SINGAPORE: A 30-year-old Singaporean woman took to social media to share that her boyfriend’s behaviour took a turn for the worse after he lost his job two months ago.
In her post on a local forum, she listed all the “red flag” traits she had noticed, beginning with his attitude towards part-time work.
According to the woman, when she encouraged him to take on a temporary job, he allegedly threw a fit, insisting he would not “downgrade to wiping tables and mopping floors at cafés because he was a university graduate.”
Even when he finally agreed to try a job paying S$12 an hour, she said he broke down in tears and expressed, “I can’t believe I’m doing this kind of job.”
“I told him he’s just doing this temporarily and it’s just to ‘pass time,’” she wrote on the r/sgdatingscene subreddit. “But he kept saying that it’s not worth doing this type of job because he feels he is losing his sanity. He also kept telling me to leave him if I found a guy better than him. He has been clinically diagnosed with depression before.”
On top of that, she found out he had lied about his savings. He claimed he had enough to get by, but she discovered he actually had less than S$1,000.
“This made me feel surprised ‘cause he’s been saying he doesn’t need to work because he has enough. Although this is subjective, this doesn’t sound like enough to last him 2-3 months,” she continued.
“If it were me, I would have started working a long time ago because I can’t take the anxiety of running out of money. In the meantime, I also feel shocked that he doesn’t really have any urgency to earn money.”
Moreover, she said that her boyfriend “has been very emotional and tends to react in extreme and dramatic ways” to her comments.
For example, when she once praised him for being productive and said she was proud of him for trying, he immediately scheduled two shifts per day for the rest of the week.
“At this point, I feel bad and guilty because it feels like he is pushing himself to overwork because of some passing comments I made,” she wrote.
“His decisions feel so emotionally charged, and I feel guilty because it comes from comments I made. Right now, I feel I can’t be open with my feelings because he will misinterpret the things I say.”
Lastly, she noted that her boyfriend has been quite spendthrift in some areas, often making financial choices that seem unnecessary or excessive given his situation.
For example, he suggested an S$80-per-person activity date, even though he could not realistically afford it at the time. He also reportedly spends S$16 on his own meals.
“I feel this is why he doesn’t have a lot of savings,” she wrote. “I have actually been paying for my share of dates and quite often paying for him also. But I just don’t know if all this is sustainable in the long run because of his financial habits and how he reacts so sensitively to comments.”
Reflecting on their situation, she wrote: “It feels like a lose-lose situation. If he doesn’t work, he won’t have enough for himself and our future. But if he works, then I feel guilty because of how adversely he reacts to it and his mental health.”
At the end of her post, the woman admitted that she worries they may not have a future together because he does not appear to have the motivation or discipline to save or plan for long-term stability.
“This is a nightmare, and he sounds like a manchild.”
In the comments, a number of Redditors offered their two cents on the woman’s situation.
One said, “I think you are like his mom right now. Even if you don’t find a new man, you should leave him.”
Another echoed this view, writing, “The dynamic here sounded more mother-child. There will be endless things for you to babysit/worry about if you keep doing this for him.”
“Let him figure it out; he’s an adult. It’s also a form of trusting his judgement, or you might just be one step away from preparing him to be ‘better’ for his next girl.”
A third weighed in, saying, “From what you’ve written, it seems like he’s very egoistic and emotionally manipulative. I would suggest you communicate these issues and for you to think if this is what you want for the long term. But personally, I think you deserve better.”
A fourth added, “To be honest, this is a nightmare, and he sounds like a manchild. When things are tough, he should toughen up, not shrink away. React like this now, and next time bad seasons again, how?”
In other news, a diner claimed on social media that he was charged for a pricier chicken rice set meal even though he never requested it, and was later blamed by the stall staff for not being clear with his order.
In a post shared on the r/askSingapore subreddit, the diner said the incident occurred at a chicken rice stall in a local kopitiam where he had been a regular for the past two years.
Read more: Diner got charged $5.30 for chicken rice instead of $4.30 for not being ‘clear’ with his order
Read more: Diner got charged $5.30 for chicken rice instead of $4.30 for not being ‘clear’ with his order
