I (25F) feel like a mother to my boyfriend (27M) at times.

Me and boyfriend have been together 4 1/2 years. We've talked about marriage and are hoping to get married in the next couple years. I love him very much and he's been a wonderful partner to be but the issue I keep coming back to is he has very little motivation to work towards being an "adult".

Before we started dating, he had already flunked and almost given up on school, but after we started dating he gave it another chance (after I encouraged and convinced him to). Even now, he's still working towards finishing, he's finally almost done but quite honestly he wasted so much tuition money (his grandmother's/mother's money) just out of pure laziness for not keeping up with his assignments and classes. For the duration of our relationship that he's been in school, I had to constantly remind him to keep up with his assignments or else he would literally miss them. One semester he lied to me about failing a class which I was upset about because he had been telling me he was keeping up with his homework when instead he was just constantly playing video games. After that is when I started keeping tabs on his assignments (I literally had him give me his school portal password) so that he couldn't lie to me again. During this time, I was in nursing school myself, so I was really upset that I was working and studying so hard (if you're a nurse you know, literally morning until night of studying) meanwhile he was happy getting Cs and playing xbox constantly.

Right now, he's working a just above minimum wage retail job. He's been there for about 3 years now. I applied to that job for him, along with fixing his resume. He still lives at home with his parents, which I do too to be fair, but last year I finally established my career as a nurse so now I'm working towards saving money for us to move in together. Now, since the beginning of 2023 I've been gently telling him that if we want to live together he quite honestly needs to upgrade his job (even just a couple dollars more) because unfortunately we live in an expensive area (near NYC). He agrees and knows he wants get a better paying job but getting him to apply is like pulling teeth. I quite literally have to sit him down and open a computer in front of him for him to do anything. He also has about $5000 in credit card debt, which I have been telling him to slowly pay off because once we start living together it'll be harder to do, but he has a difficult time making progress towards that because he will still spend money on "leisure" things like his hobbies or video games. Which I definitely don't want to control what he can and can't do with his money, but because I know how much debt he has it upsets me because I feel like he's stalling our future together as well.

Today, I finally couldn't take it anymore because I've been stressed out with my job lately, I came home and asked him if he had applied to any jobs like I had asked him, since it was his day off, he said he didn't because "he just wanted to relax." I was so angry, because I have been working so hard everyday trying to make money to eventually support our future family but from him there's no effort towards that goal. Especially because, hey, I'd love to just relax too but when I get home I immediately have to jump into schoolwork because I'm in school for my BSN right now.

It's so frustrating because I feel like if I don't constantly check up on him or tell him to do things he won't do it. And it's so frustrating because I feel like I've been working so hard through school and in my career to get to where I am now but he doesn't put in the same effort for himself. I'm at a loss because I love him and I'd love to marry him but it's difficult to imagine building a life together (like buying a house, supporting children, paying for bills?) with how lazy he is right now.