If you found out that the person you were dating was actually financially supporting a friend of theirs, would you want to keep seeing them?
This 30-year-old woman has a 32-year-old boyfriend who opened up to her not that long ago about a topic that’s been weighing on him heavily.
Her boyfriend used to live in Japan, and he befriended a woman named Kim while there. Kim’s mom sadly passed away after getting sick, and she was not close to her other family members.
Kim had serious problems with her own health and even tried to hurt herself on several occasions. Her boyfriend found Kim after an attempt, rushed her to the hospital, and saved her life.
“He has since moved back to the U.S., but he’s still sending her money every month to help pay for her medical expenses. He insists they’ve only ever been friends and says he feels personally responsible for keeping her alive because she has no one else,” she explained.
“He says she’s disabled due to her illness and isn’t able to work. He did mention she was going to start modeling, but that fell through?”
“As he was telling me all of this, I mostly felt sad for him. This situation seems to be taking a huge emotional toll on him, and I don’t think it’s healthy for him to feel solely responsible for another person’s survival.”
She does find this arrangement strange. She, of course, doesn’t personally know Kim, and there’s no way for her to actually verify the details about Kim that her boyfriend has been told.
However, she’s afraid her boyfriend is being taken advantage of by Kim. Her boyfriend is incredibly generous and kind-hearted, and she doesn’t think he’s lying to her about what he believes is happening with Kim.
Her boyfriend always sees the best in others, and she suspects that’s why he can’t see Kim’s true intentions. She doesn’t want to even say that to her boyfriend because it makes her appear rude to a woman in need.
“Right now, our finances are completely separate, so I don’t feel like it’s my place to tell him what to do with his money. But I can’t ignore the fact that if our relationship became more serious- marriage, shared finances, building a future together- I would not be comfortable with him continuing to financially support another woman indefinitely,” she added.
“I also don’t know how to bring this up without sounding jealous or insensitive. To me, this isn’t really about another woman; it’s about the emotional responsibility he’s carrying and the possibility that this could become a permanent part of our future together.”
“I feel like he’s already carrying the weight of someone else’s life on his shoulders, and that leaves very little room for us to build our own. If I ever needed to lean on him during a difficult time, I’d worry that he already has a full plate. I want a partner whose primary focus is the life we’re building together, and now I feel like I’m sharing that emotional responsibility with someone else.”
That’s what she finds the most upsetting about Kim. She knows she is probably getting ahead of herself considering the future, as she has only been with her boyfriend for five months, but Kim is going to impact her relationship with her boyfriend on a long enough timeline.
Well, her boyfriend admitted that he’s committed emotionally and financially to another girl, so that’s not great at all. I think there’s more to the story, and her boyfriend is dragging his feet on telling her.
It’s just so many levels of strange for a man to support a girl he’s not even dating. Who feels that noble and responsible for another human being? Nobody.
I don’t think it’s jumping the gun for her to ask her boyfriend what he plans on doing when he does have kids or wants to buy a home; will he still be sending Kim money? If he says yes, she has to dump him.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
