I [27F] feel like I’m sacrificing my financial wellbeing for my boyfriend [28M]; how do I bring this up to him?

I’ve been with my boyfriend for 3 years, and we have lived together for 1.5 years.

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We live in the heart of a very expensive metro area so he can be close to his well-paying job. That’s literally the only reason we are here.

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I freelance from home, and could do it from anywhere (like somewhere where the cost of living isn’t so damn high). I love what I do and do okay for myself, but for this area, my salary allows me to barely scrape by.

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If I weren’t with him, I’d most definitely move and be much more financially stable. I’m kind of a math nerd, so I’ve got the numbers down.

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Right now, over 50% of my income gets put toward rent. Add on all my other expenses and shit is TIGHT around here. I haven’t bought anything for myself, like books, clothes, make-up, whatever, in a looooong time. I have about $35 in spending money each week, and pretty much all of that goes toward food (more on that later).

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My boyfriend, on the other hand, makes about double my salary. I’ve watched as he’s paid off his credit card debt and most of his car loan, and has started funding his 401K. I’m proud of him and am glad he’s able to do that.

In comparison to my measly $35 per week in spending money, he has about $300 per week to blow. Part of that will go toward food, and the rest goes towards video games, entertainment, fantasy sports, beer…in other words, fun stuff.

Again, I’m glad he’s able to do that.

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Sometimes he will complain about how money is going to be tight for him until his next paycheck, because he only has $200 left. I have to laugh because I’m working with about 15% of that amount every week.

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We split everything 50/50: rent, utilities, any vacations we take, food on the rare occasion that we go out, groceries.

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Speaking of groceries and our meals. I do all of the cooking while he relaxes and does something fun. He will offer to help, but he’s not particularly talented in the kitchen, so it’s easier if I just do it all.

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Recently, without knowing, I shorted him on our 50/50 grocery payment by maybe $10. He kind of threw it in my face during an argument.

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Not only did I feel it was super rude of him to do that, but if he wants to be petty, I could be petty too. I could say I shouldn’t have to pay exactly 50/50 since A) I am the one who cooks and B) he eats more than I do, not to mention C) he makes way more money than I do.

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Most of the time if I’m talking about how tight my financial situation is, he’ll be empathetic. But a few times, he’s said how I should “just” raise my freelance rates, like it’s that simple. Sometimes, he tells me how he lives paycheck to paycheck too, but I just don’t feel like he understands how different our situations are.

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I worry that he thinks less of me because my income level isn’t more equal to his, and end up with a lot of insecure feelings.

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A couple people have mentioned that instead of splitting expenses 50/50, we should split expenses more proportionally to our income. I’ve been hesitant to bring this up to him for a lot of reasons. The first being I almost feel guilty that I’m not making more. I feel like I’m not pulling my weight and don’t want him to resent me for that. I don’t truly believe it’s fair for him to have to pay more just because I didn’t choose a higher-paying career (but at the same time, it’s not fair to me to have to commit to living in an expensive area just so he can be here for work, so maybe it balances out).

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Secondly, I feel like if he’s being petty about less than $10, he isn’t going to agree to paying more than his equal share of expenses.

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Besides this, the relationship is pretty great, overall I am happy and have a good life here but I think the financial burden dulls everything for me. I don’t want to break up with him, but sometimes it’s so tempting knowing that if I walked away from this, I could pay off ALL of my debt within 1.5 years and actually start thriving again.

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I guess I am just looking for some input here. I’m not sure how to even start this conversation, especially when he has nickel-and-dimed me before. Any advice?

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Tl;dr Boyfriend makes double what I do but we split everything 50/50. How do I have a conversation with him about this when he is petty about money?

Submitted May 02, 2019 at 06:13PM by brokeassbitch2019 http://bit.ly/2J8U3yS