We're both 26yo. I'm doing a funded PhD and get paid peanuts but I have my own place. I live ~5hrs away from him and we see each other once a month if I'm lucky. We've been together 3 years.
He finished his masters last autumn, lives with his parents and his mother is narcissistically exploitative, he's doing all the cooking and cleaning every day, more intensively for her parties about every two weeks. He used to complain that he didn't have enough time to write his dissertation having to do house chores and he was super upset to get a 2:1 for his masters.
I tolerated his mum for 3 years until a few months ago she started being quite rude to me (e.g. once at dinner she was giving out the last of the chicken wings and she threw one across the table onto my plate and laughed saying "I feed my dog like that") which is fine, my own mother was not much better, but my bf's mum also started calling my bf names in front of me and it's just heart-breaking.
Since he graduated last year he has not found a job, I shouldn't be mad at him because they live in the middle of nowhere and his parents refuse to help him pay rent elsewhere (despite sending the mother on holidays abroad several times a year). A year ago, my bf and I got to study for 3 months in the same city, he had to stay with a family friend who demanded my bf to be home by 7pm to do house chores so I hardly saw him at all. I was insisting that we must find a place for the two of us and I'll cover the rent but he "didn't want to take advantage of me". I almost never saw him then and that made me really miserable.
There was a glimpse of hope some time ago - my bf's mum has been trying to get his dad to sell their family home (as a jobless SAHM of 30 yrs btw) to afford her move to Spain to be closer to her friends (all the local people whom she keeps inviting apparently are not "friends" enough) while the dad will have to keep travelling between Spain and UK twice a month because he wants to keep his high-paying job in England. This is what they all kept telling me while this house sale been taking 1.5 years, so it's starting to look like one of his mother's many attention-seeking ploys. Which is a shame as I couldn't wait for the lazy entitled hag to move abroad, if she left my bf said he and his dad would rent a place in the nearby city (where his dad works semi-remotely) and my bf would more easily find a job there.
Now he says he might start a PhD in the city where his dad works, again hours away from me. Which is an improvement I guess but this will be his third degree with a Student Finance loan so he will be replaying debts forever.
My parents were go-getting and hardworking people who brought up in the same way, I hate that my bf is 26 and is not bothered about being employed and independent. His previous excuse was that they are all so busy selling the house, now his mother got some easily solvable health problem which just needs a chiropractor but somehow they do nothing and she's just sitting there for weeks while he has to look after her.
He always said he wants to get married (but not until the age of 30 as his mummy recommends) and have kids but that he needs to find a job first so "not to take advantage of me", although I have my own place and I keep inviting him to move in. I want a family SO BADLY (plus I'm celibate until marriage for many reasons) and I really struggle to tolerate anyone else because I'm generally asocial as an autistic person and from all humankind I only ever enjoy spending time with my bf (also autistic). Without him, I don't think I'll ever have a family and I feel as if I'm getting old already, I'm not waiting for another four years. I'm not an angry or confrontational person, he's super conflict-avoidant because his mother likes to manipulate him with her anger tantrums, so I really don't know what to say to him.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? Am I being selfish and unreasonable to be unhappy? What would you say to him?
Edited to add a question: he is super excited to go abroad with me to visit my family for the second time and his dad gave him the money for that but I'm uncomfortable to go with him because of all the above and also my family made a huge deal when he visited before and everything became formal and awkward, I just want to have a normal trip home. I'm also embarrassed that he's chronically unemployed and I don't want to lie to my parents, who will definitely ask. How can I tell him that he can't come with me, without being too harsh?