Sharing a home usually means sharing all that it entails, both the joys and the burdens, the latter of which typically involves financial responsibilities.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with this netizen, as her boyfriend wasn’t keen on sharing household expenses, such as bills. After financially supporting both of them for quite some time, the woman was finally fed up; that was because her partner started thinking about buying a new boat, while she was going deeper into debt.
Scroll down to find the full story below, where you will also find Bored Panda’s interview with the OP, who was kind enough to answer a few of our questions.
It’s important to discuss financial matters when living with a partner
Image credits: Tima Miroshnichenko / pexels (not the actual photo)
This woman asked her boyfriend several times to contribute to bills more, but he was thinking of buying a boat instead
Image credits: Daniel Olah / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Tima Miroshnichenko / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Grumman LLV / wikipedia (not the atual photo)
Image credits: Anon
The woman didn’t feel like she could trust her partner
In a recent interview with Bored Panda, the OP shared that the day she found out about her impending pay cut, she told her partner how much money she would be losing and how much she was going to struggle financially because of it. “Instead of finally doing the right thing and offering to start contributing, he basically just told me that I would be fine and didn’t want to continue the conversation,” she recalled.
According to a Forbes Advisor survey, a sudden loss of income or a salary reduction often tends to negatively affect people’s relationships. And while a committed partner is often the person to help their loved one through difficult times, the help can’t last forever, as the redditor’s story shows.
“That was the moment I realized I really wasn’t being heard and he would let this go on forever if I didn’t do something drastic. We’d always had a bit of difficulty with communication, specifically communicating about our relationship, and it was something that I had been working on for myself. But in that moment I realized that he would always have something more important than me to spend his money on.”
The redditor revealed feeling hurt and betrayed through all of it because in her head, she knew what a healthy relationship looked like, and she realized that theirs wasn’t it. “I didn’t feel like I could rely on him, I was constantly nervous that if something happened to me and I couldn't work, he wouldn’t step up and I would probably lose the house.”
Most couples seem to believe that relationships work best when partners have similar financial goals and habits
While moving in together with your partner is exciting, it’s important to discuss the less fun and romantic aspects of sharing a home, too, such as paying the bills or dividing up chores. And while the couple might decide not to share the expenses equally or tackle every household task together, any arrangement can arguably work, as long as both parties are fine with it.
In the redditor’s household, both parties weren’t seemingly fine with the arrangement in their home. The woman shared that she repeatedly asked her partner to contribute to bills, but that would always result in fights, and it’s safe to assume that fighting rarely ever makes the relationship any better.
“When we’d talk about it, I would always ask for a consistent amount of money every month. I never gave an exact number, I wanted us to sit down and look at all the bills that we shared and come up with that number together. I wanted it to be fair,” the OP told Bored Panda.
“He always insisted that he contributed enough. He would usually pay if we went out to dinner or for drinks, but that was something I expected him to do because I was much happier just staying home, as I was broke. He would also contribute to large expenses: he paid about two-thirds the cost of replacing outdated appliances and he would give me a chunk of cash if we were going on vacation. He couldn’t see how none of that was really helpful to my situation, he thought he was doing enough, and it didn’t seem like he would ever understand why I was so upset.”
Dividing financial responsibilities is not always a 50-50 split
Image credits: Mikhail Nilov / pexels (not the actual photo)
People’s relationships seem to be significantly affected by financial matters in more ways than them having to share bills, as data suggests that it can even affect their willingness to marry. According to a survey carried out by the Thriving Center of Psychology, more than seven-in-ten millennial and Gen Z respondents say that marrying in this economy is too costly. (Though, roughly as many of them say that they’re simply not interested in getting married.)
The aforementioned survey also found that out of the couples who moved in together—whether with the intention to get married some day or not—roughly half said finances played a significant role in the decision. As many of them revealed not dividing such expenses as mortgage or rent equally between the two partners. Over a third of respondents admitted feeling that their relationship is not financially equal.
The OP, too, clearly felt that the relationship was not financially equal, which eventually made her fed up with her boyfriend’s lack of financial contribution. But him considering buying a new boat, all the while his girlfriend was going into debt supporting both of them, was seemingly the straw that broke the camel’s back. Fellow redditors in the comments pointed out that it was about time the woman broke free of the arrangement and stopped supporting her partner, which she did.
“I close the sale of my house on Wednesday and have permission from the new owners to stay here a couple more days so I can be rested and prepared for my long road trip,” she said, adding that she is still in touch with her ex-partner, as friends.
“All of the love is still there, that’s why this was always so hard. We’ve talked a lot about what went wrong with us, and he did take full responsibility for the financial problems, but he’s also helped me see some of the ways I haven’t been the best partner either. I think if we’d gotten couples’ counseling like I started suggesting years ago, we would have figured it all out and been fine. But I’m looking forward to the future, the start of my new adventure, and the ability to basically start from scratch with a clean slate in a new place.”
Fellow netizens believed that the woman was definitely not overreacting
Some time later, the woman shared an update, letting netizens know how things unfolded
Image credits: Anon