Man makes 4x fiancée's salary; still wants her to split bills. AITA? UPDATED

"AITAH for telling my fiancé that if he expects me to contribute 50/50, we have to make some serious lifestyle changes?"

My (26F) fiancé (26M) sat me down yesterday and gave me a long talk about how he feels like I don't contribute enough to the household, particularly in the financial sense. I was a bit caught off guard by this, but was willing to hear him out, since he wasn't wrong.

He makes a lot more than I do, and we've always split bills accordingly, which ends up being about 80% him. I asked what he wanted me to pay now, and he was adamant about it being 50/50. I asked if everything was okay with his job, or if he needed to take fewer hours, and he wouldn't answer me.

I honestly wouldn't have gotten upset if there seemed like an actual reason behind it, but he just said he'd been thinking about it a lot, over and over, every time I asked what brought him to this conclusion, what was going on, and eventually he just said 'this is how it's going to be, take it or leave it.' Those exact words, in response to literally everything I said. Full shutdown. No explanations.

I told him that was fine I'll take it, and then asked if he'd made a zillow account yet, or expected me to. He looked confused, and asked why we would need a zillow account. I explained that there's no way I can afford half rent on our current place, so we'll probably have to move into a one-bedroom apartment.

He got mad and asked why I didn't have savings. I told him that I do, but I'm not paying rent out of my savings, because that's a terrible and unsustainable idea.

I also began to go over what our new food budget would be, our new entertainment budget, and that we'd probably have to sell the cars and get one less expensive one because I can't afford half of the payments on an Audi and a Land Rover.

Then I explained that date nights would probably have to be reduced too, and we could still do, like Buffalo Wild Wings or something, but I preferred Thursday nights because you get two orders of boneless wings for one. Basically, if he wants me to pay half, we're living within my means, not his anymore.

He kind of agreed to it, but since then, he's been incredibly angry. He's not saying or doing anything, but it's like he's walking around the house in this cloud of pissed-off. I sent him six zillow listings, all of which he's called uninhabitable for various reasons, some of which I think were valid, others I disagree with.

He's now saying that I'm being unfair and manipulative, and that he tried to come to me with a serious concern about our relationship and I'm making it impossible for him to talk to me, and bulldozing over him. AITA?

Info: I'm a preschool teacher, and I work 40-45 hours a week.

He does subsidize my car, but he also gave me the car as a birthday present without my prior input or knowledge.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

Nanny_Oggs writes:

Is this an ad for Zillow?

ThrowRAdownsizing OP responded:

Buffalo Wild Wings actually :P

das_whatz_up writes:

Are you really going to marry this guy?

ThrowRAdownsizing OP responded:

That's the plan.

zaritza8789 writes:

NTA and this is not really about the money. It’s the fact that he doesn’t feel protective of you- when you love someone you want the best for them, you want to take care of them. That’s not the case here. What happens if one day you have kids and you can’t work?

ThrowRAdownsizing OP responded:

I'm a preschool teacher. I do not want to have kids.

DubSam2023 wrote:

NTA. To me, it sounds like something happened with his job and he's not able to tell you yet, for whatever reasons. I would try to have another calm chat about it with him, also showing him how much you'd be able to afford long term. Don't move forward with your plans of getting married until you both agree on your finances.

ThrowRAdownsizing OP responded:

I asked about the job, and he wouldn't give me a straight answer. The frustrating part is that I honestly do not mind downsizing, and if I found out tomorrow he lost a job, I'd literally be fine selling what we have and living in a trailer together off just my income, but this feels like some weird power play instead.

l3ex_G wrote:

Nta is he trying to break up with you and he wants you to pull the plug?

Update from 5 days after the original post:

Hi everyone! This got way bigger than intended, so I figured a follow-up was owed.

So, last time I posted was Monday. Monday as a whole was spent just sorting through what I felt, and what to do next. There was a lot of silence and a lot of anger, and a LOT of reddit advice, some of which I found very insightful, some of which was less so.

Also some people think I made this up as part of a viral marketing sponsorship between buffalo wild wings, audi, and zillow, which honestly would solve the money problems if true, but alas, is not the case.

On Tuesday, after I got home from work, I sort of just walked up to him on the elliptical and explained as calmly as I could that I had questions, and if he actually wanted to marry me, he needed to be willing to answer them. I asked if he thought I was a gold digger, yes or no.

He said yes. I told him that I wasn't willing to be in a relationship where I have to prove myself by sacrificing any sort of stability, and that led to a bit of a screaming match, and eventually, a confession.

So it turns out we cannot afford anything we have right now. We are in serious credit card debt, the cars are both on the verge of being repossessed, and I did not know about any of this. He's been cutting corners on actual necessities, including psychiatric medication. That in combination with some comments from his family led him to some pretty dark places.

My fiancé had a full breakdown and apologized for calling me a gold digger, which was nice to hear, but this whole thing had me pretty shaken up. I went to stay with a friend for a little bit.

Yesterday, my fiancé and I did in fact go out to BWW and get the two for one boneless. We talked, a lot. I'm still with my fiancé for now, and I really hope we can work through all of this. We talked about how to sell the cars-- we don't particularly have a choice at this point-- and about my income, his income, and the sort of life we want to have.

If we do stay together, we'll be changing how we live a lot. We need to get out of debt, we need to get on our feet. I know some people are gonna say I'm being dumb for not immediately dropping all contact and giving up on the relationship, but I can't do that.

I can't look at the guy I love, who went off his meds to try and make a good life for me, and think he's not worth sticking around for, at least to try. I don't know what the future looks like at all anymore though, and the wedding is very postponed at the moment. Sorry this wasn't a more fun update.

Here's what people had to say to OP after the update:

Massive_Length_400 says:

Watch your credit like a hawk home slice.

LifeisRecovery says:

Yeah, please be careful. A friend's family almost lost their home because one was a sneaky spender and their debt load spiraled out of control.

Bl8675309 says:

Freeze your credit, pull all three credit reports, make sure everything looks right. That's going to suck if something comes up.

YomiKuzuki says:

While I understand that you want to make it work, there are a few things of note: It's absolutely critical to know exactly how the debt got that deep. It's not at all acceptable that he's been cutting corners on psychiatric medication. He was going to point the finger at you being in the wrong until you brought up leaving.

His choices have left you both in debt. How much of an effort is he willing to make to help you both claw out? You really need to take a hard look at this relatjonship, and how your future will look in it.

Embarrassed-Bread979 says:

So, something very similar happened to me. I took him back. He ended up just getting into more secret debt, getting another chick pregnant and maxing out a credit cards in my name. It cost me tens of thousands of dollars and almost a decade to pay off. People very rarely change for the better. I’ll never get my youth back, or my money. Please be careful.

GlitterDoomsday says:

What worries me is that OP is already speaking as if the debt is hers; no the debt isn't yours and don't get caught financing his lies and specially don't reward the way he treated you by going 'he apologized for calling me a gold digger while he was expecting me to dip on my savings to pay his secret debt, so now is all good'.

Please, please listen to all the people here that had similar situations, you don't need to kick him to the curb but at least have a bit of self love and self preservation going forward.