Seems to me that he did talk to you about it & you already said no but that he realized your no answer wasn't ok with him & what he was going through. I'm sure he felt that since he already talked to you & you said no that there was no point in talking to you again about what he felt he needed to do because you would only say the same thing.

I'm not saying it's right for him not to have communicated to you that this was what he was going to do but also when not married there is less of a feel of it being a required thing to tell the other person what they are going to do even though it would be the right thing to do & even when married some people tend to do their own thing anyway. Marriage doesn't guarantee that kind of respect but it is more implied in a good marriage because there is usually a deeper level of commitment to each other in a good marriage which I think might be part of what Rose76 is referring to also.

I understand the financial problems you are feeling as I was married for 33 years to a financially irresponsible H & it got so bad that I was finally able to escape.....but I still live from paycheck to paycheck I just don't have to fight with him over finances.....he kept saying that 2 can live together cheaper than 1 trying to keep me there but honestly what living with him was doing to me emotionally was too high of a cost to pay to live cheaper together even tho married. My mother died & I was able to take my inheritance & leave tho haven't been able to afford the divorce yet..lol..one expense not necessary when just living together since Oregon doesn't recognize Common law marriage after living together for 7 years.

My H had lost his job at the same time I was having serious problems with the direction my engineering career was going in. I didn't realize I was having a breakdown at the time & had hoped that Christmas holiday off work would get me back to functioning again..but it didn't & then the Northridge earthquake hit & life totally fell apart. Medical LOA didn't keep the money coming in either it just left the position I was having problems with any open when/if I could come back.

It sounds like your SO thought through his situation & did what he had to do in order to care for himself & his emotional state instead of pushing himself into a breakdown like I had. In this economy finding another job isn't that easy & it sounded like he couldn't continue the way he was going.

If your relationship is strong then working through this & working together to get something set up to bring in more money is possible. If there are underlying issues that over the years that have just been tolerated then this is the time they will come out & truly define the relationship you both have with each other. All relationships have their difficulties. The real quality of the relationship may define how well this difficulty will end up being worked through.