AITA for refusing to change our agreement around rent and bills?

A Reddit user shared a situation with their girlfriend about splitting household expenses. Their girlfriend is considering reducing her work hours to manage her anxiety but wants the user to pay a larger share of rent and bills to accommodate this. The user refused, arguing that the current arrangement should remain as is, sparking a disagreement about fairness and support in the relationship. Read the full story below to see the details.

‘ AITA for refusing to change our agreement around rent and bills?’

My girlfriend and I live together and split the rent and bills 50/50. We earn pretty similar amounts and both work full time. My girlfriend has struggled with work anxiety in the past which caused her to have frequent periods of sickness and move jobs fairly regularly. Shes now in the job she has wanted to do for years and is happy so far. She has to also do a university course with her job which she finishes next year.

She mentioned that when she qualifies and doesn’t have to worry about university she might ask if she can go to part time and only work three days a week to try to ensure her work related anxiety doesn’t return. I asked if she’d be able to afford doing that and she mentioned that we’d need to change how the bills are split.

She said I’d need to pay a higher percentage but I refused. I said she can’t just stop full time work and expect me ot pay her bills. I mentioned if she goes to part time she will still have to pay her half of the rent and bills. She said she wouldn’t be able to afford it so I just said that she can’t afford to go to three days a week then.

She said I should be open to discuss it but I jut reiterated that the rent and bills split isn’t up for discussion just because she wants to work less. She said I was being unfair and she was doing it so she doesn’t end up off work sick anymore but I just said she can do it if she wants but she’ll still have the same bills to pay. She said I was uncaring and should want to support her. AITA for refusing to change how bills are split?

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

kurokomainu −  NTA She doesn’t want to work full-time. Work might give her stress. Doesn’t that apply to most working adults? She’s only your girlfriend and she’s already looking for you to financially subsidize her while she has all options open to her, enabled by your safety net.

Of course, you working full-time to pay for this means no such options or freedom for you — no optimizing and balancing of your life satisfaction and stress levels. In one way it’s a good thing this came up early. You get to see her mindset. I doubt it would change — only intensify.

LadyAmemyst −  So, she got a job she likes and wants but wants to work less? That doesn’t make sense. This is not a unilateral decision on her part if she’s living with someone who is affected by her choices. You guys can discuss it and see if there’s a compromise to be made…she does more chores arund the house or whatever since she’s not working but it has to be a team discussion and decision.

You don’t get to tell your partner he has to be pay more because she doesn’t want to work. I think we all appreciate mental health and self care is important, but not at the expense of another person.. NTA.

NCKALA −  NTA. What if YOU decided that YOU wanted to work and earn less and told her that you expect HER to pay more? I am sorry she has anxiety issues (truly!) but that is adulting and we do what we have to. “Work Anxiety?” is her reasoning?, heck most of us have THAT every single day of our working lives. She needs to get into more counseling or find a Sugar Daddy to support her. NTA.

edebby −  NTA. This would make some sense if you were engaged and married, and had some sort of of financial agreement. But basically, from your point of view, she is asking you to pay more so she could do more in her personal life. When in reality, you should do whatever you are able to do financially and time wise.

She could have offered to pay more once she’s done with the university to pay you back, but she just offered that you would pay up her education bills to show you “care” (although caring is bidirectional – she should show you she is caring about you too by offering to pay you back once she’s done). Something doesn’t adds up though – if she is finally in a job she likes, does she understand the consequences of going from FT to PT? in most times this is irreversible and she might lose her dream job.

Worth-Season3645 −  NTA….Where in the world did people all of a sudden decide they do not have to work full time? And expect others to cover their decision? Is she in therapy for this “work anxiety? On medication? Does she see a doctor or is this something she has come up with?”. If it is a legit medical reason, I would think she might be able to get disability.

Select-Anxiety-1557 −  NTA. Work anxiety is a BS excuse. You think anyone wants to work 8-12 hours a day just to afford the basic necessities to live? You’re going to need to decide what you’re going to do when she comes home from work in the future and announces she’s dropping to part time or even quitting and now you’re on the hook for paying for her entire existence.

Kittenn1412 −  YTA.  Not in principle of not wanting to do a percentage-based bills split, I think, but in how you handled the discussion itself. You just shut it down like a parent to a badly behaving kid, rather than actually sitting down and empathize with her concerns and making an attempt to discuss how you two could make a compromise work.

Maybe you two can reduce your overall spending a bit and she can work four days a week and take on an extra percentage of chores and that would be “fair”, whatever. But just shutting it down instead of even making an attempt to discuss it like partners is an a**hole move. Even if you sat down and talked expenses and options and rhe final conclusion was “I don’t think there’s a way we can make this work,” the fact that you’d given the concern a real talk and consideration would have been way more respectful.

FierceFemme77 −  OMG stop reposting this! This was just reposted like 2 hours ago.

polyetc −  NAH but she is misguided about how to deal with her anxiety. If her anxiety causes frequent job loss and she’s unable to work full-time for years on end, then she needs to consider if she has a disabling degree of anxiety. I have medical issues that are exacerbated by stress so I’m not going to say her anxiety is BS like some ignorant people.

But she may need to look into applying for disability, like SSDI if you’re in the US. I don’t think she’s an AH for not understanding that her anxiety is reaching a disabling level, but you aren’t responsible for covering her financially.

GraceOfTheNorth −  INFO: How is the house work split? Who cooks? Who does the washing? Who cleans the bathroom? Who does the dishes? This work should be compensated. If she’s doing more, let alone if you are eating more, then the bills should not be split 50/50. Calculate a fair amount for the housework and subtract that along with how much more of the food you eat.