My partner and I have been together 18 months although we live 100 miles apart and therefore only have weekends together. My work has been very problematic for the last 2.5 years for many reasons and it's all fallen on my shoulders and it's brought me to tears several times and the stress was such that in September I had to have a break.
My partner's boss has often been unreasonable - very big firm - and she earns more than 3 times what I do. We both work longish hours and we've talked about moving in together many times over the last 10 months and it's always been the case that I will have to move because her dad is in a care home there and she won't move. I respect and understand this. She says she would have a better quality of life if she moved to be with me but she won't move her dad or move herself. I have said I am prepared to move (I know no one where she does, all my friends and small family are here but I have always said I will move).
Jobs in my industry are very hard to come by at present (unlike hers) and I've been looking since the spring and there's only been a couple I could even apply for. I am thinking I may need to find a totally different career and again, I am prepared to do this for us to be together.
My work has been a real nightmare for the last three months since my break and it's really, really impacting my mental health. A last straw was reached on Friday and I said to my partner that I really had had enough and I wanted to resign. I had already expressed concerns that if I simply waited until I found a job we could still be separate this time next year. I have very good equity in my flat and decent savings. She has only recently bought hers and has no savings. My mortgage is £310 hers is £1500 and she has made a point of saying she has to stay in that job to be able to stay local to her dad.
She said she is more readily able to transfer her skills and her boss drives her mad but she needs to job to stay local and has some health concerns at the moment with operations in January (I'm taking two weeks off work to be able to look after her during the recovery period) and needs the private healthcare. She said I can't resign because "we both have bills to pay darling. It's crappy but let's do this properly on our terms rather than a knee jerk reaction because we are dealing with arseholes today". That was Friday.
On Sunday we had a chat about things and something came up and I said "look, we were both on our own for a long time before we got together, me twice as long as you, and sometimes you are so independent I feel pushed out. You'll be doing something and I offer to help because we're a partnership and I want to help and you insist on doing it yourself. We may not live together but we're supposed to be a partnership". She agreed but that it takes getting used to.
This morning I get a text to say she has just resigned from her job. She's "totally done, will tell you all about it tonight, I am so fucking angry right now". I replied that I support her 100% although I don't know what the latest problem at work is yet because I love her and will always have her back.
Yet I am know feeling a bit confused and upset that despite what was said on Friday and Sunday that we're not a partnership at all. It's all on her terms. I love her to pieces, I've never felt so happy in a relationship and I could see us being together forever (we're middle aged). But this is now niggling me and I feel guilty for being conflicted that she's done something I wanted to do and talked to her about and reached an agreement and then gone and done it herself. Am I a total shit?