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"Late last week, Smitten reader katija1 emailed us because she&amp;amp;#8217;s not sure how to help motivate her unemployed boyfriend. Here&amp;amp;#8217;s katija1&amp;amp;#8217;s email: I&amp;#x27;m in a serious relationship (2 years, living together one year - not engaged but planning a future) and my boyfriend has been unemployed for almost a year now. In this time he&amp;#x27;s discovered that any job he would enjoy, he isn&amp;#x27;t qualified for (not the right education or no previous experience). I&amp;#x27;ve tried to encourage him to look into internships where he can gain experience but he is unenthusiastic. I love this man and want to make a future with him, but I&amp;#x27;m afraid he will never find something that satisfies him and will be either chronically unemployed or disappointed. I don&amp;#x27;t want to force anything on him or make him feel inadequate, but I want him to be happy and find a job that fulfills him (and pays the bills). What can I do to help him help himself? And here are my two cents: Thanks for emailing, katija1! I think in this current economy, yours is a situation a lot of people are going through. In fact, two of my friends have been unemployed since February of last year! I&amp;amp;#8217;m happy to hear that your frustration isn&amp;amp;#8217;t resentment veiled by concern. It sounds like you&amp;amp;#8217;d just like your boyfriend to find gainful employment for himself and for the future you two are planning. Kudos to you for encouraging him to explore internship opportunities to gain experience in fields that are new to him! However, I can understand why he might be hesitant to go this route. First, internships are often unpaid. If he&amp;amp;#8217;s hoping to find a job where he can contribute financially to your household, an internship might not be the way to go. Second, some companies require their interns receive some sort of school credit. If your boyfriend isn&amp;amp;#8217;t a student, he might not qualify. If he isn&amp;amp;#8217;t qualified for the specific positions he&amp;amp;#8217;s interested in, you could encourage him to apply for entry level positions in his desired field. Or with companies he hopes to work for. He could also use this unemployed time to take classes to gain more experience. If he&amp;amp;#8217;s interested in film, he could take an introduction to screen-writing course at the local community college. Or if he wants to get into finance, suggest he take an accounting class. If he&amp;amp;#8217;s actively searching for jobs (sending out resumes, pumping friends for openings at their companies, following up on every possible lead and checking career sites daily) and still coming up short, it&amp;amp;#8217;s one thing. He&amp;amp;#8217;s trying and that&amp;amp;#8217;s admirable. And as I mentioned earlier, it&amp;amp;#8217;s a boat a lot of Americans are finding themselves in. If this sounds like your boyfriend, keep up the pep talks and encouragement. And keep your ears open for any job openings. Also, offer to look over resumes and applications before he sends them out. If he&amp;amp;#8217;s feeling nervous about being out of the work force for so long, help him practice his interview skills. But, if his issue is motivation or lack of enthusiasm, there&amp;amp;#8217;s a problem. Living together is a partnership and if he&amp;amp;#8217;s not contributing financially because he won&amp;amp;#8217;t work a job he doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t &amp;amp;#8220;enjoy,&amp;amp;#8221; then it&amp;amp;#8217;s not fair for all of financial responsibilities to be yours alone. If after you&amp;amp;#8217;ve exhausted all of your resources to help him find a job and he still lacks motivation, you need to have a serious talk with him. If his attitude now is that he&amp;amp;#8217;s not qualified for the job he wants, lack of action on his part is a guarantee that things won&amp;amp;#8217;t change. At the end of the day, a job is a job, no matter what field you&amp;amp;#8217;re in or title you have. He needs to be more open-minded about the type of jobs he&amp;amp;#8217;ll apply for. After a year of not working, worrying whether or not he&amp;amp;#8217;ll enjoy a job, isn&amp;#x27;t something that should make him overlook a steady paycheck. Have you ever had to deal with an unmotivated boyfriend? What about a boyfriend that just couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t catch a break professionally? What do you think katija1 should do? How does unemployment affect a relationship? For more on money and relationships&amp;amp;#133; * Do you and your boyfriend divide household expenses? * Would you marry someone with considerable amount of debt? * This new study finds that women are changing the economics of marriage! More Ways to Get Glamour You could win $50,000 just for registering or logging in to Glamour.com! Sign up for Glamour.com&amp;#x27;s Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters! Add Glamour to your iGoogle homepage. Follow Glamour on Twitter. Photo: Creatas Images. Image used for illustrative purposes only."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2010/03/readers-dilemma-my-boyfriend-n>