Hey! I recently started dating someone, and it is both of our first relationships. We have only been dating for 5 months. We both go to the same college in NY, and we recently decided to make a 3-day road trip in Early September.
The financial discussions for our upcoming trip have been a bit awkward, and we sorta decided that I will be footing the bill for the hotel, while he would cover gas and food. I felt like this was a bit unfair, as the cost of the hotel is probably ~3x what gas/food would cost us. I had brought this up and I noticed it was a bit of a trigger for him, and it was clear he wasn’t too keen on having the discussion. I don’t think this comes from malice, but more so that money discussions are always awkward, and this is both of our first relationships.
I had offered to split it so that he pays a quarter of the hotel charge, and he sort of reluctantly said yes, but mentioned he doesn’t have the money right now, so I didn’t really push further.
Both of us have different perspectives on money - he is a lot more frivolous than me in spending, while I’m pretty frugal. Even though we’re both in university, I have more disposable income than him (mostly because of my frugality).
I’m worried that I will resent him during and after the trip because of this, and I know I need to bring it up to him, but I don’t know how I should approach it. I do really want to go on the trip, and I realize that I may be too “cheap” and should let things go. At the same time, I’m feeling more and more resentful whenever he mentions how he spent money buying (non-essential) new clothes or books. I’ve been bottling it up for a bit since he’s going through a bit of a rough patch, but the date of the trip is approaching and I can’t keep my mind off things.
To clarify, my questions are:
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How do I bring it up to him? I’m worried if it feels like too much like an ultimatum, we’d have to cancel the trip.
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Should I just “suck it up”? I know in relationships things aren’t always equal. I would like to think if the roles were reversed he would do the same, but I’m not sure if he would.
I can not emphasize how much I like him. My post may have made this sound like a toxic relationship but it is anything but. It’s just one small part of an otherwise amazing relationship.
It extremely depends on how the planning happened in the first place.
If you suggested the trip, planned it all, and then only brought up him paying for half as a footnote despite the trip being your idea and you waited til after he agreed to the plans before expecting him to pay, thats not cool.
The person who “invites” the other should be, by default, in charge of expenses. If you dont want to be in charge of expenses, you need to make that clear from the start.
For example if I invite someone out to dinner with me on a date, the assumption is because I am the host, I am by default footing the bill, and if I want to split the bill I must bring that up ahead of time in some manner.
Note this is not the same as both of you vaguely deciding to go out together to a restaurant, as a group decision! IE “What do you wanna do?” “I dunno, we could go get lunch” “Yeah I could go for lunch”, this is not you being the host, this is both of you going together, so thats not the same.
Who is “hosting” the event, vs if you both happen to be going together at the same time, changes contextually the “default” assumption for who is paying.
However, it is ALSO considered proper manners to then, if you arent the host, to still return the favor by offering to pay anyways, but if they insist on paying, you accept it. The person who gets “dibs” on insisting to pay is the host because they did the inviting/selection of venue/thing.
But if you are invited out and you dont make a bit of an attempt to offer to pay your share, its still rude! You have to do the whole “I can pay for myself” “No its fine” “Are you sure?” “I insist” song and dance, because it’s how you communicate respect and consent for who pays.
So contextually it extremely matters here how the entire convo for this trip came up. Who suggested it? Who’s idea was it? Who picked venues/spots out?
If you, OP, picked the places out and came up with the idea, and you also never up front requested a 50/50 split, then yes it would be now considered rude to last minute request a 50/50 split.
Reasoning why:
If you suggest venues and whatnot that are out of the budget of the other person, but because you are the host, the assumption is you are paying so the other person will agree to go, because they think “Well Im not paying so ya I would love to be treated”
Then if you suddenly flip to expecting them to pay for themself after you already locked in the venue, they feel “trapped”. If they back out then you lose deposits or whatnot on your venues potentially, and it ruins the plans. But they also can’t afford what they thought they wouldnt need to pay for.
It’s a sudden expense they didnt account for, and that kind of fucks em over.
Whereas if you brought it up front they could have declined, or offered an alternative in their budget. By waiting until the last minute you have “cornered” them into a no-win scenario and that sucks, don’t do that.
So OP Im gonna say you have to take the L on this one, but for future cases, keep this in mind and do it the right and proper way so no one gets hurt.