My girlfriend will often get upset with me for refusing to get something at a store or say no when she asks to go to a store that’s about a half hours drive away because I’m trying to save money when I can, even if it’s on gas. While I do want to mention I do often find things on sale or even free whether it’s in the area or at a store that I do get for her or to have in the house.
I also want to preface this with the fact that I do buy maybe 90-95% of food that we get, only because I ask her to help a little since I do buy just about everything, (food or the occasional date night) all the time.
Now, as I work full time in the trades, when I’m not burnt out from working all day, I try to work on my house which has been never ending. I am fairly capable of doing most of this work myself (which seems to have become a problem lately) but it does help since I’m trying to save around $10,000 (for something way beyond my skill set) and I won’t have to pay anyone else to do the work. That said every other week or so we go to the store for tools or supplies to work on whatever this months project is, which is when I prefer to go to stores to window shop, her knowing full well I won’t be buying anything and on occasion she will actually buy something, though be upset about it.
There is a part of the house that I have finished that we do hangout and sleep in, since we are young adults (23&26) and want our alone time away from our families to relax and decompress on the weekends, hence the almost weekly food shopping that we do.
I got this house by myself around the same time we started dating (2 years ago) just out of coincidence and pay the mortgage and bills myself with no expectation of her to help pay for any of it since we’re not living together.
I have tried to have this conversation with her multiple times pointing out that I have bills, I have a mortgage and I travel for work (though I have been laid off for a few months) I do have a full time job and 2 on and off part time jobs to make money and do as much side work as I can. She lives with her parents, has a car (rarely ever drives) and part time job and rarely ever spends money so she has 2-3x more money than I have saved up for herself, which I want to mention doesn’t bother me.
We generally have a really good relationship, both of us coming from bad past relationships and rarely fight or have any arguments, but when we do I’d say 80% of the time it’s about my finances and why things aren’t getting done while also pointing out that I never spend money on her and she always has to make it a point to say, well I always have to lie to my family about your house because they think you’re house is done and you’re living here now.
I don’t want to break up with her but I just don’t know what to do anymore because nothing has been working. It’s weighing heavily on me because I don’t feel appreciated for any of the work I’m trying to accomplish all by myself and feel like I’m just being used as a pocket book for her personal adventures. What can I do to help her understand the severity of the situation more and hopefully resolve this reoccurring problem?
Apologies for the story bouncing around, hard to compress this story into a readable version.
TLDR: My girlfriend always gets upset and starts arguments because she always asks me to buy her things when I have a house that needs about $10,000 worth of work before we (assumingely) move in.