guy help: So, My fiancée is a great guy, but he got laid off of his job a few months ago and then he was doing some odd jobs to keep up. - Help.com

you sometimes have to take the role of the pushy person if it is the only way to solve a problem. It sounds like you do need to do that, try and really push him into staying on track and searching for something he wants to do. It might be a sign to him that it is really serious, if you become pushy/aggravated, or it could be just what he needs, a little direction or nudge in the right direction. Just think it over, and do what you think is best, because only he and you could know what is best

Similar thing is going on with my 25-year-old son. Unfortunately, pushing doesn’t seem to work. If anything, it discourages him more and sets him back deeper. His girlfriend and I have both been trying to negotiate this tricky balance–nag him, or leave him alone? Does he need suggestions, or just time? etc. We have not yet found the magic key. If we had, I would share it with you. Pushing him to seek professional counseling (either of the therapeutic sort or of the career-development sort) has not helped, either.

Honestly, I’ve got to tell you that hearing you attack his mom as “bossy” erodes slightly the sympathy I have you in this situation. At least my son’s girl realizes that we are in this together, and she understands that I have no more clue what to do about him and no more answers than she has. She has made no attempt to drive a wedge into his family, and I trust entirely that we are on the same side, which is HIS side. I have no questions about her character or her motivation. What’s more, the situation is considerably more than three weeks old, which means I also have confidence in her patience.

Ultimately, you can only take care of yourself. Examine your own character, your own motivation, and your own patience level, and think about what is right for you. Do you want to spend your life with a person who might need occasional jump starts, and who might resist any pressure you might assert on him? Will he come to see YOU as “bossy like his mother”? Do you want to enter a lifetime of playing tug-of-war over him with his mom? Will you have to be the main breadwinner some day? Is that all right with you? Would you be better off setting the relationship aside until he “grows up”–or perhaps ending it completely and looking for a more achievement-oriented partner?

What I am trying to say is that you can’t really rely on marrying someone now and molding them into the person that you want them to be tomorrow. He may or may not pull himself together professionally, but he will still be the same person you know now, and his family will still be the same family you know now, and if work-anxiety is part of his psychic baggage, it will probably not go away totally. Is this the kind of future you want? How much are you willing to sacrifice to be with him?

Only you can answer that.