I Want My Girlfriend To Accept My Parents’ Financial Gift as a Gift, Not A Loan
Q
Hi, looking for help with a problem that is at the intersection of love and money. I (30F) grew up with a lot of class privilege — my family has a vacation home, I went to private school, never wanted for anything. My girlfriend of 3 yrs (27F) who I want to marry one day did not, her parents were often unemployed and experienced housing insecurity, would have the lights shut off, moved around a lot, and they were also emotionally abusive. She paid for school in loans. Never learned any financial literacy or responsibility at home. Her job now pays about 60k a year (I make 3x that), and she has around 100k in debt between school loans and credit cards. She has a bad credit score, from missed and late payments. Since we started dating I’ve helped her get to a better place and she’s had no missed payments. We split our rent and bills 70 (me) / 30 (her).
My parents adore her, and have floated to me the possibility of paying off her debt for her so that she and I can have a clean slate to start our lives together. She said she is so grateful for this but doesn’t want a “hand-out” and would like to pay them back over time. To me this sort of ruins the point, which is for her to have a bit more financial freedom and stability because she wouldn’t be having to make those loan payments every month. My parents really do not need to be paid back, they have more than enough money, this is just about pride for her. It’s driving me crazy because it seems so illogical to me. I’m starting to freak out that maybe I will spend the rest of my life frustrated by her financial decisions. Am I the asshole here or is there a way to convince her to change her mind about this?
A
Summer: I can understand why her decision might be confusing to you, but I also think that it’s just that: her decision. It probably seems downright illogical for someone to turn down a literally life-changing windfall like that, but we’re not logical creatures. We’re people. There’s a very real chance that her experiences with being impoverished and living in a no-free-lunch world have shaped her views on labor and self-worth. Shaped them in ways that are different to your view.
It doesn’t make you an asshat to be a bit frustrated at her, but it would make you the asshat if you didn’t take time with her to learn her rationale and beliefs that underpin why she turned it down. That might give you the perspective on her motivations (although the choice is still hers). I just think she has very firm convictions about how money should flow in her life that are a bit counterintuitive, but we all act like that about something.
Nico: Summer’s advice is great, especially about talking with your partner about her reasons for turning down the money — or wanting to work out a repayment plan. Also, I wanted to note that while it’s one thing for you to take money from your family, it’s quite another for someone who isn’t related by blood to do so. You haven’t mentioned anything to lead me to think this is the case, but if your parents are at all controlling of you or your partner or expect to have influence over your lives and decisions, then accepting the money could feel like making an agreement to accept their influence, when your partner might much prefer to be her own person, to have her independence. It’s also possible she’s had bad experiences in the past with others paying for things for her or loaning or gifting her money. Like Summer said, talking to her about it with an open mind and without judgment will be how you learn to get to the bottom of things.
As for the idea of paying your parents back — from a financial perspective I don’t think it completely defeats the purpose. If the loans are paid off early in their entirety, that will save your partner a massive amount of interest, making the total she pays back ultimately less than it would be if she made minimum payments for the life of the loan. Being able to pay it off all at once and knock that interest away is a gift in and of itself, assuming your parents won’t want any interest on the repayments. Plus, as they’re individual people and not a bank, maybe they could work out a repayment schedule with your partner that gives her more breathing room. It’s a really generous offer and there’s a lot of benefit to be had even if she doesn’t want to accept the money as a gift, which, again, is her decision.
As for the health of the relationship long term, there’s a lot to unpack when you’re dating someone from a different financial background, and money can really tear a relationship apart. I suggest you seek out some couples counseling before getting married where you two can process your relationships to (and trauma, in your partner’s case) around money, work and finances so you can better understand each other and work together as a team. Good luck!
Riese: I think there might be a middle space here — like Nico said, the removal of interest, in and of itself, is a pretty big gift. She also has the freedom to choose the size of her monthly payments, and to miss payments if she’s struggling. It’s definitely an improvement over the current situation she’s in! Also, props to your parents for realizing their class privilege and helping someone who’s worked just as hard but earned so much less money for doing so. That’s rad.
Can a Cis Person Use She/They Pronouns?
Q
Is it wrong for a cis person to have she/they pronouns? I’m a cis woman and am comfortable being referred to with she/her or they/them pronouns. Is my understanding of pronouns being just whatever pronoun(s) you are comfortable with and/or feel like accurately refers to you correctly or are there other rules?
Is it okay for cis people to list they as one of their pronouns? It feels like logically no one group owns any pronoun, but sometimes I feel like I’m taking away space from trans and nonbinary people or being deceitful if I say I’m a she/they instead of a she/her. But I also want people to know they is also good with me!?
A
Summer: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with going by different pronouns even though you’re cisgender. There’s certainly a semantic argument about how maybe taking on non-cisgender pronouns could by definition make a person non-cisgender. But in the spirit of openness, I’m on Team Be Who You Want. Pronoun selection isn’t just for people who are strongly attached to one form of gender. It’s also for people who feel detached from gender. Lots of people go by ‘they’ precisely because they don’t feel much connection to binary genders. There are people who go by ‘it’, and want to be depersonalized.
Yeah, I think it’s perfectly fine to be who you are and take the modes of reference you want. My only caution to you is that if you broadcast pronouns that don’t match your gender presentation, then people are more likely to assume that you’re queer. But you probably know that already, so go ahead.
Nico: If “they” also feels good to you, then it’s one of your pronouns! Cis people also get to have a relationship to their genders, and it’s cool that you’re thinking about your relationship to your gender identity and considering how you can let people know how they can best relate to you. You can be cis and feel like gender is relatively unimportant to your self-perception, or feel “detached” as Summer said. You can be cis-ish. Gender is a construct and you can do whatever works for you!
