My Boyfriend Can Afford Lavish Gifts and Extravagant Vacations. So What He Gives Me Instead Feels Like an Insult.

Dear Prudence He’s the textbook example of a perfect man … except this. Advice by Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Jenée Desmond-Harris? July 22, 20266:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. Dear Prudence, I’m a 38-year-old woman, and I’ve been in a monogamous romantic relationship with “Oliver,” who is about my age, for eight years. I love him with all my heart, and all my friends and family think he’s perfect. Further, they all think I’m extremely lucky to have found Oliver, because I have a disfiguring birth defect that caused me to have next to no luck dating before him. Oliver is a complicated guy. He was born into money, lost both parents while an undergraduate, and inherited a complicated mishmash of trust funds and investments, as well as a huge but now badly maintained house. He has an Ivy League degree, but instead of working a paying job, which he doesn’t need, he spends 40 to 50-plus hours a week volunteering at a homeless shelter, a no-kill animal shelter, a rehab center, and a public library, which serves mainly as a free social services center. He pays all his own medical expenses out of pocket, including about $5,000 on two occasions when he’s needed rabies shots due to animal bites. He always has multiple recovering addicts and ex-homeless people staying rent-free in his many spare bedrooms, which is the main reason we still aren’t living together eight years on. So Oliver is obviously an incredibly good person. But these last few years, I’ve struggled with persistent thoughts that this is not the same as being a good partner. Oliver has never bought me a romantic present, just practical stuff (e.g., hiking shoes, cooking utensils) I could have bought myself. He talks all the time about the wonderful international vacations he took with his parents growing up, but has never taken me anywhere but tent camping in nearby parks. I used to hope he would pay for the cosmetic surgery my insurance won’t cover, but he’s never offered, and I’d never have the nerve to flat-out ask. I’ve even wondered, in dark moments, if he sees being with me as one more form of charitable self-abasement, but at the same time, maybe subconsciously feels I’m not “worth” the flowers, jewelry, or trips to France and Italy that an attractive woman with a prestigious education would be. I used to want a family. But I wouldn’t want my child to grow up in a home where I don’t feel comfortable, or feel like they take seventh or eighth place in their father’s life. So I’ve resigned myself to being child-free, and trying to feel that it’s for the best. Oliver still talks about “maybe” having a kid “someday,” but I doubt he even realizes my “somedays” are running out. In short, I’m not completely happy, but I don’t know if this is the closest I can hope to get to being happy. On the one hand, everyone I know will scream at me and call me an idiot if I leave Oliver. And I know the alternative for me is more likely to be being alone for the rest of my life than finding someone better. On the other hand, leaving him would be better for the world than trying to change him, because that way only I would suffer, rather than countless needy people and animals getting less of his time and money. I need a push if I’m going to leave, and I need some strength if I’m going to stay. Please help. —Tattered and Torn Dear Tattered and Torn, This is complicated, but it’s also not. If you strip away all the stuff about Oliver’s unique situation and his philanthropy, and the hit your self-confidence has taken as a result of people’s reactions to your physical difference, we have a pretty typical situation: You’re in a relationship in which you don’t feel secure or loved, and staying in it would force you to give up your dream of having children. Oliver could be an actual saint with his picture on one of those prayer pillar candles, and I’d still want you to break up with him. Listen carefully as I say this: Breaking up does not mean you’re saying he’s a bad person. It also doesn’t mean being alone for the rest of your life. It simply means parting ways with someone who does not, to put it in the words of a questionable self-help book, speak your love language. You basically came to this conclusion yourself when you acknowledged that being a good person isn’t the same as being a good partner. (And for what it’s worth, he might be a great partner for a person who loves camping and hates gifts! But that person is not you.) It’s very unlikely that this is the last man in the world who is ever going to be attracted to you. There’s a future in which you have a new partner—or no partner, but no daily angst about not being treated the way you want—and a very wealthy volunteer librarian buddy who is often bitten by animals, and whose choices about how to use his money don’t feel like a referendum on your worth as a person. Classic Prudie How can you tell when you’re being justifiably stubborn and when you’re just making things worse? My 20-year-old sister has been uninvited to my wedding after she went to my fiancée’s bachelorette party, announced she had a special surprise guest, and then wheeled in a skeleton dressed up in a “sister of the bride” T-shirt… Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Dear Prudence