I earn three times more than her and work full time (Picture: Getty / Metro.co.uk)
Metro’s agony aunt Em Clarkson is here to solve all your problems.
This week she’s handing down sage guidance on how to navigate massive pay disparities in a relationship and what to do when it’s clear a friendship has come to an end.
Read on for this week’s reader conundrums and Em’s advice.
My partner doesn’t want to work full time and she currently only works two days a week. I earn three times more than her and work full time. What is a fair way to split the bills and chores?
Alright. So as I see it, this depends a lot – critically – on how you would like to split them. For some people who are earning considerably more than their partners, and who are comfortably able to cover the bills alone, they may want to play the role of provider in the relationship.
For parents obviously (which I’m assuming you’re not since your message didn’t mention children), the divide has to take into consideration the balance of unpaid labour (childcare, household chores, etc) vs paid labour (a salaried role) and work it out accordingly.
For many couples in this position, to have both parents working doesn’t make financial sense and sees a lot of people (mothers, normally) pushed out of the workforce, which means I’m not sure a truly ‘fair’ solution actually exists.
Even for those without kids, this will always be a complicated balancing act.
Em is on hand to answer your questions (Picture: Natasha Pszenicki)
The ‘fairest’ way for you on paper probably means you cover two thirds of the rent and leave the rest for her to cover, since your salary is so much bigger.
But I think it’s worth considering what is left over at the end of that, because if it is going to result in a huge disparity in disposable income at the end of the month, that might affect your lifestyle, or ability to do things together as a couple, and that probably won’t benefit the relationship.
If you want to be using your money to go on holidays, but she can’t afford to join you, it’s going to cause problems. If on the other hand you are happy to support both of you as long as she is helping you with the bills, then it might be alright.
You need to work out how you feel about it really because if you aren’t comfortable with the current split – if you are feeling too much pressure or that you are being taken advantage of – then you need to communicate that and let her know that you feel she should be doing more to pull her weight.
That might be by finding more work in order to bring in more money, or it might mean asking more from her in terms of household chores since she is home more and with more time.
To treat a relationship as a financial balancing act is, to my …read more
Source:: Metro
