My girlfriend( 24F) says it’s disrespectful and demeaning that I (26M) bought a $900 suit while she is struggling to pay rent.
My girlfriend and I have been together for about 8 months now. Overal our relationship has been great and we enjoy being together. We both are independent and have our own careers and jobs.
I work as an engineer and make significantly more than my girlfriend does who works as an accountant. I live in a condo by myself. My girlfriend lives with a friend of her’s in an apartment and they split rent and bills.
I always take initiative to pay for activities (like diners) we do as a couple because I’m doing better financially and I’m the man in the relationship.
I don’t mind taking the financial “burden” in our relationship. My salary allows me to enjoy luxuries in my life while still being able to save a good amount every month.
My girlfriend on the other hand spends most of her paycheck on rent because her job doesn’t really match the cost of living well. But she always manages to get around and figure it out by herself.
I respect her independence and won’t interfere with it if she doesn’t explicitly ask me. If she was every in a dire situation where she wouldn’t be able to make rent, I would gladly help her if she asked me.
My brother’s wedding is coming up and I needed a new suit. The past 2 years have been the first years I could say that I actually had a good amount of money for myself.
Before this I never really bought expensive stuff because I couldn’t afford it. Now that I can afford it, I want to be able to enjoy it. So since it was my brother’s wedding I wanted to go all out on myself for once. So I bought a $900 designer suit that I love.
When I showed my girlfriend the suit and told her the price after she asked for it she got mad at me. She says that me buying an expensive suit like this is disrespectful and demeaning towards her because I know she can’t afford luxuries like this and that she can barely make rent while I’m buying a suit that costs about as much.
I first thought that she meant that she wouldn’t be able to make rent so I offered to help her out but apparently she will be able to make it and she says that this is just a disrespectful gesture of me and that I’m not considering how she feels.
She said that I shouldn’t have bought it out of respect for her. I’m a very caring person in general but something I’ll never accept is someone telling me what I can and can’t buy with my own money, so I told her that what I buy with my money isn’t her decision.
I already pay for most things in our relationship so I don’t see why I can’t spend the rest of my money on things that I want.
This led to her starting a huge argument going back and forth. I tried o communicate with her but she kept going on about how disrespectful this was of me so I just ended up leaving.
We haven’t spoken for a day now and don’t really know how to continue from here on out.