Submitted by FreedomAccording3025 t3_10p8hw8 in relationship_advice

My girlfriend (24F) and I (29M) have been dating for 2+ years and are now living together in London. I've been working for a few years now while she has just graduated, and recently received a job offer in a city 2 hours away.

Since her work requires her to be in office at least some days a week (could be anywhere from 1 day to 3 days or even the whole week), she has decided it's best that she rent an apartment in the new city. My work is also semi-remote (2-3 days in office) and we have decided that we will move to an apartment near the train station where she needs to commute to/from in London, to serve both our needs.

The expectation is that she will live in the new city for the days that she needs to be in office (but with uncertainty about how many days per week, as mentioned above), and commute back to London the other days. If there are weeks that she is busy or unwilling to, I don't mind making the commute, but I do expect that most of the time she would be doing so since our current city is MUCH bigger and all our friends are here, etc. Also, I work pretty long hours (between 11-14 hours a day), whereas her new job is expected to be 40 hours a week (8 hours a day), so realistically it will be more difficult for me to travel anywhere on weekday nights.

Because now we need to rent two places (one in each city), I proposed that we sum the rent for both places and divide the sum evenly. Likewise, for commute travel expenses, we can also divide evenly regardless of which one of us is travelling.

She disagrees and proposes that she only pays for the rent in the new city. Because the new city is significantly cheaper and because she is only staying for part of the week, she is looking for shared accommodation that ends up being only about half the cost (£800) of what a rental for a studio or 1BR costs (~£1500) in London near the train station. I think it's grossly unfair that by her proposal, I will essentially be paying twice as much rent as she would be; she counters that I could get a cheaper shared accommodation, but both of us have lived by ourselves (even before meeting each other) for much of our adult lives, and sharing is not an option I am willing to consider in my late-20.

She also says that she is carrying more of the burden of commuting, but I point out that it's much more natural for us to spend weekends in London (for reasons listed above). In any case, I did propose that we split travel costs evenly so other than the time spent travelling, monetary costs don't matter regardless of who travels.

For context, I do earn significantly more than her and this is my 3rd year working. We live together and currently split our current rent evenly (about £1000 each); she was previously living off an allowance from her parents. I pay more for bills and living expenses since I earn more. It feels to me like the status quo is exactly what I proposed, whereas her proposal drastically shifts the weight of payments to me.

I should also add that I don't take any money from my parents, whereas she often gets supplementary allowance from her parents for travels or shopping. She claims this is irrelevant because it is none of my business how her parents dote on her, but while that is true I do think it should factor into consideration when we decide the split of payments.

We've reached a bit of an impasse on the issue and would appreciate some advice.

Tl;dr, girlfriend got a job 2 hours away, and we probably need to get two apartments, one in each city. I proposed splitting the sum of the cost of both rents (we currently live together and split rent), but she proposed paying for one each (her new city is much cheaper than London where we are now so I think this is unfair).

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anna-nomally12 t1_j6iybgt wrote

I did the whole moving away from a shared space thing and let me tell you it was hell. I couldn’t get back half as much as I wanted to because, you know, life, but I also couldn’t put down any roots or form any connections because it was temporary. The mental toll of being responsible for someone else’s place that I didn’t get to use or have any say over while also being responsible for a place of my own and not having any help with was a lot- and, I mean props for offering to pay half of hers. But it seems like this proposal is more about what’s helpful for you. You aren’t going to go to her place by your own admission. And she’s going to have the entire weight of keeping things going on her shoulders- if you feel you aren’t spending enough time together it’s going to be her fault because she had work and things and didn’t feel like commuting. IF this is a temporary, for sure end date situation in the near future it might be worth fighting over. But I think your proposal is just going to add financial stress and insecurities to your relationship when they’re already in a precarious position from going long distance. This is one of those times where you need to see what your priorities really are. If having a healthy relationship is one of them, having mixed finances doesn’t make sense right now. If money is more important you can hold your ground, but as the stresses of being apart add up she’s going to look at the half of your rent she’s paying for and not even getting to enjoy and realizing she can cut her losses for someone who’s at least willing to go see her some of the time. Do you want to be right, rich, or happy? You’re getting two of the three at best.

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ChocolateChouxCream t1_j6iyl87 wrote

Don't see why you're separating so many things. Why not add both rents, bills and travelling costs and split that by percentage of your incomes? Since she works less but has to spend more time travelling, the time side of things seem more or less even already.

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FreedomAccording3025 OP t1_j6izsc7 wrote

I can see your point but I'm not sure what exactly you're suggesting in the reply? I get that of course if I didn't ask her to chip in for my rent and she paid her 800, I paid my 1500, of course she'd be happier. But is that a good thing if that's the only reason she's putting aside her unhappiness with having to commute and staying together?

It is meant to have an expiry date (only for 2 years), otherwise I agree with you that I am not a fan of LDRs. But I'm also aware that plans never really work out (few years ago I didn't even think I'd be working in the UK).

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FreedomAccording3025 OP t1_j6j0odh wrote

I think it's just because we've always done our finances with equally splitting rent, and then having imbalance by having me pay most of the bills, and more of other living expenses (eating out + groceries etc). We've never done an exact ratio split kind of thing, but it probably works out to about 60/40 overall.

I basically feel like what I'm proposing (splitting rent + travel) maintains this status quo.

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