I am 26 and work as an interior designer for a studio in HCMC. My boyfriend is 6 years older than me and works as a construction engineer for a private company, earning over VND50 million a month before bonuses.
He is not a spendthrift; on the contrary, he is very focused on saving up, and already has his own home – a two-bedroom apartment – and the savings.
We met through a mutual friend and have been dating for over a year. Both families have already met, and we plan to get married at the end of this year.
Everything was going quite smoothly until about half a year ago. Since then, every time we go out to eat, he would usually make up an excuse for me to pay.
Sometimes he would say he has forgotten his wallet, other times he says his phone has run out of battery so he can’t make a bank transfer, and on some days he would say: “You pay first and I’ll send the money back to you later.”
But I hardly ever see the money he promises to send back.
Once, we went to a rather crowded restaurant. When it was time to pay, he just smiled sheepishly and said he forgot his wallet. I then paid, and we left. He still chatted cheerfully as usual, without saying whether he was going to pay me back or asking how much I had paid.
Every morning, before he goes to work, he asks me to buy him sticky rice to eat for breakfast, but only gives me VND100,000 to 120,000 for the whole month. This amounts to about VND5,000 a day. He never asks me how much the dish actually costs, or whether I have to chip in extra money or buy more food for him.
The same thing happens on our coffee dates. He usually says he doesn’t want anything to drink, and just sits with me. Feeling awkward that the two of us would order just one drink, I would order two, and then he says: “Let me drink this one for you.” If I order only one drink, he would try it and then drink almost all of it.
I am not a calculating person, and I don’t think men should always pay for their girlfriends. If I pay today, he can pay on another day, or we can share the costs together, and I find that completely normal. What I don’t understand is that in the early days of our relationship, he didn’t let me pay for anything.
I once told him that these small things make me unhappy. He said that, after marriage, he would give me all of his salary, but for now, he wants to save up as much as possible to prepare for our wedding and future life.
I understand that preparing for marriage requires a lot of money, but that explanation did not really wash, and so I asked him directly: “If you want to save up, I can do that with you, but why don’t you want to pay whenever we eat out?”
He said I was overthinking things.
He said once people are in love, it does not matter at all who pays; if I pay today, he will take care of other expenses. Two people who are about to get married should not argue over a few dozen or a few hundred thousand VND.
The more I listened to him, the more helpless I felt.
Both of our families are preparing for the wedding. I still love him and don’t want to give up on our relationship just because of small amounts of money.
But if we don’t agree on this before getting married, will I have to keep living with the feeling that every expense I cover is taken for granted?
What should I say to make my boyfriend understand that what I need is not for him to spend money on me, but the feeling that we both share responsibilities in this relationship?