I'm not going to address whether or not you should stay in a relationship with this man. That's secondary. What is primary is you having a place of your own to call home. You've got those two things all interwoven and mixed up together. For your whole life, perhaps, you have followed this pattern - "To have a place where I belong, I have to find a man to be with. Them I live where he lives." That's not working for you. You are miserable because you have an approach to life that isn't working.

As you know, I have a relationship that is not all that satisfactory. This relationship does not provide me with a place of residence. I spend a lot of time at my bf's place, but I have my own apartment. Me having a place to call mine is primary. Yes, if I had gotten into a satisfactory relationship, I would want to cohabit with my Sig. Other. But that would have to be an awfully good, solid relationship. My relationship with the guy I'm with never was, and never will be, that good . . . So I keep my own place. I recommend that to every woman - have a space to call yours.

It could be an efficiency. It could be a rented room with kitchen privileges. I've lived in both of those set ups. You won't figure out how to make that happen, if you have only a half-hearted interest in making it happen.
You'll only be half-hearted about it, if living with a man is the "be all and end all" of life for you. And then you are doomed to a worsening existence.

I can't lay out a specific pathway for you that leads you to a place of your own to live in. But it is achievable. You have a permanent, steady income. More than likely, you are eligible for a housing subsidy. Perhaps you need to get on a waiting list for that subsidy. You cannot afford to subsidize your son, when you can't afford to meet your own basic needs - like housing. Remember that, when he comes around looking for more financial help from you . . . which he will do. Don't tell yourself that "My motherly love makes me prioritize my son's welfare." That's just a way of keeping a bunch of dysfunction going and going. Your primary duty is to take care of your own basic needs.

There will never come a day when your son couldn't use some financial help for this, that or the other reason. He's going to go from one problem to the next. Best thing you can do for him is to role model responsible behavior. The responsible thing to do is to get yourself housing that gives you a space that is yours. It seems an insurmountable task, if you've never done it before. I think your entire lifetime of choices has been driven by your fear of being truly on your own. Keep that mindset and you are doomed to a hopeless existence . . . waiting and waiting to be given to by men who are incapable of giving. It is a doomed, futile approach that will keep you always profoundly disappointed.

You're not unusual. There is a very obvious reason why the population of homeless men is much bigger than the population of homeless women. A woman can usually find some man who will take her in. So that's the solution that many desperate women adopt. Any woman under the age of 60 can always find some guy, somewhere, who will let her stay under his roof . . . if she will be sexually available to him. There are always guys who can't maintain normal relationships, even though they have a job and an apartment/home. Non-desperate women stay away from these guys. So these guys have unmet needs. So they become open to exploiting desperate women. But they resent the women they use.

When you depend on someone as the only reason you are not in a shelter, you can't think clearly about the nature of the relationship. You make yourself believe what you want to believe - hard as that is to do.

Sometimes, going to a shelter can be a way of disrupting a bad pattern. I lived in a shelter for 3 months. It wasn't awful.