Woman Has 'Zero Desire' To Split Bills Evenly With Her Partner
She wanted a 70-30 split instead of 50-50.
Lietta Oraz / Shutterstock Money is a challenging but inevitable part of all relationships.
Deciding how to pay for things and how exactly to split the cost of living can cause conflict and hurt feelings. One woman is learning this the hard way.
A woman doesn’t want to split the cost of essentials with her partner.
An anonymous woman who posted on the British forum Mumsnet asked if she was being unreasonable for not wanting to split bills 50-50 with her partner. In all other respects, the relationship is “great,” she insisted.
“Breaking up is not an option,” she told potential advice-givers. “I really do love him.”
Photo: Jacob Lund / Canva Pro
She explained that she and her partner are in a unique cultural situation in which “typically husbands pay for essential costs, such as food, bills, and essential clothing.”
“[My partner] was raised in this culture but I was not born into it,” she shared. “I entered into [it] later on in my life in my very early 20s.”
Unfortunately, the woman and her partner are not on the same page when it comes to this matter. “He doesn’t want to do this and I did not realize this when I entered into the relationship as we did have a lot of conversations around how we would like a relationship and marriage to be, but this part seems to have caused confusion between us,” she stated.
The woman said this has made her feel “sad and confused,” and unsure of where to go from here.
Her reasoning for not splitting the bills evenly was interesting.
Instead of a 50-50 split, or even splitting costs in proportion to earnings, she had another idea for how the situation could be handled. “It is my strong preference that [my partner] will pay a little more than me and that we split things 70-30, or that he perhaps pays the bills and food costs and everything else we split,” she explained.
It’s not just her and her partner’s culture that made her feel this way. The woman argued that simply being a woman she should not have to pay as much.
“Given that it is so much more expensive to be a woman (‘the pink tax’) and the gender pay gap, and the fact that at present I earn considerably less than him (although in the future that is set to change), I feel it is only fair,” she wrote.
Additionally, she felt she would be giving up so much to have children at some point. She pointed out the “untold sacrifices” she will be forced to make “to have children with him, in terms of my body, my pension, my career stagnation, my mental health, etc.”
Experts stated that bills should be split according to income.
CNBC interviewed certified financial planner and CEO of Curtis Financial Planning, Cathy Curtis. She stated, “I advise young couples to seriously consider splitting the household bills according to income and then revisiting it every year as incomes change.”
“For example, if your salary represents one-third of your household income, you might be responsible for a third of the rent,” CNBC said.
As everyone is in a different place financially, it’s important to consider what is right for you and your relationship.
Fellow Mumsnet users didn't agree with the woman’s 70-30 plan and instead said that expenses should be split according to income. As one person stated, “I think it depends on what your current earning ratio is to each other.”
While the woman who asked for advice may not be happy to hear it, it’s important that both partners carry the load in a relationship. This doesn’t necessarily mean splitting everything 50-50, but splitting according to resources and ability.
In this case, it only seems right that she and her partner split expenses by their incomes.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.