Evelyn Johannes6 months agoMy boyfriend (28M) and I (28F) have been together for 4 years and living together for 1 year. We both have relatively similar incomes, although he makes about 25% more than I do. He’s always been quite frugal with his money, which I actually respect. I consider myself a saver too, but his extreme frugality is definitely more pronounced. Since the beginning of our relationship, we’ve split everything 50/50, and we’ve continued that arrangement since moving in together. While I’ve been totally fine with this setup, lately I’ve started to feel like, because I earn less than he does, he’s getting the better end of the deal. Still, my share of expenses is within my budget, so I haven’t made a big deal of it. However, as we’ve been together longer and marriage is on my mind, I’ve been thinking more about how I envisioned our finances in a committed, long-term relationship. I always thought that when you get married, everything becomes shared — what’s mine is yours, and vice versa. Recently, we were planning a trip and I discovered that he had enough frequent flyer miles to cover both of our flights for free. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough points for even one flight. When we talked about it, he assumed he’d use his miles to cover his flight and leave me to pay for my own. Normally, I would be completely fine with this, but given how long we’ve been together and how marriage is something I’m considering in the future, I started to feel like we should be sharing more of these kinds of things freely. I expressed my feelings to him, and his response was pretty hesitant — he didn’t seem comfortable with the idea of using his miles to cover both our flights, which bothered me. He has some financial trauma, so I’ve been patient about it, but this situation made me realize that our views on money and how we’ll approach finances in a potential marriage might be very different. When I brought up marriage and the topic of splitting finances, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that he would end up paying for everything, which felt a little insulting. I feel like I actually contribute more in certain areas (for example, I furnished most of our apartment), and we’ve always split things 50/50, even with groceries, despite him eating more than I do. So, his assumption that I wouldn’t contribute fairly to our future finances has left me feeling frustrated. I’m not sure if I’m overreacting about the flight situation, but it did open my eyes to a bigger issue I hadn’t fully recognized before. I’m curious if other unmarried couples have had discussions about how they would split finances when they eventually get married, and how they navigated those conversations. I also don’t know how to ease his fear that marriage won’t mean he’s suddenly stuck paying for everything. Any advice would be really appreciated.2584
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Evelyn JohannesEvelyn Johannes