Need advice about live-in girlfriend
Find a Conversation
| Wed, 07-06-2005 - 11:47am |
Ok, let me set the stage for you....
My gf moved in with me and my kids 13 months ago. I am still leagally married but my stbx lives in Houston but we both still own the home I am living in. We are great friends and he is supportive of my relationship.
When my gf moved in we agreed she would pay me $500.00 per month for rent, utilities etc... Because my stbx and I still own the home I did not feel it was right for her to live here with me for free when he still helps support the house and the kids ( we have 3). He sends money each month for bills etc....
She paid me on a semi regular basis ( she missed two or three months) but has not paid me since February. In addition to that, her daughter moved in here with us in Feb and we also got a family plan for our cell phones which included her daughter and my oldest. the idea was to split the bill 50/50 since it was her and her daughter and me and mine.
I never asked her for any additional money each month when her daughter moved in either.
In a nutshell, I feel like I am supporting her. She has not paid rent since Feb and has only split the phone bill with me once. I buy all the groceries and pay all the other household bills. She will pick up some stuff if we need it at wal-mart and if just her and I go out she will pay for dinner or a movie if I let her! She has bought small items for the house and recently we did some landscaping and she paid for mulch and flowers and some other small things.
We have just recently started redecorating our living room and I bought new furniture, a new area rug and some pictures. She paid for nothing!!
I am just so confused about the whole thing. If my stbx did not own this house I would not be worrying about it so much but he does and I feel like I am using him. She does contribute some, but no where near the $500 per month we agreed on.
I am afraid to say anything to her because I know how she is going to respond. She is going to feel like this is not her home and she is just some roomate paying rent. I have made the referance to this being My HOUSE in discussions and he has gotten angry. I'm sorry but I feel that way. Especially since she hasn't paid her part in so long.
Now, she does a lot around here to keep the house running. Laundry, yard work etc... but is that a fair trade??? Also, her daughter moved back in with her dad last week!
I am so confused.....I don't know what to do!!

Pages
First off, welcome to Lesbian Life lovetworead! Great handle. I am also in Houston, btw. What side of the city are you in?
As far as the live-in arrangement, your gf needs to understand that an agreement was made, plain and simple. I know how hard it may be, having to become assertive with a partner and having to deal with unpleasant reactions.
If you don't mind me asking, is this her first lesbian relationship, or has she been like this with others in the past (that you know of)?
Either way, you are going to need to approach this subject if you want to try and make the relationship work. You are not being fair to yourself or to her by bottling these feelings up just because you're afraid of how she'll react. Let her know that this is her home, but until more permanent arrangements are made about the ownership of the house (is the divorce decree final yet?) or until you and she find a place together, she cannot blow off the original agreement of $500.00 / mo and half utilities.
I hope everything works out for y'all, and please feel free to continue posting here! I love to see fellow Texans around here!
Welcome to the board! Been there done that got burnt!
No matter how much you love her, don't compromise. Get something in writing. She can't live there for free.
I let my GF live with me for free for six month's and she hardly spent anything on us. I was paying 1275.00 per month towards rent and 350 to utilities and our cell phones. She paid all our bills out of my checking account. Later I discovered she bought our christmas gifts from her, out of my checking account! We bought a home together, and I paid her credit cards off, over 5 grand so she could qualify in her name only. I was in a legal battle over my parents estate and didn't want my name on the deed until later. I also paid 5 grand for her to put down on the home, and we had to say it was a gift to get it accepted. It was no gift, I was helping us get a home for her and my children and I! Then I spent a ton of money remodeling the house, especially the full gutted out kitchen, to die for! In all a grand total of 18 grand, plus the value of the home from the improvements increased 10 grand. During this time, I lost my management job on the day my dad died, and I had sold my family home and saw no reason to move back to Ohio, so I stayed.
She started complaining about me not finding work while the house payments were still coming out of my checking account along with phones and utilities etc. for seven month's. When my retirement money was gone, and one month I could only pay 500 towards the payment, she found her self a new gf and broke up w me. Then she promised that we could continue to be home owners together. That lasted as long as it took her gf to complain that she didn't want us living there. Next I was asked to move out and given a month or two to do it. When that end came, I still had no security deposit for a new place and she still put my two children and I out on the streets. So we moved in w an old man temporarily and that's when a fire destroyed over 19 grand of the children and my possessions. See the point is, everything will snow ball on you.
You must protect yourself financially. Tell her you love her, but the agreement must be adhered to. She can't live there for free, even if she does pitch in. I know it sucks, but, unless you want her to live there for nothing, your ex is going to get more angrier. He will want to protect his children. Tell her it's causing friction between all three of you and she has/you have no choice. When my ex found out that my gf kicked us out he was livid and wanted to come down and kill her. I had to tell him no. I didn't sue, even though an attorney told me I will win a settlement to recover my money, I didn't because I still loved her too much to drag her and I through that stuff!
Good luck, have to run!
hugs
halo
Edited 7/7/2005 1:53 pm ET ET by halo_hvn
Edited 7/7/2005 1:55 pm ET ET by halo_hvn
hugs
halo
C >^. A .
Yeah Cat she was a trip!
