Money is one of the top causes of divorce in the United States. Across the country, it splits up couples who just can’t get on the same page about budgeting and spending.
This couple started to feel the financial divide when one woman’s wealthy fiancé insisted that she split all bills and other expenses with him equally, despite only making 20% of his enormous salary.
Was her fiancé wrong for demanding that the couple go Dutch? The woman took to the internet to ask who was in the wrong.
Here’s how the story played out and the livid opinions people had:
Backstory
The woman, or original poster (OP), and her fiancé are both 26 years old. OP is a preschool teacher who works 40 to 45 hours a week. She would like to go to college but can’t afford to.
With a salary of $120,000, her fiancé makes a lot more than she does, so the couple has always split bills proportionally to their income.
Because OP’s fiancé makes so much more, he pays 80% of the bills, while she pays 20%. This is an arrangement that the couple agreed to before they moved in together.
What is the couple’s lifestyle like?
OP’s fiancé has a taste for luxury. The couple lives in a nice apartment, goes to fancy dinners, and has an Audi and Land Rover.
OP actually received her car as a birthday gift from her fiancé without her input or prior knowledge, so he subsidizes payments for that.
What happened?
One day, OP’s fiancé sat her down to talk about finances because he didn’t feel like she contributed to the household with her money. OP was surprised but was willing to listen to him because he wasn’t necessarily wrong.
OP’s fiancé then insisted that the couple split all bills equally—50/50.
Was there a reason that OP’s fiancé wanted the change?
This change shocked OP further, so she asked if he needed to work fewer hours or if there was an issue at work. He ignored her questions entirely.
OP continued to try to figure out if there was a legitimate reason for her fiancé wanting to split bills evenly, but he just kept saying that he’d “been thinking about it a lot.”
Eventually, OP’s fiance shut down her inquisition by saying, “This is how it’s going to be. Take it or leave it.”
How did OP react?
OP was frustrated by her fiancé’s lack of reasonable justification but agreed to split bills 50/50 with him. After agreeing, she says that she “asked if he’d made a Zillow account yet or expected me to.”
Her fiancé asked why they’d need a Zillow account, so OP explained that she wouldn’t be able to afford 50% of the rent at their current home and would need to downsize to a one-bedroom apartment.
See also: How to Save for a House While Renting
Is it just the couple’s house that needs to change?
The couple’s home wasn’t the only expense that needed to get cheaper for OP to afford to pay 50% of the bills.
OP also detailed a new food and entertainment budget, letting her fiancé know that date nights would need to change. She could afford discount nights at chain restaurants, but not the fine dining the couple used to do.
See also: 12 Money-Saving Meals to Eat When You’re Broke
What about the expensive cars?
OP finished by stating that the couple would probably need to sell their cars and replace them with something less expensive because she couldn’t afford to pay half of the monthly payments on their luxury vehicles.
In her words, “Basically, if he wants me to pay half, we’re living within my means, not his anymore.”
How did OP’s fiancé react?
After OP informed her fiancé that the couple would need to leave their current apartment, he got angry and asked why she didn’t have savings. OP responded, “I do, but I’m not paying rent out of my savings because that’s a terrible and unsustainable idea.”
OP’s fiancé agreed to the new budget…kind of
OP’s fiancé only became more mad as she detailed the couple’s new budget. According to OP, “He kind of agreed to it, but since then, he’s been incredibly angry. He’s not saying or doing anything. I sent him six (apartment) listings, all of which he’s called uninhabitable for various reasons.”
She continued, “He’s now saying that I’m being unfair and manipulative and that he tried to come to me with a serious concern about our relationship, and I’m making it impossible for him to talk to me and am bulldozing over him.”
So, is OP actually being unfair and manipulative? People didn’t hold back with their opinions:
OP’s fiancé is trying to get her to break up with him
“Is he trying to break up with you, and he wants you to pull the plug?” asked one skeptical individual.
Agreeing, another chimed in, “That was my first thought. He wanted to be able to make her the bad guy by casting her as a materialistic gold digger. Now he’s in a position where she accepted his ultimatum, and he needs to admit he’s the materialistic one.”
With a more sinister take, one person wrote, “The other girlfriend is expensive.”
Is OP’s fiancé trying to entrap her?
“I think it’s entrapment.
“Like, if you say the sentence “I won’t pay the rent from my savings” and someone doesn’t immediately realize how obvious that is, they’re either fiscally handicapped or up to something.
“Seems to me the goal is ‘Use up her savings, then she’s financially dependent on me and can’t leave no matter how (poorly) I treat her.'”
