A few years after my divorce, I had a 7 year relationship with a truly good hearted man. We lived an hour apart. We had kids the same age, neither of us wanted to uproot them. So we never co-habitated, we planned to do that once our kids were launched. He bought a small home. He led me to believe he was a saver, lived frugally. As the years went by, it became abundantly clear we were not similar money or possessions wise.

His house just became more and more stuffed to the gills, not full blown hoarder but too close for my comfort. He never got rid of anything, even his kids clothes from 5 yrs before. I swear, he kept every single piece of paper that ever crossed his door. The kitchen had too many falling piles of papers to work around. The table could never be sat at for a meal. He had lots of collections, never organized them or culled them, just kept adding. Piles and piles of laundry always in the FR. I swear, I could not sleep because of all the crap he had in the BR.

Then financially , I learned more, he did I think it's called an interest-only mortgage. So he was just paying interest, never anything towards the principle. And somehow he could also pay bills from this account, IDK, didn't know details, but it did not sound good. He liquidated his retirement funds to pay bills. He was struggling to stay afloat but bought "deals" online constantly. Bought a brand new SUV with nothing down. He was 9 yrs older than me, so this kind of all freaked me out, because he clearly had no long term plan or had given up on it. And he was in this mess despite making double what I make and he had 50% custody so he paid no support.

We were petering out from driving back and forth so much and the kids started having weekend activities neither of us wanted to miss. So I let it die a slow miserable death, he was such a nice guy, I couldn't bear to say, "buddy, we are total opposites, your house filled with crap makes me want to run screaming into the night and your plan for college and retirement does not appear to exist. We can never live together because I'd be stuffing garbage bags for Goodwill the second you fall asleep." Oh and we had fights that my very abused shelter dog, best dog I've ever had, slept at the end of the bed. He thought that was "filthy", from the man who had not mopped or vacuumed in a year because you could not see the floor to do it, bathroom so bad it's a good thing I cannot see with my glasses off when showering. Oddly, Bernice was the only thing we ever actually had an argument about (except vicious political jabs). She is clean, low shedder, never ever misbehaves but people scare her. That this sick, beaten down dog, who just cowered in the corner of her shelter cage, was ever willing to trust a human again was a miracle, and I am her "person". She is glued to me and you will be booted out of my bed before she ever is.

So that's kind of what happened, very, very slowly he got that I was no longer willing to make a plan to co-pilot a life with him. We never discussed it, just an amicable, "I think we've run our course." Bernice sleeps at the top now, head on her own pillow and I am so relieved I dodged that bullet. Everyone loved him, honestly a true blue guy, few understood that I'd rather be alone then totally compromise my lifestyle and financial goals. I think a lot of people stick around for love (yes, we loved each other) hoping the issues will get better. If after 7 yrs, the debt is bigger and so are the piles of crap, the issues are not going to get better without serious help. And I'm just not down for that, especially when one party is oblivious that there even are issues.