Irresponsible Girlfriend Just Stops Going To Work

Reader:  Athol, I’m coming to you because you are the most rational relationship guy I’ve found and I thought some of your past advice has been great. I’m wondering if you can help me out with a problem with my live-in girlfriend:

She pulled a flat-out irresponsible move and I don’t know what to do next.

We started dating back in June. She moved in with me in November. It seemed fast, I know, but it was largely a matter of practicality than anything. See, when I met her, she had a fairly menial job, a lot of debts from when she was in school, no car, a landlord breathing down her neck for some back rent money (i.e. she was flat ass broke). I will also add that she was living in a different, much smaller and much more pathetic town where jobs are getting scarcer and scarcer.

I’m in about the opposite situation, a graduate degree, no debts, and a fairly good job, although I’m not that rich because I’m just starting out in my career.

For reasons that I am now doubting, there was a large misunderstanding with a customer where she worked and she got fired from her job. At this point, since she had no money, I had two options: 1) let her stay with me and try to find a job in my much bigger town, or 2) let her go back to her parent’s place about 500 miles away, effectively ending the relationship.

Since I felt this one had so much promise, I choose option 1). Me and a buddy of mine even went a step further and used our connections to get her a job at the call center for the company we work at. Not a great job, mind you, but much better than the one she had and good considering she didn’t finish her degree. I also got her a relatively cheap car because I knew there was no way she could get back on her feet without one (we live in a decent sized town, but not big enough to have a great public transportation system).

For the first two months and a half months, things were good and I felt that we had a very captain-first mate type of relationship. We had even started planning a trip to Vegas in April.

Then comes Wednesday of last week. I had gotten approval for several days off in April (for the trip mentioned above) and forwarded the approval email to her work email because she worked at the same company as I did. It bounced back. She was not in the email system. I then realized that just last week she had gotten a certified letter from the company, which she told me was some work related stuff. I had put two and two together and realized that she had gotten fired and didn’t tell me about it.

I wanted to hear it from her and started asking a lot of questions about her work schedule (which was always screwy, and why, I  figured, she was always off work when I got home), the not being in the system, and the certified letter. She lied quite a bit initially, but after a while she finally confessed that she actually stopped going about two weeks before and they had just now gotten around to officially terminating her.

I felt really betrayed. Not only that she just flat quit going to a job that me and my friend went out of our way to get for her, but also that she didn’t tell me about it until I figured it out. She told me she was just afraid to tell me, which I don’t doubt, but doesn’t change the fact that she just quit going to a job we had worked to get her.

I know that I have more than a little bit of blame here. I made things way too easy for her and didn’t really insist on her paying me for things like rent and the car, although we did have an informal agreement that she stuck to until just recently.

I don’t know what to do. In the short-term, I did make a more formal, written agreement about what I expect from her as a roommate and she has been at least attempting to make amends, searching hard for jobs, and selling stuff to bring in some money, so I’m a little more inclined towards forgiveness than I probably should be. It’s not like I don’t have any cards of my own to play (I’m not a complete beta dope), her name isn’t on the lease of the apartment we live in, so I could technically kick her out at any time, and the car is still registered to me until she pays for it.

Due to my beta past, I’m not too trusting of my instincts and need some guidance about what I should do. Should I stick out what has been, up to this point, a good relationship? Or should I just send her back to her folks and be done with it (which I would also have to pay for, mind you)?

Thanks

Athol:  There’s nothing to salvage here sadly. Either you’ve been used from the beginning of her moving in, or she’s just completely incapable of holding anything together. Either way she’s just going to be a sandbag to drag through life until you’re rid of her.

I’d offer her $500 and a free moving truck. $500 (assuming you have it of course) seems generous I know, but throwing some cheese in front of her getting her to leave compliantly is very likely going to be quicker, easier and quite probably cheaper than any other solution.

Get the keys to the car, secure all your valuables.

Don’t have sex with her again. Seriously, just do not have sex with her again. ”Whoops I forgot my birth control pills” = $100,000 – $200,000 worth of child support over the next 18 years.

And head back and read Due Diligence Before You Marry.

Just for giggles… I suggest you also do a public record search to see if she has a criminal background. Most states have records that you can look at on their .gov website. In Connecticut for example it’s under “Judicial” at http://www.ct.gov/  or directly at http://www.jud.ct.gov/    You may turn up some interesting things about your girlfriend that you wished you had known before you invited her in. You can also look up prior Housing and Small Claims things as well. Also if she has an outstanding arrest warrant for anything, you can probably scare her out for good within an hour. You’d be surprised how long it takes the police to get around to arresting people sometimes.

I’ve often said the purpose of marriage is to have a functional, productive and happy life, not to save a woman. A LTR is no different. If she’s neither functional nor productive, you ain’t never going to be happy.