I am currently in my first relationship and both of us are working adults. I currently earn 2x of her income as I am a uni grad while she is a poly grad. While most areas are working out for us, there is one thing in particular that I feel our arguments have been centered among which is our monetary habits.
For one, I am someone who saved a very high percentage of my income while she is someone that is much more willing to spend. While she has become a lot better since dating me as she turned from a month to month kind of budget to finally having savings, there are some things that she expect me to do which I think doesn’t really make financial sense.
Some of the most common arguments is me not getting her food she wants. She wants me to grabfood to her or get her some cakes when she is unhappy.
To her, it is not a lot of money as it is just $10-$20 but as someone who has a weekly lunch budget of just $15 ($3 per day x 5 days of the week), I just feel it’s very extravagant.
I offered to pay for her meal so she don’t have to grabfood but she didn’t want to buy it on the way home. Sometimes, these little conflicts just make me feel so tense because it’s like trying to handle a ticking time bomb.
Recently, I been questioning myself what does she even provide in the relationship because it felt like financially, I have been providing for majority of the relationship.
Ever since we dated nearly a year ago, my expenses has went up by nearly double as she also like to eat at restaurants once a month and dating is just expensive in general. I just feel very stress always trying to appease her while trying to manage my budget.
She wants to get a house in a few years time but with how our expenses are going, I don’t think she can provide much financially. I just feel the relationship ended up being revolved around what she wants that the only thing I get out of it is companionship.
I talked to my colleagues about it and they said it is normal and I should be glad that she is not expecting me to send her home because my other female colleagues would expect it even when I stay 2 hours away from her (we stay at opposite ends of the island).
Is it just me or is this how a normal relationship work? Does the guy always have to do the heavy lifting in the relationship?