To feel hurt that DP is going on a couples holiday without me because I can't afford it?

[LeafyCulprit]

Been together 5.5 years now. Lived together for 3.5 of those. Relationship really good in all areas (That is the truth, honest) and we are very happy the majority of the time.

So as not to drip feed, DP is a high earner, takes home a v good wage, earns 3 x my salary and (for some reason) has disclosed to me that he has £80,000 in savings sitting in the bank. (I knew he had a fair amount of savings, but not that much)

Anyway, each year our group of 4 couples tend to holiday together. (They are all high earners really) I've never not been able to afford it before and so we have always gone.

There was a message from the 'organiser' of our group on the group whatsapp chat a few weeks ago, wanting to book a pretty expensive holiday together in February. Everyone agreed, I looked at it and just know I'm not going to be able to afford it. I'm really struggling with money at the moment and have a lot to pay out for on the next few months, then we'll have Christmas etc.

I hadn't had a chance to speak to DP properly about it but did say, out loud when the text came through that I wouldn't be able to afford to go. He didn't say anything.

He's just informed me that they're 'booking the holiday next week' and he'll be going without me seeing as I can't afford it.

AIBU to feel hurt? I feel like after 5.5 years we should be a partnership and I know 100% that if I had £80,000 in the bank in savings, I would pay for my partner to go on a £1,200 holiday, even if they paid me back in instalments (which I wouldn't want)

I just feel embarrassed as everyone else is going and I know that's life and you can't expect to be able to do everything, but if it was the other way around, I'd just sit this one out of pay for him to go if I could afford it, rather than spend a week away with 3 other loved up couples on my own.

I know this is going to come across as grabby and I promise I'm not, I pay my equal share for all household expenses and bills. For me it's just about kindness

That's ok bring. I did almost go....waaaayyyta minute...mine used violence to get me to sign a waiver...but then I figured you meant the OP

I was a very brainwashed person back then. Can't believe it was me sometimes

Good grief. Please read everyone's responses again. Slowly.

You want to pressure him in to marrying you?

He should want to. He doesn't.

If my dh couldn't afford a holiday I'd pay for lots of different reasons. I'd rather he was there because I actually like him, I'd feel guilty, I'd know everyone else would think I'm a cunt.

Read CauliflowerSqueeze's post of 12:11. She spells it out to you with cold precision. You're being taken for a mug, OP. If you rented somewhere alone you wouldn't be paying for a cleaner to clear up his shit, or feeding his face. I imagine you'd be better off.

What @IHateUncleJamie resonates strongly with me. I'm in the same situation, five years of being too disabled to work. Ask yourself honestly @LeafyCulprit, what would your 'D'P do in that situation? This was never in our/my future plans, but my DH has automatically, unquestioningly stepped up to care for me and bear the financial hit.

Your partner absolutely wouldn't do the same, and that is so sad.

"Or you could live in a 2 bedrooms house with a partner who respected you, pays half of that, and both have saving and spending money for great holidays together"

This with knobs on!!

He's selfish, mean, lazy, sexist, holds grudges... I wouldn't even be friends with a man like this!

Love is... Not needing to keep score (meanness comes in different forms, my ex was generous financially but kept tally on apologies)

Also a few people saying 'what if you got sick?'

I'm thinking 'what if HE got sick?!'

I bet you ANYTHING he'd expect you to help him out.

Exactly, Wombling ❤️

I think OP that you need to face facts (as hard as it is):

• if he wanted to marry you he'd have asked by now
• even if he wanted to pay for everything and take you on the holiday as well when you talk to him, I still wouldn't want to take the relationship further because the fundamentals are that:

• you should be grateful - that's the long and the short of it. He's superior to you because of his earnings, he's superior to you because of his barn, he's superior to you in the terms of he feels he has (and he does have) superior power over you which he uses constantly to keep you compliant and where he wants you.

He lauds that power over you and repeatedly shows you that you're not very important to him - in any of the ways that actually matter. This holiday thing and the owed £150 is not the issue - it's his fundamental view of your relationship - which is not based on love and caring and taking care, it's completely unequal and I cannot imagine (I'm so sorry) that he loves you. Not properly in the way you deserve. He loves himself and his needs both emotional (if he has any emotions) and financial and has aligned everything so that if (or when) you split, everything will be rosy for him, and you'll have nowhere to live, no right to anything (or very little).

This issue with the holiday is new yes, but he's already shown you re the cleaning and the go walking that this is how his thinking works - he won't contribute even when it's something that should be jointly or to some proportion, shared. He just doesn't seem invested in an actual relationship that has all the things that so many posters have referred to - which is love and fairness and if they earn more they have no problem at all the appropriate fundamental levels, of just paying for their partner. Which is how it should be.

*dog not go

The fact he is willing to go on holiday without you when he knows how you feel about it is a massive red flag, right there.

Bringing up the £150 from last year? Seriously?

This was the icing on the cake for me, too - I thought, "Bloody hell! He's keeping a mental tally of every penny,"

OP - you really need to re-evaluate your life and what you want from it.

He may or may not marry you, but either way you will remain a second-class citizen in your own home.

You may thin you love him, but I think that you are in thrall rather than in love. You are used yo him, you have invested emotion, time and money in him, and you feel that you are throwing that all away.

