When I confronted him about the pattern I was noticing, the conversation somehow ended with me apologizing. He told me I didn't understand what he was going through because my family and I never struggled with money. He said accounting for every dollar we spent on each other was contrary to the notion of being in love, sarcastically suggesting we record everything on a spreadsheet and never get each other gifts. He told me how stressful his financial situation was and how important it was for him to take this break from full-time employment and explore his interests before jumping back into something he didn't really want. After several conversations like this, part of me started to feel selfish, greedy, and ungenerous for making a big deal of a few bucks here and there. Yet the other part resented him for making me feel like that.
My first attempts at getting advice confused me more. A couple friends told me this was wrong because it's a guy's job to cover his dates. I didn't believe in upholding that gender role. If I wasn't on their side, I thought, maybe I was on his side after all.
At the time, I didn't know much about financial abuse—when one partner controls the other through money. According to marriage and family therapist Colleen Mullen, Psy.D., LMFT, constantly borrowing and coming up with excuses not to pay someone back is one form of financial abuse. (It can also work the other way around, when one person supports another and tries to control all their spending.) Another sign of financial abuse, according to psychotherapist Karen J. Helfrich, LCSW-C, is that someone "acts in a manipulative or punishing manner when their requests for financial assistance are denied." This can mean using "guilt, sympathy, or anger," she says.
It was these emotions more than the borrowing itself that took a toll on me. Because I trusted him, I took his criticism to heart. I wondered what was wrong with me that made me unwilling to lend him money. I flip-flopped between being mad at myself and being mad at him. I constantly felt confused and distracted. I had trouble getting things done, binge-watching Friends episodes just to repress my frustration with him. I was scared my anger would destroy our relationship. I didn't think I was allowed to be angry.
But when I opened up more about what I was going through, despite the nagging feeling that I was betraying my boyfriend by "telling" on him, my friends and family got angry for me. They validated my feeling that something wasn't right—which I'd silenced when he was my primary sounding board. They let me know it was okay to keep the money I worked hard for, even if I could afford to lend him some, because my financial boundaries were my own to choose.
I realized it wasn't even about the money. It was about my right to say "no" to him without feeling bad about myself. That's what distinguishes a healthy relationship from a financially abusive one: Whatever the arrangement is, whether that's splitting everything evenly or one person supporting the other, nobody should feel pressured into it.
