My [24M] girlfriend [24F] and I combined finances a year ago. I want to undo it. Is there any way to ask without torpedoing the relationship?

We've been together for 4.5 years now. We're legally common-law and neither of us have any interest in getting married. We bought a house together last year and decided it would just be more simple if we were to combine finances at that point. It went okay, however I noticed that she spends her money quite liberally.. where I'm really frugal. She likes to treat herself to expensive lattes, premium makeup, etc, and I've always liked to just squirrel my money away. There's nothing wrong with what she does - she still saves and has no trouble paying her bills, we just view it differently I guess.

She recently got a new job and she's now making almost on-par with what I earn. I've been feeling stressed the last few months about her spending habits, however couldn't really ask her to tone it down. She wasn't being irresponsible.. again just spending her money more freely than myself.. someone who is admittedly very frugal. I don't want to take a step back in our relationship (we've both expressed we're essentially married without the legality of it) but I want to separate finances again. It's a good time now that she's earning similar to what I am. I don't know how to ask her without making her think I'm stepping back.

TL;DR: Tried combining finances a year ago with girlfriend. Went ok, however I've noticed I'm much more frugal and would rather re-separate them again. How can I eloquently ask?

Submitted July 29, 2018 at 02:16PM by HowToSeparateMoney https://ift.tt/2OqFHdu