He Wants To Use His Bonus To Buy A New Bike, But His Girlfriend Said He Wasn’t Allowed Until He Bought Her A New Car, Even Though He’s Been Floating Their Family Financially Ever Since She Got Into Debt
This man and his girlfriend have been in a relationship for three years. Besides their mortgage and both contributing to housing-related expenses, they keep their finances separate. They’ve agreed upon this arrangement because they both have children from previous relationships, so their dynamic isn’t simple.
At the beginning of their relationship, his girlfriend recently sold the home she and her ex shared, and she purchased two horses that she immediately put in a stable, which cost her roughly $1,250 per month. Even though he suspected that his girlfriend would struggle to pay this monthly expense, he didn’t say anything because they’d just started dating.
In the end, his girlfriend only kept the horses for 15 months. She couldn’t afford them after all, and each month, she paid the stable fees from money she’d been keeping in savings. She sold her horses, unfortunately, for less than she’d purchased them for.
Overall, including the stable fees she paid for nearly a year and a half, she lost quite a lot of money, but he pointed out that it was good she no longer had to worry about the monthly stable expense.
“She had to give up work because her daughter with ASD started to refuse to go to school. So, we’ve been down to a single income (mine), and her child maintenance and child benefit,” he said.
Because of the cost of owning horses for a while, his girlfriend drained her entire savings account. Only just recently has she been able to curb her spending habits. Over the course of their relationship, she’s taken on a loan and a store credit card, and she has a ton of overdraft fees and debt.
Luckily, his girlfriend acknowledged that she needed to get her finances in order. Since he was paying all of their bills, sometimes he could hardly afford gas he needed to commute to work. He has kids of his own, and he had to cut back on the amount of money he could spend on them because he was financially supporting his girlfriend and her children.
Not long ago, his girlfriend decided to sell her car so that she could start paying off some of her debt. Then, she purchased an inexpensive car as a replacement for her old one. He’s expecting to receive a company bonus soon, and he has no idea how much it will be. It could be anywhere from $65 to several grand.
“Last night, I casually mentioned that I was thinking about using it to buy myself a new road bike. I’d sold a few bikes and a load of other hobby stuff to fund the family through Christmas,” he explained.
opolja – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
His girlfriend didn’t support this idea, telling him he couldn’t purchase a bike until he purchased her a better vehicle.
Since this discussion, he’s been annoyed. From his perspective, he’s been spending the money that he worked so hard for to fund his girlfriend’s entire life.
He can’t help but feel frustrated that he was helping her pay to keep her horses in a stable when she could never afford them in the first place.
Plus, she was irresponsible with money in other ways, too, and he had to support her because she was in so much debt.
“I’ve been floating the family financially for the last six months,” he shared.
In his view, it’s unfair for his girlfriend to expect him to buy her a new vehicle. He pointed out that due to her own financial decisions, she had no choice but to sell her vehicle in order to pay off debt, so it shouldn’t be his responsibility to buy her a better car.
What advice would you give him?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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