Well, you all were right!
Update: got back together with this schmuck in June, fell for the whole routine, and had another honestly mostly good five or so months together. The drinking was less when we were together but all the red flags were still there - if I had to guess I would say he was most likely hiding it. He was still hung over most days, and blew a tire driving drunk and texting.
Anyway, I was going to break up with him mid-October after things started feeling off and he uncharacteristically blew me off one night, but he surprised me by asking if I wanted to fly home with him to another state for a Friendsgiving. That morphed into a “so the night before we’ll hang out with my parents” (we didn’t so much discuss the meaning of this as he mentioned it and I nodded). Long story short the trip was a success, everyone seemed to hit it off, and he even told me that things in his eyes had gone great and his friends from home had told him not to mess it up with me.
That was a week and a half ago. Today he said he wanted to “end the romantic side” of things, that he’d been too focused on the relationship and not on “getting it done” (for a refresh, he has a masters but quit his corporate job and sold down his 401k to travel through Mexico in May which is the first time he dumped me). I told him he was cruel because who goes from “meet my parents” to “I don’t love you” (I made him say it) in the space of a week and a half? I was the first girl he’d brought home in six years since his college girlfriend (we’re both early 30s).
He was supposed to meet my parents next week as well which was a big deal for me because he would’ve been the first since my divorce two years ago. His timing suggests he freaked out, but I told him I didn’t want to be friends or anything at all, and that this time is final.
I guess I just showed poor judgment in giving him another chance - he’s a kind and charismatic individual, and without exception his friends are all warm and good people who seem to speak to some sort of good character buried in there. But it’s too far buried I’m afraid. I needed to rant. I’m hurt but okay. I didn’t even really cry all too much. He asked to be friends, but I asked him to leave (and for the $800 back that I spent on plane tickets to go home with him since he was too broke to pay). It seems insane that this was a long con to get a plane ticket home, but either way I am done.