My boyfriend earns more than me.

When power issues occur after 5 months of dating because of money......cut your losses. (not meant to be a pun). Both men and women have used the amount of their paycheck to measure their success and also their status. Folks like that are not usually the best companions.

What are you talking about? You are literally hearing one "side of the argument"... I don't think you can argue with that. This thread is a girlfriend who is complaining about how lousy her boyfriend is, the boyfriend isn't here to give his side of the story

Relationships have these disagreements all of the time. You either deal with it by communicating with your partner; expressing your feelings and acknowledging his feelings, or you can break the relationship off.

I was reading between the lines, it seems likely to me from what she wrote that this boyfriend is feeling unappreciated. If she cares about this relationship, she is going to have to respect this feeling and see if she can figure out a way to meet both of their needs. It doesn't mean that she abandon her own feelings, but it does mean she accept his without these recriminations.

Of course, if she doesn't care enough about the relationship to work things out (or if he doesn't) then she should break off the relationship. There is nothing wrong with ending a relationship that isn't working.

But what the OP is doing is throwing around recriminations and arguing that she is right and he is wrong. Once a relationships reaches this point, it becomes toxic. Rather than learning from your experience, you start blaming someone else. This is not a good place to be.

You are buying into the OP's one-sided narrative of wrongdoing without question. I don't think you are helping her.

Siggghhhhhhh

Well sure. Relationship issues on a2k are always on sided narratives. We're working with what's given. That's all we can do without making stuff up. We can't really come up with a conclusion and then produce facts to support our conclusion.

Exactly

I promote three things in these relationship threads; good relationships are based on equality, mutual respect and communication. If you can't have these things than in my opinion the relationship isn't worth saving. This need to blame the other person accomplished nothing... this person who is a "low life scum" to one partner might make another person very happy in a great relationship.

Threads that go...

- My man is a no good scum.
- You dump the jerk girl...

Are cliche, shallow and unhelpful. We all know that men are jerks... that says absolutely nothing about how to have healthy relationships.

The purpose of dating is finding out if someone is compatible. In this case, OP found out that he wasn't on the same path as her. Who cares whether YOU think it's cliche or shallow or unhelpful. Most posters don't want "help", they came to vent. And you want to turn this into a learning experience.

Yeah, she learned he's more interested in making her feel dirt poor. It's not a good feeling.

The problem is how it was said. He could probably ask you to pay the half in other words, if he wanted to, but he used manipulation and made you feel fault! And, as you said, it's not a rarely occasion. He would pay for you, refuse your offers, and then make you remember every time he paid for you! Read some articles about manipulation. And I can suggest to break up with him. I had the same situations.

Nonsense!

This woman wants this man to pay more than half of their shared vacation. She is justifying this by saying she is but a poor social servant. I don't think the boyfriend is the one being manipulative. The manipulator is generally the person who doesn't want to pay their fair share.

You're right we made an agreement and he isn't living up to his end! I don't see the point in agreeing to something if it's not your true intention, if he did not want to pay he should have communicated that with me.

Can I just say the spa was his idea, he wanted us to spend some quality time together which was sweet of him. I didn't suggest this vacation - but I did want to spend quality time as he is very busy with work which makes spending time together regularly difficult.

I confronted him again about the money and he has taken back what he said and wants to pay his half of the spa. I'm obviously happy with this but it's made me question his thought process about us - he is not okay with forking out extra for me and clearly sees it as a loss.

I am in no way asking him to pay more than half of the shared vacation - we agreed on halving the cost but that did not happen, I paid the full cost and I did not receive his share which is why I posted this post.

I apologize. I realize I was overly harsh to you while responding to the other people on this thread. Please allow me to answer more smoothly to you.

Relationships fail. That is a part of life. The best thing to do when a relationship fails is to get ready for the next relationship; to figure out what you can change to be ready for the successful relationship to come.

Sure... It might be interesting to discuss how your soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend should change for his next relationship, but since he isn't here... that doesn't do anyone any good.

