My [29] boyfriend [28] won’t stop paying for dinner for large groups of people/wastes food regularly

Throwaway, but I need to purge and I also need perspective. My boyfriend is a wonderful guy. He’s sweet, smart, eloquent, handsome, attentive, and, above all, generous...a bit too generous. I come from a very different background than he does—his family is very wealthy, like mom has never worked a day in her life wealthy, dad makes half a million a year wealthy, while my parents are academics who worked hard, saved, and taught me and my siblings to value every dollar we earn.

I want to acknowledge that I’ve lived a privileged life, but I was cut off at 21, made classic overdrafting mistakes, and came out on top after learning how to spend (and save) within my means. I have no debt, and rely on my family for nothing. My boyfriend, however, still has an “emergency” family credit card at 28 and does not bat an eye at the price of anything. He does not spend wisely on his own dime. He pays for large groups of friends to eat dinner nearly every weekend, over orders food every time we eat out, and throws much of it away.

It’s conditioning. My parents put a lot of emphasis on the importance of knowing how to cook, being resourceful, and finishing everything on my plate, and the leftovers after. He doesn’t cook, loves to eat out, and sometimes I sense a sickening attitude of elitism in his actions of throwing food away. The only thing we fight about is food. For the two of us, he will order enough for easily four. This is conditioning from his father, whom I’ve seen do this time and time again. But he does not make the money his father does. I’m really independent, so I frequently offer to pay for things, too, when it’s just us, but when we go out to dinner with people he always makes this grandiose gesture of paying for the whole meal.

In rare cases it’s on the fam card. Mostly, it’s not. The bottom line is, if I were to marry this person, and we were to share an account, he would have access to more money, and he would, without a doubt, spend it frivolously.

Here’s the main catch: his family has zero savings and a lot of debt, while my family has zero debt and a lot of savings. This includes stocks/bonds for me, that I have touched only for the continuance of my education. While he is a wonderful person who I feel strongly about spending the rest of my life with, I fear his financial ego and the judgement that would no doubt be put on me by his family if I asked for a prenup.

To the point: tonight at dinner, I called him out in front of a group of close friends for trying to pick up the check (total of 5* people, so about $130 minus tip). I’ve never done this before. He tried to valiantly grab it when everyone had their cards out, including me, and everyone fought him a little but faltered because the other downside of this is people frequently use him and he doesn’t see it, and I snapped at him to stop policing the check and let people pay their share.

I’m embarrassed, and he’s embarrassed, and the rest of the night was awkward. He was calm but wouldn’t look me in the eye. When we had a moment alone, I said I didn’t mean to make a scene, but this has been going on far too long, and that it bothers me that after all of our private conversations he continues to manhandle dinner checks for what? Attention? Adoration? I vowed to never bring it up in public again, but hours later he’s still cold. I didn’t say this part, but the truth is he doesn’t make the money his father does, or that I do, and his spending on food is out of control and totally unnecessary. On top of that, he is is spiteful of apps like Venmo because he feels that asking for money is beneath him, like suggesting people pay for their meal is crude and lacks class, while in reality this is the norm.

Now he hasn’t come to bed and I’m sick over it, but I stand by my position. I know this is a rarity. I’ve seen a lot of posts about the guy not paying for shit, and while I’m grateful for his willingness to pick up a check, this is gratuitous and unhealthy for both his bank account and my faith in his ability to ever spend responsibly.

TLDR: My boyfriend’s spending is out of hand, and it’s a nearly weekly occurrence that he picks up substantial dinner checks for large groups of people, which he ultimately cannot afford. I called him out in public and I feel so guilty over it, but not sure how to rectify my behavior in a way he will understand as he comes from a significantly wealthier background. What to do to get through to him, and also make things right?

*edited for miscount

Submitted September 01, 2019 at 10:38PM by itbelikethatnever https://ift.tt/2PzWqjn