Me [34 M] with my SO [37F] 14 years, Insinuates I ower her money from the start of the relationship and uses this against me at every chance
Background info. I met my SO when i was starting uni, she was done studying and had started working, we have been together for about 14 years with 2 kids. She lived in a different country, and i moved in with her and started studying in her country and i am still here. During this time i did not help out much with bills, but i mostly paid for groceries and various expenses when we were out. I worked weekends at a store to supplement my student loan income and I also worked summers, but not as much as i could have because she still wanted vacations together. I brought up the financial difference a lot, but she always told me that she was fine supporting me while i studied because she reckons i'd have done the same(true). She has an amazing career and is awesome at what she does. She has 5+ years over me in experience and also a masters vs my bachelors, so for the first 8 or so years after I finished uni she made 50% more than me. I have since moved up and she now makes about 25% more than me. Here is where the issue starts: We went the first 13 years without a joint expenses account. I tried multiple times to have one set up or to change who pays what, but if i am to take something over from her, she needs to transfer it.
I did this, because very often when we discussed and argued about financial stuff, she would complain that she has supported me for a long time and that she still pays too much. However, whenever I would suggest a solution she'd make excuses to not do it. "You just want access to my money" "It's too much work" "Don't worry about it i just said what i said because i was angry" "I make more money, of course I should pay more" etc. This went on for years, until we had a big argument over financials and I just snapped. Because the last 7 or so years, I feel the financials have been somewhat equal. So I forced her to sit down and go through all regular joint expenses we have and write down what each of us is paying. When all came to it, the expenses were quite equal for the regular stuff like utilities, kids soccer fee's and what not, with the outlier being that she is the one that pays the mortgage. We both had about 1500$ in joint expenses in terms of bills and she paid about 2000$ into the mortgage on top of that(I have offered multiple times to set up payment from me to her for the mortgage, she has always declined) which balanced out for me in that I took most of the more fluid expenses like groceries, restaurants and such. She doesn't even have her wallet when we go out alone or with the kids. These expenses are harder to track, but the two months I randomly checked they matched the mortgage payments pretty well, she is still ahead in the total spending, but not by a lot. Finally, after this she agreed on a joint expenses account. We each took 50% of our monthly income and put that down for joint payments, and she subtracted the amount she pays into the mortgage from this. She insisted on percentage over a firm sum, she earns more so she can pay more. This was her words.
Also, about 5 years ago or so, she had some money just sitting piling up in her account, 60k$ or so. She suggested she just put this into the mortgage as that would be the most beneficial in the long term. I said that if she wants to do that, that would be smart and good for us. She did so, on her own volitions, after suggesting it herself.
Then the car broke down. It's an old car, 16 years old. The repair bill is higher than the price of buying a new used car of similar year and model. So i suggest we get a new(er) car, we both earn decently and we can even afford a completely new car without any problems. And all hell breaks lose.
She complains that she bought this car, and now I expect her to pay for another car? - She bought the car yes, but I have paid for all maintenance including gas 10/10 times since we got it. She paid 10k for the car, but I have put in more than double that in expenses over the years. And no, I never even mentioned she was gonna buy anything, I said WE need to buy a new car.
She brings up her big payment into the mortgage, how she has been considering to take that out again, because it's unfair how she paid into the mortgage like that and I want to use my saved up money(15k or so) for a new car - I said yeah, it's your money to take out if you want, but you were the one that wanted to put it there in the first place. And we have one car as a family, I want a new car for the family. It's in no way my car, it would be our car. And it would be a family car ala Ford Focus or something.
She mentions that we have yet to set up a savings account for the kids, do I want to just use their money for this? Do I want a car over saving for the kids? - Again, I have said many times that we should sit down and do this, but it never materializes. Granted, here I have been slacking too. This is something I can just take initiative and do. But we know this is something that we will do, we just haven't discussed how much initially we want to put into the accounts. And of course, this will not be the same money.
This goes on, and she just brings up our whole financial history, where she has paid more than me over the years and everything, even when I point out that I asked her multiple times to make things more even and to have joint expenses and she always declined. Her answer was that I should have tried harder, and that I gave up easily shows that I didn't really mean it. She says I was fine with her supporting me while I studied, I could have worked more when I studied(actually false, I point out. She got mad at me for working the entire summer break, so I had to work a month less so she could spend time with me when she had her vacation from work. I could have worked more, but she didn't want me to. Same with Christmas, she wanted to celebrate at her parents so I couldn't work then either)
She also brought up that her point was made since after we had the joint expenses account, she has more money in her accounts. Which I questioned, because we have gone on more trips than we ever have before with the kids, and have had to supplement that account many times to pay for these trips(so our joint spending has never been higher) and I even bought her and me a trip to Paris this summer, spending even more of my money and I still have more money in my account than from before when we started the joint account. And usually before the joint account, the money in my spendings account barely went up. If I deduct our extra spending on three trips lately I would have tripled the money in my spendings account. Since the joint account, I am making bank so to say.
So I snapped and basiclly said that she wants things to be unequal so that in every financial discussion we have, she can try and shut me down with the argument that she pays more, I have done everything I can to make things more equal over the years but she has always refused. So I can only assume she wants to pay more so she can hang that over my head all the time and that this was financial abuse.
So she insinuates that I should pay her back, somehow. When we set that joint account up and I snapped, I paid her back for a laptop she bought me when I was studying. The laptop I had understood to be a gift, but for the past years she had been grumbling about it and I just got angry and transfered the cost of it to her in a fit of rage as she mentioned it, again. She brings this old financial situation up on just about every argument these days, so it is definately something that bothers her. But i feel it would be kinda absurd for me to set up a payment plan or something to her to pay her back for especially the time where i was a student since she always insisted that everything was fine, and i honestly don't know where to go from here as i feel she is being extremely unreasonable.
I also know that our arrangement until recently has been terrible in general and very naive. But I can't do much about that now. I do however feel I have done my fair share of trying to set things in order over the years and she has just promptly refused and just brought it up when it has suited her. And since this will be brought up: Both our names are on the house and we own it 50/50 even though we are not married.
tl;dr: My SO keeps bringing up past financial arrangements that she thinks were unfair. Whenever I have suggested solutions in the past, she has turned them down saying it was fine. She now uses this in every argument we have and I feel like I am being financially abused. I do not know where to go from here.
Submitted February 15, 2023 at 04:31AM by ThrowRAFinancials https://ift.tt/rbReaIF
No comments:
Post a Comment