'My BF told me to move out and meet his financial ultimatum. Did I mess up?'

"My boyfriend (30 M) told me (31 F) to move out and meet his financial ultimatum, and I secretly applied for my own apartment…did I mess up?"

My boyfriend and I have been together for about three years, and we’ve been living together for about two and a half years. He’s exceptionally good with money, having come from a privileged family with a successful real estate business. He is strict with his budgeting. His parents instilled in him excellent financial habits, which he’s carried into adulthood.

My mom was a single parent and a school teacher, so we didn’t have a lot of money but we were ok. Both of us earn a good income, exceeding $100,000. However, I’ve never been particularly good with money due to various reasons, including past financial trauma, a lack of financial literacy during my upbringing, and lifestyle creep.

My partner and I are both committed to getting married, but he has a specific requirement for us to undergo a comprehensive financial disclosure and for me to sign a pre-nuptial agreement. This includes a criminal background check, credit checks, and the need to show all our bank accounts and savings. At the time I was transparent about my debt and financial situation, and he has done the same.

Naturally, he has significantly more invested than I do and better credit. To make him feel comfortable marrying me, he has set a few financial goals for me to achieve:

Pay off all my consumer credit card debt.

Build an emergency fund that covers 3 to 6 months’ worth of expenses.

Make substantial payments towards my student loans, which amount to over $100,000.

Well, things between us haven’t been great the past couple of months. We’ve been arguing over minor things around the house. Which has triggered me to compulsively shop.

We had been arguing so much so that right before my boyfriend left for a weekend trip he suggested I talk to my job/manager to see what my options would be for me to temporarily move back to my hometown for two months so he could have some space and figure out what he wants.

He also wanted to go no contact during this time. I told him that was a lot to ask, even though my job is mostly remote as my life is where we live. According to my contract, I have to be in the same state as my job. He insisted I lie to my job and say something was going on with my mom back home and ask my manager if I could work from my home state to “take care of her” to give him space.

I did ask my job and manager, and they basically told me I would have to take FMLA to do something like that. So that wasn’t an option. When I asked him if he would honor his word and give me a couple of months to move if we decided to break up upon my return, he basically said no. He wouldn’t be willing to do that. Which shocked me because he’s usually a man of his word.

I’m not from the state where we live and have no family or friends here. So this obviously scared me, so I started looking for places to live and applied for apartments that night out of fear. I ended up getting approved for my dream apartment and toured it last week.

I really liked it and wanted to move there. I felt that this would give us some space and offer me a bit more freedom and security than I was feeling. When he got back from his weekend trip, I told him I couldn’t go back home as I had to stay in the state due to my job, and he just said that was fine and for us to just continue working on the relationship.

When I told my him I found a new apartment, he was upset. Basically saying me going out and finding an apartment was sneaky, and he doesn’t see how we are going to continue to work on things if I’m living somewhere 20 minutes away.

He also brought up how it would be harder for me to meet the financial goals we set if I had my own place as I’d be paying much more in rent/utilities. He also said that me moving out would be a major inconvenience for him as I do all the cooking in the house, grocery shopping, most of the cleaning, etc. My boyfriend can’t cook.

So he basically has been treating me like a piece of furniture/silent treatment the past two days until I made a decision on whether I was moving out or not. When I told him I wanted to stay, he asked about my progress on the financial goals, and I told him I hadn’t made much progress on anything except the emergency fund.

He has now drawn a bit of a line in the sand and said in 6 months-1 year, if I haven’t accomplished the goals we set, he’s not going to move forward with us getting married, and we might as well break up at that point. This made me nervous as he asked me during the conversation if I’d racked up any additional credit card debt. I said no, out of fear.

The truth is I have, and it’s basically tripled. I don’t know how to tell him this. He’s super perfect financially, and I’m not, and I feel like he’s super fed up with me. At this point, I don’t know what to do…

Here's what people had to say to OP:

PurposeNo9940 wrote:

"He also said that me moving out would be a major inconvenience for him as I do all the cooking in the house, grocery shopping, most of the cleaning, etc."

Why are you still with him when he has already told you he sees you as his maid!!!

When someone told you who he is as a person, believe them!

ETA: And definitely get financially literate so you can manage your own fiance.

I have a feeling that you are hoping his financial management can rub off to you, but you are putting your financial future in other people's hand. I get it about stress shopping, but you will feel so much better and less stressful when you learn to manage your own finance properly.

kacee1234 wrote:

Him wanting you to be financially responsible before you get married is perfectly reasonable. The way he went about it was overly demanding. You responding to this by tripling your debt is ridiculous.

The two of you are not in the same place in life, and the relationship sounds played out, however we know nothing about the rest of your relationship. Whatever you do with this relationship, you need to work on yourself, become financially literate, and stop blaming others for your poor spending habits.

BlueJaysfeather wrote:

Move out. 20 minutes away is too far but he wanted you to go to a whole other state? This dude doesn’t know what he wants- but it clearly isn’t you. I’m sorry.

Once you’re not stressing about his back and forth “ultimatums” and being pressured to risk your job for someone who’s proven he’ll go back on his word once it matters, I do hope you can put some of that energy into sorting out your finances. But do it without this guy.

Chrystory wrote:

You have two different issues here. The finances thing is one, and he's not necessarily wrong in wanting you to handle your debt before you get married. Lying to him about your spending habits isn't okay, and if you stay together it's going to damage his trust and undermine the stability of your relationship.

The other problem, though, is how he handled wanting you out of your shared home. He wanted you to jeopardize your employment, move out of state, and have no contact for a few months when it was beneficial to him and his desire for space.

But when you proceeded to search for and found a housing option that he could not control or destabilize at his whim, suddenly you're acting "sneaky" and a short distance away is too far. And he doesn't indicate he will miss you but rather the things you do for him. Was his lack of participation in the running of the household the thing you were arguing about before?

Ultimately it seems like you two aren't compatible, and his actions and reactions around your housing situation are red flaggy. You should definitely prioritize improving your financial literacy and eliminating your debt, but do that for yourself, away from this dude.