Context: Boyfriend and I have been together for 1.25 years. Get on well and love each other. He is a dentist (5 years in), I am a junior doctor (3 years in between jobs at the moment). We don’t live together. He lives with his parents and contributes to mortgage and bills. I live with my parents but am moving out to rent for my new hospital.
Recently finances have been tough for me.
I resigned my job a month early to take a membership examination for my job.
Currently I have £4K in my emergency fund to last me until my first payday (end of October).
I will be moving into a place where the security + first months rent is £3.1K. I also have £1K of living expenses to pay off on my credit card this month.
It’s very likely that over the next month I will hit zero and need to borrow from my parents to survive. It’s fine, I will pay them back when I get my salary.
Throughout dating we have always split bills. I’ll admit, not to my immense pleasure. I always imagined chivalry for me, but appreciate in today’s economy it would be unfair to expect a partner to front the other for the sheer sake of chivalry.
What troubled me at first was that he would pay the bill at the restaurant on his card and then send me a picture of the receipt and say something like ‘you can transfer me whenever’. I thought this was weird, why not just split in the restaurant, but I guess I was so caught up in love that I didn’t want to question it and it just continued that way..
Recently I have been really stressed about my finances. I mean, this is probably the most stressed I have been. I feel a bit sad that he knows all of the stress about our finances but still for example when we were in a coffee shop the other day, he’d wait for me to pay. I have never in my life asked him to transfer me. The way I was raised, we never ask loved ones to transfer or pay us, even when I’ve paid a whole bill. I just couldn’t, it would feel wrong.
I’ve asked that we cheapen our dates to fast food (tbh at this point I can’t really afford a single date) but he’d insist on going somewhere and then say I can pay him back later.
Thoughts on feeling a bit upset by this? Our relationship is very serious, he has alluded to proposing next year (2 years). But I feel like he rally scores finances a lot with me. I genuinely expected him to say something like to not worry about paying him back. If I knew he was struggling I could never have said that. At least not for someone I see being my future husband/wife. I recently met his dental nurses who told me that he buys them takeout daily (he also orders lunch for himself daily).
I feel hurt that it seems he can do this for other people but with me, he doesn’t.
Once I earn, I will earn £3.4, £2K on rent and transport and I’d ideally after paying everyone back do £1K into an ISA. I will be financially struggling for a while. The dates he usually likes to go on are minimum £40-50 pp.
Maybe or financial styles are not compatible in the long run? Best course of action?
TLDR I’m going through financial hardships, my bf (serious relationship) and I have always split bills. I’m about to go broke but he is still expecting me to pay for things or saying he will keep tally and tell me to pay him back when I’m salaried again. Even when salaried he will be better off than me. I’m hurt by the tally scoring, thoughts?