She Feels Guilty That Her Boyfriend’s Salary Is Nearly Ten Times What Hers Is, And He Endlessly Spoils Her With His Money
This 31-year-old woman works as a secretary for a big company, and she does various tasks such as managing a calendar for a Vice President, completing expense reports, scheduling meetings, and processing invoices.
While she makes $65,000 a year, she lives in an expensive suburban area. She honestly still lives at home with her mom and dad because of a couple of choices she made that she’s not proud of.
She started dating her 33-year-old boyfriend nine months ago, and he has a career in IT or something along those lines.
His salary is nearly ten times what hers is, and his job is completely remote. He was able to purchase a gorgeous home amid the pandemic all on his own since he makes a ton of money.
Their differences in income are causing her to feel more uneasy, as he spends so much on her, but there’s no way she can afford his tastes.
“I think he’s planning on proposing soon, and maybe I’m just overwhelmed by emotion and feelings of inadequacy, but I feel weird being financially spoiled so far and worry what it will look like later,” she explained.
“And I know that’s the most first-world problem ever, but it makes me feel weird to try and keep up.”
Let’s begin with her boyfriend’s travel schedule. He has to go on work trips for two or three days at a time every other week.
Since he travels extensively, he has points with all of the major hotels, airlines, and ride-share services.
malkovkosta – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual people
“He offers for me to travel with him as it’s usually on my remote days, and we usually extend it to the weekend or take a “light work day,” she said.
“He only has to buy my flight since meals and his travel and the hotel are expensed, but I still feel bad; it’s like $400 every other week.”
Not only is her boyfriend generous with her when it comes to travel, but he also buys her anything she wants.
A month ago, she said it would be nice to own an electric bike to help her complete errands, and he went out and got her one last week. She knows they’re hardly inexpensive.
Moving on to their dates, they go out every single weekend, and the activities they do are pretty pricey.
“We’ve done cooking classes, hot air balloon rides, sailing, fancy restaurants, football games, baseball games, concerts, horseback riding, like it’s a lot,” she said.
“And he plans it all. I couldn’t afford 1/10 of this. He bought me nice jewelry about a month in and has gotten me on this whole “capsule wardrobe” thing, which has basically been an excuse to buy me really expensive clothing and accessories, but they’re “everyday” stuff. I absolutely love it, but I feel very guilty about it. An admin should not have the wardrobe I have.”
“I want to tell him to not offer me these things or to plan more affordable adventures so that I can financially contribute to them, but I don’t want him to have to lower his standards for vacation or fun just for me.”
She comes from a middle-class background, but she admits she destroyed several chances for herself because of bad decision-making on her part.
This ultimately leads her to believe she doesn’t deserve to have anything nice in her life. Also, she feels bad that she will ever be able to afford to return these kinds of favors to her boyfriend, given their starkly different salaries.
“Do I just start turning some dates and gifts down?” she wondered.
“Or do I have a talk about wanting to do cheaper things solely because I want to be able to pay my share or at least like a quarter?”
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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