Fights about money can end up revealing cracks in a relationship you never even knew were there.

So when one father sat down with his girlfriend to discuss combining finances and future college plans for their kids, he discovered that his partner had set aside zero savings for her daughter’s future.

And the realization quickly turned a budgeting talk into a relationship crisis.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

AITA for refusing to pay for college

I (51M) have 2 children – Katie (F17) and Mark (M15).

I am seeing a lovely lady – Alice, who has 1 child – Eliza (F17).

We met because our daughters are friends.

We have been seeing each other about 18 months and have lived together for 6 months.

They’ve always had a particular approach when it came to their finaances.

Though we currently live together, our finances are pretty separate.

Financially, I do pretty well and I make more than she does, so I pay about 80% of the “house” bills.

In addition, we both pay for our own individual expenses and for those of our children – clothes, cars, cell phones, spending money, etc.

It had been going really well, and we were talking marriage, which means combined finances.

So we started looking at what a budget might look like.

But when they started digging, they discovered they didn’t see eye-to-eye on some things.

It went pretty well, though we both had to compromise a bit on what we wanted.

Then we got to college savings.

I put a certain amount of money into Katie and Mark’s college funds each month.

But Alice wasn’t near as good at planning.

I assumed we would be doing the same for Eliza.

It turns out that Eliza does not have a college savings account.

There is no money set aside for her future education at all. I was stunned.

He reads Eliza like a book.

I know Eliza is planning on going to college.

Where to go is one of the favorite topics of conversation at the dinner table for both girls.

Eliza is not gifted athletically or academically, so there is little chance of a scholarship.

So when he presses Alice about it, she deflects.

I asked Alice what her plan was.

She replied that she didn’t have one.

I pointed out how expensive college was.

She asked me how much I had saved for Katie and Mark, so I pulled up those accounts.

Then Alice has a troubling suggestion.

She said that was plenty and that we could just divide it in three.

I said absolutely not.

I had started saving that money for each of the kids before they were even born, and it belonged to them.

She insists that this approach just isn’t fair.

She said what about treating the kids equally.

I replied that equally meant giving each of them the same amount going forward, not taking money away from two of them to give to the other.

She said what about the retirement funds.

He finds this equally nonsensical, so he pushes back.

I said no again because of both the hit we would take on taxes and what it would do to our early retirement plans.

I had worked hard to save to be able to retire early and travel.

Alice said it was unfair to Eliza not to pay for her college when I am paying for the other two.

And I agree.

However, this failure falls squarely on Alice.

But you don’t start planning on how to pay for college when the kid is 17.

It’s not Eliza’s fault, but it’s not mine either.

Alice is accusing me of not caring about Eliza.

She says that I would find a way if it was my child.

He says this was through sheer hard work and foresight, not favoritism.

I told her that I did find a way for my kids.

It was saving for their entire life, not hoping that tens of thousands of dollars would magically appear.

It went downhill from there.

There’s now a huge rift between them.

At this point, Alice and I are not speaking.

We won’t be getting married, and I seriously doubt we will be together very much longer.

I don’t think I am wrong, and neither do the people that I talk to.

However, I admit they are biased toward me.

I am coming here to get an outside perspective.

AITA?

This relationship is clearly on thin ice.

What did Reddit think?

Alice really should have planned better for her child’s future.

Financial compatibility is an integral part of any relationship.

Maybe Alice is after the wrong thing in this relationship.

Alice really isn’t being fair to her family or her partner.

With the help of smart planning, this father had set his children up for success.

At the end of the day, he refused to just hand over something his girlfriend never earned.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.