You aren't. If you left you would be doing four things;

1 - cutting your losses (in all areas)
2 - benefitting from a very hard lesson - but one that should stay with you for the rest of your life
3 - re-gaining your self-respect
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY
4 - opening your life out so that something and someone WONDERFUL has a chance to happen to you

As long as you are this awful man's body-slave, you are effectively in a pit that no-one can reach into to pull you out.

I promise you - if you leave now, you will look back in a year and not be able to believe how gullible and naive and trusting you were. You are not stupid, nobody will think you're been an idiot if you get out, and they won't throw it in your face - it will not be a humiliation to admit you made a mistake.

I have made similar mistakes, and I bet almost everybody on this forum has, at some point in their life. What WOULD be stupid would be to stay there, and one day - when you are pregnant and he doesn't't want to be a father, or when you are starting to lose your looks and he thinks he can do better, or when he meets someone with a similar income to himself but no self-esteem that he feels he can profit from (and the day WILL come) - one day, he will turf you out and you will have no home, no money, no legal rights and a much less rosy future than you would have if you re-think your life now.

Uugh. He sounds VILE. I think I'd be tempted to take out a life insurance policy on him, and then install a trip wire at the top of the stairs. Just kidding. not really

LTB. I'm sorry

I think we are wasting our breath here as the op will stay anyway
I own my house and my husband moved in with me. I have never pointed out that he is saving by not having rent or a mortgage to pay. That's because we are a couple and we split things fairly and our savings are ours.

Hope you're ok, OP. He doesn't sound very nice but it can't be easy for you to hear it from so many people.

I won't repeat what all the others have said but I will say this: IF you leave him, I doubt he'd care.

Think on.

If I was in dire need and really, really needed the money for something important (not a luxury like a holiday) I'm almost 100% certain he'd lend it to me

I'd give you money in those circumstance

Please don't stay with him, you are far too good for him. When I moved in with my now DH years ago he owned his house (which was far nicer than the one bedroom flat I rented and he never ever threw that back at me). I asked to contribute and he said no as he was paying the bills anyway so we agreed I paid for the groceries. What he did suggest was that I set up a savings account in my name and save what I would previously have paid in rent into that. If our relationship went well it would mean we would have a nice pot of savings to go towards buying a joint house and if it went wrong I would have savings to easily move out and not be in a vunerable position. DH has always earned more than me, around 6 times more, and he has always been quietly generous without ever ever bringing that up. I have always paid as much as I can towards holidays and meals out but he has always paid the big ticket things without any issue or any conversation as we are a team, and we always have been. If you aren't a team after 5.5 years you never will be. He is treating you like a girlfriend of 5.5 weeks, not a life partner.

I dated pricks like your DP, I suspect most of us on here have, there are better men out there. Go find one and leave this one to his selfish ways.

Being realistic, no one can expect the OP to up and leave just because a few people on a message board tell her to.

I do think though it's actually good to hear it from so many people, as it validates her thoughts and proves she isn't overreacting. If nothing else OP, I hope you re-evaluate your place in his hierarchy, and do some serious talking about why he thinks you have to be grateful for everything. You are a grown woman who can easily house, feed and support yourself if you wish to. Don't let him tell you otherwise.

Wow. Well op, I have a feeling you're going to stay with him. REALLY really hope I'm wrong though.
So, if you left his beautiful barn conversion (which as others have pointed out he wouldn't have if his grandmother hadn't left him money after she passed away), he could then pay for every bloody thing out of his moth infested pocket.
And you, could get a sweet 1 bed flat, no sky, no cleaner, no dog walker expenses and get some much needed self esteem. And at some point, when you're ready a guy who is a million times better than the one you're with now. I was with a man who had a lot of money, very nice place, 3 (3!!!) swanky cars. I started dating him not because of any of the above, but because we used to have the best talks ever really connected. I thought he was great and then, when the relationship progressed he turned out to be so different. He was the most selfish man I've ever met, in many ways. Won't bore you with all the details here, (though he was totally rubbish (selfish again!) in bed - oops did I just say that?!) but suffice to say I ended things, am now living solo, in a 1 bed place that I'm now doing up. And as a result I'm now a million times happier. You can be too. xx

Couldn't agree more WomblingThree xx

"I never begrudge paying what I do as the way I see it, for £800 a month I get to live in a beautiful barn conversion in the middle of the countryside. He has pointed out many times that I would be paying a lot more than that to rent a small 2 bedroom house to myself etc and he's right."

HE HAS POINTED OUT MANY TIMES.

Oh, that phrase is so multi-layered. He wants you to feel grateful. He reinforces that you should be grateful by repeating the message over and over. And it's not just gratitude he expects, but to reinforce that without him, you'd only afford a small two-bed house, and by inference, that's all you're WORTH.

And then he brings up you owe him £150 from last year, when you're sure you gave him your half ASAP? So he keeps track of what he spends, and what he thinks you OWE him. Plus housework is your responsibility, either to do or to pay for? What a prince!

This is not a partnership. Don't wait until you are 30, get out now.

From nomoresmileyfaces 's post:

If you aren't a team after 5.5 years you never will be.

^
This. x1000

Have you managed to have a chat with him yet OP?