OP’s fiancé is in financial disaster and is not telling her
When one person wrote, “If he wants to talk about savings, this is a great time for him to start dumping all the money he’ll save on bills into a savings account,” another was quick to point out that OP’s fiancé is “26 and has an Audi and a Range Rover. He does not care about savings in the slightest.”
“That dude has not a red cent in savings if he’s got both of those vehicles. It’s also why he thinks she should dip into her own savings as the first resort instead of the last one. This dude is guaranteed horrendous at finances,” accused a different individual.
Stop the wedding: this situation is littered with red flags
Many pointed out that this is a wedding that should be put on pause, one saying, “Put at least mental breaks on the wedding. Get to the bottom of it fast. If you can’t get a clear explanation that makes sense, put the real breaks on the whole thing.
“You can’t be married to a guy that will just up and come up with (something) like this on the fly without being able to explain it and who will then sulk. What kind of future is that?”
Responding, someone else said, “Something else is definitely going on. ‘Take it or leave it’ is not an answer. You deserve an explanation.”
Nothing about OP’s fiancé makes sense
“The thing that really gets to me here is that they are engaged. Does he expect this arrangement to continue after marriage?
“Legally, after marriage, all his income is hers and vice versa. If she has to go into debt to support his lifestyle, then after marriage, that is his debt also.
“Nothing this guy has said or done makes sense at all. I’m really glad my wife and I 100% combined our finances after marriage. It’s just so easy compared to jumping through hoops to separate income that legally isn’t even separate.”
What happened after OP’s original post?
OP posted a shocking update to the story after everyone shared their opinions. She started by writing, “(The day after I posted), I got home from work, and I sort of just walked up to him on the elliptical and explained as calmly that I had questions, and if he actually wanted to marry me, he needed to be willing to answer them.
“I asked if he thought I was a gold digger. He said yes. I told him that I wasn’t willing to be in a relationship where I had to prove myself by sacrificing any sort of stability. That led to a bit of a screaming match and, eventually, a confession.”
OP’s fiancé’s confession will shock you
“It turns out we cannot afford anything we have right now. We are in serious credit card debt, the cars are both on the verge of being repossessed, and I did not know about any of this.
“He’s been cutting corners on actual necessities, including psychiatric medication. That, in combination with some comments from his family, led him to some pretty dark places. My fiancé had a full breakdown and apologized for calling me a gold digger, which was nice to hear, but this whole thing had me pretty shaken up.”
Is the couple staying together?
“Yesterday, my fiancé and I talked a lot. I’m still writing fiancé for now, and I really hope we can work through all of this.
“We talked about how to sell the cars—we don’t have a choice at this point—about my income, his income, and the sort of life we want to have. If we do stay together, we’ll be changing how we live a lot.
“We need to get out of debt. We need to get on our feet. I know some people are gonna say I’m dumb for not immediately dropping all contact and giving up on the relationship, but I can’t do that. I can’t look at the guy I love, who went off his meds to try and make a good life for me and think he’s not worth sticking around for, at least to try.
“I don’t know what the future looks like at all anymore, though, and the wedding is very postponed at the moment.”
This article was written and syndicated by What the Fab.
This lazy wife refused to work while her husband averaged 84 hours a week
Unlike OP, this woman wasn’t contributing a single penny to the household finances.
She hadn’t worked for five years, claiming her therapist said she “wasn’t ready yet,” while her husband worked 18 hours a day to support the couple.
Was he wrong for telling her to get a job? Decide here.
This wealthy husband claimed he could do his wife’s housework just as well, if not better
This stay-at-home mom dropped out of a prestigious Ivy League college before completing her bachelor’s degree, so her husband could complete his master’s degree and have the lucrative finance job and children he dreamed of.
Do stay-at-home parents do hard work?
Her husband didn’t seem to think so, boasting that he could do her job just as well when she proudly displayed what she accomplished that day.
Does her husband have a point? This is how it happened.
This husband wanted to leave his wife at home alone during retirement
This husband was fed up with his wife wanting to stay home, not with her financial contribution to the household.
He wanted to retire to South America for seven months out of the year, leaving behind their parents, children, and young grandchildren.
Is leaving your spouse at home while you retire in the tropics okay?
This is what people have to say.
Elise Armitage is an entrepreneur and founder of What The Fab, a travel + lifestyle blog based in California. At the beginning of 2019, Elise left her corporate job at Google to chase her dreams: being an entrepreneur and helping women find fabulous in the everyday. Since then, she’s launched her SEO course Six-Figure SEO, where she teaches bloggers how to create a passive revenue stream from their website using SEO. Featured in publications like Forbes, Elle, HerMoney, and Real Simple, Elise is a firm believer that you can be of both substance and style.
