Hello everyone! This is the very first time I have started a post here but idk where else to turn. I need some objective advice. This is going to be a long post because I need to provide decent details but I'm summarizing the best I can, hope that's okay.

So my boyfriend and I have been together, and living together, for almost 4 years. When we first got together I was basically cheating on my ex to be with him. We we're both 18. He has an amazing outside personality, incredibly caring and friendly, beautiful smile, just a gifted people person.

However, he's not exactly extroverted. He needs downtime. Which is fine. He lost his mother to cancer when he was 13. He has 2 older brothers and a younger sister. At the time, dad was somewhat abusive (alcoholic, recovered now, great guy) so he was homeless for the better part of his high school career.

Fast forward to when we first got together, I couple things I did (maybe lied and talked to guys I used to know, but never cheated) he has had severe breakdowns crying deeply, had a couple panic attacks. We worked through and after the first year of college I moved in with him and used $1,000 of my school loan money to secure deposit for our first apartment. He failed (got fucked out of a full-ride, depressed and cracked under pressure of everyone telling him, a black man, how to appease the leadership of a vastly majority white school in Charleston, SC or else he wouldn't make it). Got a job with a moving company, quit because it was too much hard labor and it destroyed his body (used to be super fit, a little overweight now). He got a paid internship, but it didn't last forever. I only work part time on-campus and even working as much as I possibly could, I couldn't cover all the bills. Ended of getting 3 credit cards, 4 if you count his, for cash for rent that we couldn't pay back and destroyed our credit. He got a job at CVS later in the year, but we still got evicted.

Stayed at his old friends mom's house, who was crazy on the low. He ended up quitting CVS for being overworked. Later we left crazy lady (left a lot of our stuff too) and lived out the car and tent for the summer. He later got a job as a Lowe's vendor, eventually quit that too. We moved into his cousins old house (she lives and works in ATL) but she was also crazy and we ended up having to leave. Lived in an extended stay hotel for a few months, before getting in a new apartment under my name (still at the complex). During this time he had a job a staples, quit, got a job at dollar general where he got fucked out of eventually getting his own store and quit. Got a job as a door to door salesman for solar panels, quit (again, large and black in Charleston, SC). Got a job in an office that didn't pay well or give enough hours to cover bills, quit. Now works as a car salesman for 3 months now.

During all of this time, me and him have had very big ups and downs. Fights near and near breakups several times. Some fights getting physical. I've gotten to the point where I now lose my shit and cry histerically and feel like complete shit. He almost always (at least tells me) when we fight that I don't care about him and that I never have. He thinks if I change my tone of voice sometimes that I'm treating him like shit (his words). I have been the one in the past to initiate breakups because I feel fed up with always being behind financially behind because he's too unhappy with himself and depressed and anxious to work, because he feels like I don't care and don't do enough for him that shows I care or that I love him, so I'd be tired if feeling like I'm always in the wrong. He has not ever gone to therapy, like we can even afford it. Mind you I have been in school and working, now full-time this entire time.

Just recently (yesterday) we got in a fight because his new credit card has some suspicious charges and I started worrying about how I'm going to be able to afford instruments I need for school. he says I chose to continue school right away after graduating knowing we weren't the best financially (even though we we're supposed to be saving money, but now he smokes a lot of weed and that's expensive I smoke with him sometimes though but I could just as easily not, often don't want to because I got a lot of stuff to get done). But he felt there's bigger things to worry about, which may be true, but he said we'd talk about how we're going to get them earlier in the day. I started crying because I felt like he's not understanding where I'm coming from, it often feels like he's just talking at me and for me because he's better at stringing his words together. So I even got fed up and lose control of my emotions and instantly spirally into a histerical mess, got a little physical (he got a little physical back) crying like crazy for a couple hours laying in the stairwell and then the tub later. He storms out and gets me my favorite McDonald's treat but I'm too distraught to eat. But he doesn't even ever just try to help me, just thinks I'm doing this on purpose to him and I need to apologize to him for how I acted and treated him. I eventually did. We never readdressed the issue or what happened during the fight).

Now he tells me that he's unhappy again, he's not in the right mindset to really be able to sell cars (if it was even busy enough) and he's only on commission. He says he's happy with his situation but unhappy, depressed, and anxious with himself and about now being able to produce in the slowest of months. We have no savings and live check to check with payday loans. I didn't even know what to say to him to make him feel better, so I said we're all struggling, just gotta give it our best. So obviously we eventually hung up after long silences. 😔😔😔 I just don't know what to do. Don't know how to help him.

Breaking up wouldn't help anything because he'd feel like I've lied to him, he's like I'm the one for him no matter what, we have to work through anything. There's no one else for him. Not matter how bad we seem for each other. That's not to say I don't love him, I really do. Almost all of our interests are the same, and we have a lot of fun together. But sometimes it just doesn't feel right. But last time we almost broke up he forced me to say that I don't love him and then later got almost suicidal, it scared me. And I feel like I'm the last thing that's remotely keeping him together, even though I feel like (and he feels like) I'm not there for him, especially when he gets like this (apparently he's almost always feeling down, just sometimes it's worse than others)....

Huuuuhhhhhh I'm sorry it was soo long, feel like I've told y'all my whole life story. I just need help and advice from not my parents (who will probably just come get me and take me home) or my friends who are also all pretty independent strong black women. Me and my boyfriend try to promote equality within our relationship, no one person has to be the provider for the other, partnership stuff. He's needs help and has to be out of a job, well I can't hold it down except I haven't been and I can't. Not with rent, car not, car insurance, and other necessities. Really couldn't ever, as you now know. Idk, I think I'm done now.

Relatively we have generally been way better, actually feels like a good relationship most of the time, but based on yesterday and today, it seems like he's going to quit yet again and go back to making me feel like I'm not good enough for him, but at the same time tell me I can't leave him because I'm the only one for him.

Please, if you made it this far, give me some advice.