Please Settle This,
I need somebody outside my house to tell me if I am crazy, because inside my house I am starting to feel like I am.
Marcus and I have been together four years, living together for two. When we moved in, we sat at the kitchen table with a legal pad and decided everything would be 50/50. Rent, groceries, the electric bill, the streaming services, even the dog food. It felt fair. It felt grown. I was proud of us.
What I did not say out loud at that table is that Marcus makes almost three times what I make.
For a while it did not matter. Then he got promoted. Then the lease came up, and he found "the perfect place" with a gym in the building and a view of the river. Half of perfect was 61% of my paycheck. I signed anyway, because I loved the way he lit up showing me that balcony.
Here is my life now. On the fifteenth of every month, after rent and my half of everything, I have about $140 left. Marcus has a brokerage account. He just booked a guys’ trip to Miami. And last week, when I said I could not do dinner at the new sushi place, he looked at me and said, "Babe, you just have to budget better."
I cried in the car. Not because of the sushi. Because I budget like it is a sport. I clip coupons. I skipped my best friend’s bachelorette. I have not bought new work shoes in two years.
So on Sunday I brought the legal pad back out. I suggested we split the bills by income: he pays about 70%, I pay 30%. Same share of our paychecks, same amount of pain.
He got quiet. Then he said the thing I cannot stop replaying: "So I am supposed to pay more because I worked harder?"
He did not yell. He was not mean. He just looked at me like I had changed the rules in the middle of the game. And now he has been "busy" every night this week.
Am I wrong for wanting to split it by income? Or did I sign up for 50/50 and lose the right to complain?
Signed,
Broke on the Fifteenth
Letters are written by NowSettled from the disputes people search for. Names and details are made up.
