Hello everyone. I wanted to share something with you, maybe someone has been in a similar situation.
My gf and I have been dating for over 3 years now. Back then we were both poor asf because we were in University. But after about a year we both got jobs.
After a while we started going on trips, and one of her goals was to have a trip every month, no matter how short or long. But also to go outside of Asia to visit other continents.
Previously,we managed to go to Italy for a whole month, both of us being vaccinated, and work from there. All of that pretty much ate all of our savings that we put aside every month. Afterwards, she went on some solo trips to meet her friends in other European cities. That doesn’t bother me.
She out-earns me on a monthly basis, especially since she gets quarterly bonuses from her job, which are basically another salary. So on average, she earns twice my salary. I was raised in a very frugal manner because we were barely making it on a monthly basis, so a huge fear of mine is to need money and not have them. This makes always saving and looking for the cheapest option.
Lately, we have been to Spain for another holiday, right before our companies called us back in the office. She paid for everything because I literally had no money set aside due to a long trip we took last December. Spain was her dream and she seemed so happy about going and I also had the time of my life.
But now, she wants to keep her goal of going on a trip every month. I just got my salary and for the first time in more than a year I managed to set aside $1,500 and it makes me feel extremely safe (it’s not enough, obviously, but it’s the first step I guess). Now last evening she opened the flights app and asked me: ‘Where do you want to go next?’ And that’s when I sunk, because it made me feel like I HAD to go to one more trip and spend all the money.
For more clarity, one of my goals for life is to be able to retire at 40 years old, maybe 45 of the market doesn’t do great. So I calculated I should put aside around $1000 a month and invest them. I barely managed to put aside $200 in the past years so now I am way behind my goal.
After I told her I don’t want to go on trips with her, we had a big argument and said that this is a deal-breaker (not sure what she meant, it’s not a relationship breaker…I hope). And accused me that now that I have to spend my own money again, I don’t want to go on trips (a reference to the Spain trip which she paid for – she has a point here).
I love her very much and it makes me extremely sad and annoyed with myself that I said those things. I told her to go solo or with some of her friends, but always says that prefers to go with me (which I get, because we are very compatible from many perspectives).
But am I wrong in this situation? I’m not saying that I will never travel again, I just want to do it with a safety net behind me.