My girlfriend is going through financial difficulties, while I come from a well-off family with a good job. I want to provide financial support to my gf, but she’s too embarrassed to rely on me or doesn’t want to be a burden to me. Instead, she borrows money from others, like during the time she has to be late at work because she was waiting for a friend to lend her money. It hurts my feelings that she can always turn to me but she chose not to, and I hate to see her struggle. What do I do if this is the case?
Tl;dr i want to financially help my struggling gf but she wont let me. I cant just let her be. What so i do?
5 comments
You leave her be and/or support her indirectly.
I understand that this sounds tough, but it’s what you need to do.
Let me explain:
Some people have trouble to accept support like that from a partner for a variety of reasons, but all boil down to them feeling like the relationship isn’t equal anymore if they would accept the money. And a romantic relationship *has* to be between equals to be healthy. Unfortunately, even if you would never ask for the money back and it would just be a gift, it still wouldn’t work for some people, as it is an *emotional* thing.
Let’s say you *lend* her money. Then she may feel like she’s stuck in the relationship, no matter how good it is, until she pays the money back. It might make her feel like she now has to justify everything she buys to you since she owes you money. She might, as a result, feel trapped and “controlled”.
Let’s say you *gift* her money. Then she may feel indebted to you and like she has to “make it up to you”. Maybe, again, like she is stuck in the relationship. Maybe scared that you would ask for the money back if you two were to ever break up. Maybe she would feel like she is depending on you – at her age, she may also feel like it would put you more into a “parent”-position than a “partner”-position (as parents have the money and pay for the kids who don’t have money).
Regardless, she may emotionally feel like a loser compared to you, like she would depend on you when she just starts her adult life away from being depending on her parents, like she will trade her independence away to being bound to you by money… A lot of difficult feelings.
And a lot of that is understandable. It’s “easier” to borrow from friends than from a partner since you usually see your friends less often than your partner, thus creating less chance for feeling horrible. On top of that, friendships can survive to some degree if they don’t have equality between the friends (some people are happy to hang out with someone who is either less or more of a “follower” than them).
So what can you do? Well, you can try to assist her in indirect ways. What that means is, for example, inviting her over to hang out at your place and cooking for her. That way, she has one less meal to pay for and since you cooked, it’s less obvious that you spent money for her than if you would invite her to restaurant. Let her stay over at your place a lot to help her save on water/electricity. Buy her small things – “Hey, I was at the supermarket and thought of you when I was at the snack isle and grabbed your favourite chips for you!”. See if you can incorporate driving her around a bit more so that she can save gas money/public transport fees. Things like that.
If she doesn’t want help, don’t help.
You accept that she has the right to decide what she is comfortable with, and she would rather keep a financial element out of your relationship. That’s her choice and it’s a reasonable one even if you wish she felt differently.
Ask if there are other ways you can support her or help make her life easier, and deal with your hurt feelings on your own.
I agree with the other commenters in that if she says no to your assistance then no means no. Constantly trying to “help” someone that clearly doesn’t want your help in that regard is only going to add stress to your relationship.
The only suggestion I might add that I haven’t seen yet is try to sit down with her and frankly discuss the matter with her in order to determine the WHY she doesn’t want your help. Because there’s many different reasons why she might feel this way and which of them is applicable can make a huge difference on whether you can in fact find a solution that helps her in some way, and it might not be a concrete, financial manner but rather just a better understanding of how to emotionally support her as she works to better her situation.
Can you help her in other ways? Like food shops?