I went into a fresh relationship with this girl I have been talking with for a month or two. We connected very well, had similar values, and enjoyed each others time. When have been a week official when a tough discussion popped up. Financial goals. At first I was ok with the discussion, but over time I felt uneasy about it, and decided to break it off.
It happened like this. Let’s call her Jan. Jan wanted to get to figuring out about life goals, which I didn’t have an issue with. Then the discussion of income, mortgage, possibility of kids, etc came up. I work a decent job, but she wanted to go back to school to make more money, which I thought was fine. However, she thought how she wanted someone close to the same salary as her or making more. I know I’m not done with making more money, and I told her that, but it almost consumed her. She said she was prone to overthinking but I felt like this was at another level. I went with my gut on this and decided that the relationship was not worth it.
I completely understand that finances will be brought up in the relationship, and am open to the conversation, but I felt like a week into the relationship was too soon. I felt like it was going way too quickly and just wanted to enjoy some time with her. So is this a red flag? Or am I just overthinking the situation?
tl;dr Talks about life goals after one week in relationship sounds like a red flag and acting too quickly.
2 comments
Different people are going to have different thresholds for this – I think that if you’re looking to push things forward and are like “dating for marriage” or something then it can make sense to accelerate when you have some of these deal breaker kinds of conversations even if you’re not pushing on the pedal more generally. It’s definitely fair for it to be a little too much to quickly for you
It’s not a red flag in general. If she knows what’s important to her and wants to talk about it up front, that’s fine, and will be a green flag for some other person who will be excited to meet a woman who’s clear and up front and has the same financial ambitions he does.
But it sounds like it was a red flag for you two specifically, that you were not compatible in this way. So the conversation did exactly what it was meant to do, exposed that incompatibility so you can each be free to find someone else who moves at the pace you do.