Peter and I have been together for seven years. Two years ago we moved in together. He worked as an administrative clerk at a mid-sized company, and it went bankrupt nine months ago. He's been unemployed ever since.

Money worries in our relationship are a daily occurrence. My company has repeatedly cut hours for two years, salaries were reduced, and the holiday bonus and vacation pay were scrapped long ago.

We live in Chicago, and our rent has also gone up sharply twice. So it was inevitable that money worries in our relationship plague us. This month it has really gotten bad. We don't want to borrow from anyone, and certainly not from our parents. But the problems keep growing, and money worries in our relationship are slowly overshadowing our previously happy relationship.

Money worries in a relationship and the rent comes due

We now have three days left, and then one of us has to pay the rent. So far we don't know how we're going to manage it. It's not a trouble shared with money worries in a relationship. It's an extreme burden on each of us. But we're simply $400 short this month. By now it has become clear to us that we both need a side job, or rather my boyfriend above all needs a job again. Nothing has happened there so far, and that's how the money worries in our relationship arose.

I'll have to talk to my bank about whether I can raise my overdraft limit. I see it as the only solution right now.

Money worries in a relationship

Money worries in a relationship and hope dies last

Still, it's not a solution, and I think my partner simply has to take a job now that he doesn't love so much. Because life is just expensive:

  • Rent and utilities
  • Groceries
  • Clothing
  • A vacation would be nice
  • a new couch
  • Going out costs money
  • and much more

The situation makes me very sad. The money worries in our relationship overshadow it, and by now I can feel my feelings slowly fading. So much weighs on my shoulders, and I don't have the feeling that he carries as much of it as I do.

Maybe I'm being unfair now, because it isn't his fault, but he is incredibly picky when it comes to a new employer. He doesn't want to commute more than 30 miles and also wants a holiday bonus and vacation pay. It just doesn't work that way, and from my point of view he has to understand that. He struggles with that as an Aries. He wants to go through the wall headfirst, but sooner or later he'll have to change, because otherwise I'm gone.