Boyfriend making it about him

[PinkLipsticks]

I am in my 40s, a lone mum with a 2yr relationship. At the moment I am doing lots of job interviews as my fixed-term contract is expiring. It is nerve-wracking to say the least and I am knackered and fraught, unable to truly relax on summer holiday with the kids.

Boyfriend (who doesn't live with me) has a stable, long term job he likes, but has kind of copied my recent activity and is now scouring lots of job sites for himself. He previously had no reason or wish to change, but instead of cooking me dinner and being my support during this time he is asking me to look over his CV and saying he's busy doing his LinkedIn and so on.

AIBU to think he should just stop and be stable for me these few weeks of intense interviews and stress? I feel upset and kind of like he is copying me and vying for the sympathy/attention,

YABU: No, he should be allowed to do his own time-consuming job search right now that needs engagement and support.
YANBU: He should stop and be supportive.

eta: And can anyone explain this behaviour?

Surely he can do that in his time and not when he is seeing you.
he is attention seeking.

but ok you can look over his CV once and once only
are you in recruitment / the same industry as him otherwise why would you even look at it ?!

I wouldn't think that my boyfriend should be cooking my dinner while I was job hunting, no. I would just cook something easy for myself and my child.

And as you don't live together, you can just keep away from him for a few days by telling him how stressed and busy you are at the moment.

Good luck with finding a new job.

No, I'm not in recruitment or anything. He is talking about it all the time, his new job search. He can't come over later because he's doing it, etc. I just don't get it. We're happy otherwise and he likes his job.

@PoesieAndPeaches It is the kind of thing we usually do for each other, more like partners sharing an effort and support. But of course I will cook my own dinner, in reality he doesn't so this it was more an example I would do.

I'm just finding it weird as it feels like a copying thing. Like if I said I was ill and he said he was more ill.

Since he's in a stable career and has no need to frantically job hunt right now, I do agree that he should be supporting you, as your need is actually urgent.
Is this part of a wider issue where he makes everything about him? Have a think back and see if there's a pattern.
Thos would give me the ick tbh, I'd be wondering what would happen in other times of need, if I was dealing with a bereavement or illness and couldn't give him lots of attention.

He sounds like a bit of a knob to be honest.

you sure he’s the best you could find?

Of course he can change jobs.

It’s also reasonable of him to ask you to check his CV. I don’t see an issue with that. He doesn’t live with you so why would you expect him to be making your tea for you?

I hope your job hunting goes well but I think the stress you’re feeling might be influencing your view.

I agree with a previous poster that it's a form of attention seeking. Rather than do the normal thing, give you a bit of extra support when you're in a stressful time, he's manufacturing his own (fake) stressful situation to get extra support from you. It's performative and not a good look. He's not going to be supportive during hard times, he's going to be competitive and make things just that much harder. He centers himself and makes your necessary job search all about him. He'll do that with other things too.

Good luck in your job search, I hope you find one soon.

I would take this as a huge red flag. If you think he’s potentially someone you want to keep in your life, I’d ascertain if he does this regularly. Say you’ve got a tummy bug.. does he suddenly have one?
if you get flu.. has he suddenly got flu.

if he’s mirroring you instead of supporting you.. eh. Not good.

I thought you were over at his home visiting him if he is cooking dinner for you both ?

I would tell him that it's a bit insensitive to keep bringing up his job search at the moment, as you are stressed by your own. When you have secured a new job you will be able to support him.

I can't really see that he's done anything wrong, really.

He doesn’t have a ‘job search’ independently to me, he’s only started one at the time I’ve had to do one.

I don’t think he’d be looking for a new job unless he wanted a change himself. As you run two separate homes presumably your finances are fairly separate so I don’t see why it’s an issue if you both apply for new jobs at the same time.

This is not the point of the thread

To be clear he only starts talking about this when I do. Even to the extent that I told him about some positive feedback I had received/ been encouraged to apply for something and he answered ‘wow looks good, I might apply for it myself.’

My reading is the point of the thread is whether it is unreasonable for bf to look for a job while OP is looking for a job. What is your reading of it?

That isn’t what the thread is about. thanks to those who understood

that's a very simplistic and charitable (to the boyfriend) interpretation of the thread. My reading would be that the OP wants to know why her boyfriend has to indulge in 'competitive stress' in the same way that some men can't bear for their partner to be ill without having to declare their own much worse version of man-flu.

Of course in isolation there is nothing wrong with both partners looking for new jobs at the same time, but the OP's boyfriend is taking any focus from the OP and putting it firmly onto himself, to the extent he even mentioned applying for the same job! That is not normal behaviour for a well-adjusted person.

I did not misunderstand that the OP interprets that her bf is vying for attention and indulging in competitive stress. But my view is that he’s not unreasonable to look for a new job at the same time as she is looking. No-one has the monopoly on applying for a job.

@PinkLipsticks I know exactly how this feels. I had a similar incident last year when I was selling my house (my DCs' childhood home and somewhere I'd lived for nearly 20 years) and my DP turned it back onto himself and how upset he was that I wasn't moving in with him, how I hadn't considered him in my choice of house (I absolutely had considered him, along with my 3 DCs and myself) and how he didn't want to continue a long distance relationship as now it would take him 28 minutes instead of 23 to get to my house. I bent over backwards to try and placate him while also grieving the loss of my home and my nuclear family as 2 of my DCs also moved out at the time. In the end it was too much and we split up.

After a couple of months we talked about it and he was able to see that the impact of my move on our relationship was negligible and that he'd been catastrophising as he felt out of control of the changes going on. Is your boyfriend generally anxious, is he hoping for your relationship to change in some way and is fearful that your job hunt is somehow going to leave him behind? Could he be worried that you're going to outearn him and make him feel emasculated? None of those things excuse his weird behaviour, but may go some way to explaining it.

You literally asked if he should be able to do his own job search right now in your post. So that is why I understood that to be what you were asking.

But he IS unreasonable if he is doing it for any reason other than 'he wants a new job'. Surely? That's the very essence of it being unreasonable.

It’s insensitive of him, given that you are getting stressed about it and really do need a new job, whereas he has taken a fancy to wanting a new job. Maybe he feels threatened about your future success and achievements.
Wow to considering applying to a job you have or will apply for. You don’t need that kind of competition, you would ideally like him to give you the support you require, keep you going and celebrate the little wins involved in job hunting.

This reminds me of someone I knew years ago who was very competitive in a (non-resident, several year long) relationship. The woman's teenager bought her a small bunch of flowers, three days later he turned up with an enormous fancy bunch. The teenager had an injury, he hurt his ankle. Teenager was coming up to exams, he had something very stressful at work he suddenly needed to talk about all the time.

The relationship was not like this initially and the child got on well with him. After the above behaviour became more pronounced the romance fizzled out.