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Comments
Q1: Much agreed with all the responses but just want to say more directly – my dear, your worry is valid but it is also a bit of a yellow flag to me about your level of readiness to be in a serious long-term partnership with someone from a different class status than you. I think it would very much benefit you to explore solo counseling (in addition to couple’s counseling) with a therapist or someone (perhaps the group Resource Generation is a good start?) who has done some work around class stuff AND someone who can help you think about ways your relationship to your parents might need to evolve as you consider marriage.
You don’t share super specific context about how your parents know so much about your girlfriend’s financial status – maybe y’all are just really close and you’re worried about your GF and have felt comfortable sharing – but just a quick skim through a subreddit like r/relationships or r/AITAH will tell you a LOT about how much having your parents involved in your marital finances can be a… challenging proposition if you yourself haven’t had to think about boundaries with them before. What I mean is, that level of disclosure about YOUR finances might be totally comfortable for you with them, but I could see your current GF or other future/past partners feeling… not great learning that you have had discussions with your parents about something so extremely personal to your partner’s life. It sounds a little like you’ve talked it out with your parents and because they agree with you, you’re having a hard time seeing or being more curious about GF’s perspective, and that 3-against-1 dynamic (even if it’s a subtle thing happening in your own head) is NOT what you want in a life partnership!
If your goal is to marry this person / settle down with them in a serious way, the best advice I can give is that you might need to do some self-reflection and explore ways you are still a little enmeshed with mom + dad, so you can figure out how to create a space for the family you are creating with your GF that is separate from them. Good luck.
Q2: I mostly agree with Team Do What You Want BUT I will say…if your goal is to not take space away from folks who do hold identities you don’t (like trans or non-binary folks), just be mindful of not taking space away from them!
What I mean by that is, like… where there are opportunities to lift up the perspectives of trans and non-binary people (company inclusiveness initiatives? in activist spaces when folks are looking for authoritative voices on trans issues? etc) make sure you’re doing the work to lift up those around you who do identify that way, rather than feeling like you should be speaking on behalf of everyone who also uses they/them pronouns, if that makes sense.
I like what Nico said about expectations after the financial gift. After my partner’s mom gifted me money to buy an expensive winter coat, everytime she had requests for me and my partner that I didn’t like, I felt uncomfortable declining because of the gift.
Q1, I’d probably refuse too if I was in your partner’s shoes. She would probably be more open if, let’s say, your parents bought you a house (or a downpayment) and she would just have to move in. Same financial gift but more indirect and it helps her a great deal too.
Q1 and her GF have been together for just 3 years. 100K is an insanely large gift to accept – of course your GF might be worried that it comes with strings attached, or that it’s going to come with increased scrutiny on her, or that it’s going to make her feel like a charity case, etc. She might also be worried about what happens if the two of you break up: will your parents become just another creditor she owes to? I think your GF would probably feel more comfortable with your parents’ help in things that are for both of you, like a down payment on a house, a wedding, contributions for IVF, whatever. Besides that, even if she were to suddenly become comfortable with the gift, it wouldn’t fix the underlying issue: her financial illiteracy and negative relationship with money. I took a financial literacy class recently and found it to be really helpful and a worthy investment – maybe something your parents could pay for! (Wealth Accelerator by Deeper Than Money – it was a little girlbossy but a good program.)
I agree with the person above who says your position is a bit of a yellow flag betraying a lack of curiosity abt GF’s perspective. In my experience, people who come from money sometimes demonstrate a benign entitlement to their parents’ money that is baffling to those of us without generational wealth. Like, to you, this 100K is a throwaway gift, but to your GF, 100K is a life-changing amount of money that comes tied very tightly to other people whose money puts them in a position of power over her. That dynamic and tension is going to come up more than once.
Q1 – I agree with the other advice and I’ll add my story.
I grew up pretty comfortably middle class but my husband’s family has way more money than I grew up with. They offered to pay off our mortgage for us and subtract that amount from his inheritance (!). We’d been married 20 years at that point and our mortgage payments had become a burden – between layoffs and career changes we were making a lot less than when we purchased. But selling didn’t make much sense either.
I ultimately ended up accepting their offer and I’m glad we did it but it wasn’t an easy decision for me. I had some concerns about taking a handout. And I had to have some hard discussions with my spouse and his parents to make sure we were all on the same page about what would happen if he died before they did or if we divorced or sold the condo, etc. That honestly took them aback but we all got through it. And I made sure it was all in writing. Ultimately I decided to accept their offer because I had 20 years of evidence that they respect my boundaries and don’t use their money to try to control their children and their spouses. I would have turned it down if I thought there were strings attached.
I would not have accepted such a gift from his parents after only 3 years of marriage and certainly not before we married.
Q1, I totally get the gf’s choice. When you like a dynamic you have with a partner it’s hard to throw what seems like a huge amount of money into it. It absolutely shifts the dynamic and might make her feel a certain way about herself even if the letter writer doesn’t change their view. It could poison it if she doesn’t get to set some limits and feel like she’s a responsible player in the transaction.
Q2, I think the question is more like, can we choose pronouns we are ok with or should we stick with telling people what we want them to call us. I was thinking about this too because I really enjoy when people use he/him for me when they read me as a guy, but if my colleagues chose to use he all of the time for me because I put “she/hers or he/him” in my email signature, I’d probably feel uncomfortable about it. So if you put they, make sure you’re ok with some people or maybe even all of them exclusively using they/them for you. If it gives you the gender squigs you can always change it