but over TEN YEARS into our relationship. We were both independent. It's so important.

My BIL and his partner are the same. Together from 15, same University city but lived in groups / separate flats to maintain their own independence and got engaged after 13 years. They aren't married yet but even that's a few years away.

It's lovely to be together from a young age but you need to GROW TOGETHER. You are not stepping into the shoes of his mother.

I can see exactly how this will be when you have kids (because even I sometimes feel I'm mothering three kids rather than two).

Do.Not.Do.It

PS I have a cousin who stayed in such a relationship well into her 30s. He completed his qualifications, he got a job, but it was all her doing. One day she realised it was just not worth investing so much into someone who would never be capable of doing the same for her.

From arranging family meals, Christmas presents, ordering in restaurants, organising bills etc - it all came to her because he was just “a last-minute type of person”.

A few years down the line she is rebuilding her life and he is slowly growing up. We are all relieved she is not with someone who, honestly, held her back for over a decade. We miss him, he was a lovely person, just not right for her.

Don't do vodka shots from a water pistol. Tastes of plastic.

Well I'm my son's mum and I don't even mother him this much!

Do you like the person you are in this relationship? Do you really want to marry someone who is acting more like your child than your lover? Can you imagine having children with him? Because he'll just be an extra one.

He won't get better - your micromanaging and enabling will in fact make him worse. I know you are coming from a good place, but actually, picking up his slack is disempowering him, as well as exhausting you.

I can't help thinking that the best thing all round would be for this relationship to end.