How money is managed can cause serious issues in a relationship.

In this man’s case, he noticed his girlfriend expects him to pay for their trips even though the original plan was to share the cost of the travel expenses.

He’s feeling taken advantage of and wants to change that. But he’s afraid he’ll be making a mistake.

Let’s analyze the situation.

WIBTA if I don’t pay for my girlfriends share of our annual trip because she still hasn’t paid her share from the last 2?

My GF and I (40s) have been together quite a while, but we’re on different pages financially.

I make considerably more than her (but she has a healthy middle-class income), and I’m also much better at managing my money.

She has ADHD (medicated) and struggles with impulse spending.

That doesn’t mean he should (literally) pay for that.

On top of this she comes from a well-off family who have historically not been shy about floating her cash when needed.

We live together and I pay about 2/3 – 3/4 of the household expenses so I feel we’re equitable there.

Last year, we did two trips and I paid up front for them.

We agreed on what her contribution to each was going to be (less than half the cost) and I put the tickets, accommodations etc, on my card.

She agreed to pay me back when she could. To date – she’s made 1 small instalment on her share.

She seems to be conveniently letting it slide, and he is starting to notice that.

I haven’t hassled her about it because I understand her ADHD makes it hard for her to stick to budgets.

I have been mostly content to let her pay it back on her own time as she had some credit card debt she wanted to pay off (I found out last week she has not moved significantly on the CC debt).

I’ve been getting frustrated because it increasingly falls on me to pay for things that she should be contributing to.

This is becoming a pain point in their relationship.

For example she hasn’t contributed to a vet bill for our dogs in over 2 years.

If I ask, she’ll tell me she has no money for it, but seems to have enough money to order take-out for lunch most days.

We’ve talked about her spending in therapy together (finance is an ongoing subject).

Our therapist said that I’m going to have to draw a line in the sand and just say no at some point, if she won’t implement her own systems to manage her finances on her own.

But she still hasn’t changed her ways.

Last night, we were talking about me taking a flight to go visit my family (parents & sibs).

She asked where I was going to send her if I got to go for a flight.

I was kind of speechless and just tried to laugh it off and made a joke along the lines of ‘I’m still waiting on help to pay off the last trip we went on’.

She said she didn’t believe she had any debt, but would really like to go to Scotland for our next trip since we were talking about flights.

His mind is on the money.

I responded that I thought that would be great. But how much did she think she’d have saved to contribute to that trip and she said:

“Nothing, it’s gonna be sponsored by BF.”

Maybe she was joking around but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

It’s less about the money and more about the sense that she feels she shouldn’t have to contribute, that’s really bothering me.

It’s the feeling that I’m a piggy bank rather than a partner.

He had an idea.

I’m considering saying I won’t front the money for another trip somewhere until she starts honouring our existing agreements and contributing to the trip fund.

WIBTA?

She’s in the wrong. He needs to start tracking all expenses and showing physical proof to her.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this.

A reader shares their opinion.

This commenter shares their thoughts.

That was good advice.

Exactly.

Another reader chimes in.

He needs to put his foot down and set some boundaries ASAP.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.