From reading your post, I just thought that communication; talking about and resolving these feelings early, might have made your relationship a better. Just an observation. I am telling you this... I would tell your soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend the same were he here. I had one relationship that made significantly more than I, and a couple of relationships that have made a lot less than I make. In each case, the more we talked about this upfront, the fewer problems there were.

If he came on here posting his side of the story, I would likely say the same thing. When a relationship ends it is never fun and there are always hurt feelings. Getting a bunch of strangers to agree that the other person is a "lowlife scum" doesn't seem productive.

If the relationship is over (and it sure sounds like it is) then end it well. Say goodbye and wish each other well, there is no point to throwing mud. Hopefully you had at least some fun together.

(Sorry, you got got up in the gender politics that happens around here, there is a group of members that starts with the view that men are low-life scum. Admittedly that sets me off.)

I'm glad he decided to honor his word and I think you should use the alternating date night idea I proposed earlier. My son and I did a long, cross country trip to get him and his belongings to grad school. I paid for much of it, but I told him he would pay for one dinner out. When I told him it was his time to pay, he said "you are really going to make a poor college student pay?" I said "yes, even in a situation where the incomes are unequal, it means something for you to pay sometimes". I bought twenty meals, gas, hotel, etc and he only paid once, but adults sometimes pick up the tab with each other. As long as I was the only one paying, I was the parent and he was the child. If you want the dynamic to feel somewhat equal, you need to pay occasionally. Both of you know the income disparity so you pay when you invite him out for pizza and he pays when he invites you out to a sit down restaurant, but it feels more equal that way.

THIS is why I ALWAYS paid my own way for things, and if I couldn't pay, I didn't go. I avoided all of this "I'm-a-nice-guy-until-I-want-to-feel-superior" crap.

That's good Medusax, but have you ever spent money to do something nice for someone else?

(... such social avoidance should go both ways.)

That is a very stupid question...showing that you know NOTHING about me.

I think it is a good question... If you refuse to let people spend money on you, but yet you are willing to spend money on other people it is a logical inconsistency. I have been on both sides of this situation.

A woman I dated several years back paid for premium seats for Alvin Ailey. They must have cost several hundreds of dollars each (I couldn't afford that at the time) and they were so close to the dancers that I could feel their sweat (which actually was an awesome once in a lifetime experience). She wanted to go and she wanted my company. I wanted to be with her.

I graciously said "yes"... if I had said no, it would have hurt her feelings and she would have felt that meant I didn't value our relationship; people in relationships do nice things for each other.

I have been on the other side of this too where I have spent money to do something special for someone else. When I pay for a trip that my girlfriend really wants to go on, I am doing it because I care for her and want to give her something special. I would have been hurt if my girlfriend said "no" because she she didn't trust our relationship. When she let's me do nice things for her, it makes me feel trusted and I am happy to be able to share with her.

I have spent money to help charities, and friends who have been with me through thick and thin when they fall on hard times. Except for my husband, which is totally different because the money rules then change, no, I did not spend money on men and dates. That way, nothing is owed or lost. Going to bars for me is a rarity, but when I do, I do not accept drinks, either. I look at it this way: I am not interested, nor am I in their life in any important way (wife/girlfriend/sister,etc.), and they owe me nothing. If I can't pay for a drink, I simply don't go there. It is just that simple.

You are married? Well that certainly changes things. I am glad that you don't let other men buy you drinks (not something I would recommend if you don't want your husband to get justifiably upset).

If you have a good marriage, I am sure you understand the principle... accepting nice things from your husband is as important as doing nice things for your husband. Each of these strengthens the marriage.

The same principle applies for us singles. Doing nice things for each other is important for building a meaningful relationship. If there is a difference in incomes this will take different forms. You take your relationship as it is and you do what you need to do to make it work.

It seems like you were suggesting that a single person in a dating relationship should never allow their partner to do something nice for them that they couldn't do for themselves. If this was your rule... I am telling you from personal experience as a single person that it is a bad rule. Giving graciously and receiving graciously is part of any meaningful intimate relationship.

My husband is deceased. But, yes, as single, before and after (obviously) that was/is my rule