It came out later that she was thinking about leaving me before we went for the house. So she waited until after the remodeling was complete and my bank account, to move on. ;(
Good news, saw her (the ex) last week at a concert and she was trying to be all that with a friend that I was with, who just happens to be an up and coming rock star!. My friend quickly caught onto the situation and even though she was gracious enough to converse with her, she really didn't give her the full wow great to see you treatment! That was a sweet moment for me. My biggest problem with her was that I wasn't allowed to develop friendships and since then I have surrounded myself with great friends and I'm so happy with my life right now. Shortly after the conversation, my other friend grabbed both of us and we had a group photo while my ex was off to the side being jealous. Yeah! We love that!
Soon I will get to open my own financial service office which is the business I was trying to start when I first met her. The situation for me was that I knew I would be having this business and I would be successful in the end. Now I'm within month's of my dream and guess who is not invited to the party? lol I have struggled and I'm very close to a complete financial recovery. Never again will I allow someone to have that much control over my life. The reason I gave her control was because I was in mourning over the death of my best friend my step mom, my father and my real mother and I lost my management job the day my dad passed away. The tragedy of it all seemed at the time to be overwhelming for me. I wasn't as tough emotionally as I thought I was all my life. When you lose your mom and dad, it hits you hard. There are days when I want to pick up the phone and call my step mom to tell her some great and exciting news, then it hits me in my heart, oh yeah I can't do that.
Enough self indulgence, boo hoo, lolololol Thanks for your sentiments, and yes she was very lucky that I at least did love her for real! BTW, that is a beautiful picture of you! nice
hugs
halo
hugs
halo
I was reading this post and thinking about how you don't want to hurt your girlfriends feelings.
My g/f and I have lived together for 8 years now and the whole time we just have always paid equaly except for a short time I was in between employment and disability.
We were splittlng everything down the middle, then we switched to assigning each check to pay for certain things.
We also put the same amount into a savings account each month.
I went from making the same amount as my g/f to right now making half of that so we had to regroup.
My check pays for the mortgage, car insurance and pet food with some going to misc. things and savings. Her's goes towards everything else.
I do most of the house work and one of the misc. items I pay for is our cleaning service once a week. Still I do the daily things and laundry because I am home all the time except when doing photography jobs or other misc. things...
My g/f works full time and I like for us to be free to do whatever we want when she is off work. She seems to like it that way too.
I just think it would not be fair for one of us to carry the other unless it is an extreem reason such as when I was awaiting disability which was only a couple of months.
I would sit down over coffee, not alcohol lol, and discuss the best way to work out a fair financial plan and budget for the whole household. If she feels she is not responsible for helping out while living there then I would ask her what makes her feel that way and discuss it from there. This will be a real test of your relationship as it seem that money can be a real breaking point when it comes to relationships. Ask her to consider the fact that your EXDH is paying and not even living there while having to also pay for his own place.
I think you have every right to ask her to help out financially. So, try not to feel guilty about doing what is right.
Laurie
co-cl of Lesbian Life Message Board
Email- didoangst@comcast.net
http://peppiedunbar.blogster.com/blogApp/?u=peppiedunbar&
http://homepage.mac.com/lauriedav/PhotoAlbum1.html
Thanks for sharing that (((halo)))..You sound like a very smart cookie *Smiles..
I know my ex controled my life and it was as you said hard to have friends.. Hard! Haa.. None!~ Til after towards the end when I emancipated myself..
My ~S~ is my bestest friend now and it's sad that at times she has to feel some of my insecurities
C >^. A .
Okay here I go!!!! The mother duck kicked in big time. Now you no this is the start to a relationship - If you plan to be with her for a while then what your getting now is what you need to expect!! When your divorce is over (I just got a divorce - it's been since end of March!!) and your husband is not helping you with the bills (all of them) can you pay them by yourself? Will you be able to support your three children (I also have three children 14,11 and 5 months), the house, yourself and her? If you two are in a meaningful relationship (and living together I would say you guy's are) she should be paying half (or at least her share that she said she would ).
If I had this problem I would consider her living with me as the house being part her's too. Even if your married still - even if her name is not on anything - if she is living there she need to be paying. One day that house might have to be sold (when the divorce is over or for the divorce to be over). Then you would have to start out with something else. Will you be expected to pay everything thing then? If she is living with you and you guy's are doing house changing (yard - and in side work) she should be paying half. This comforts are not only for yourself but also for her. (example - when watching t.v. does she sit on the floor or on the couch?)
It's time to have a heart to heart with her BIG time. You could take the straight tell her that she has to start to kick in the money she said she would or go the route I would take - crying and when she askes what wrong state your so worried what your do when your divorce is through. The bills will be over load on you because they are already. That you thinking about have the cells turned off because the bill money could be used for some other bill - or that you could place the extra money aside to have for after the divorce.
It's time to start to think about yourself also! Talking to her shouldn't hurt anything. If you have a problem you should talk to your finer half!!
Good luck!
LOL
Angel
I finally got up the nerve to talk to my gf about our financial arrangements. I totally lost my nerve and ended up sending her an e-mail at work. Sometimes it is just easier to write it down. I knew it would result in a face to face conversation which is what we needed to do. She ended up coming home from work 2 hours early so we could talk before she left for her night class.
Briefly, she was very apologetic and upset about the fact that she has not kept up her end of the bargain. she said she can't believe she can manage the finances of a multi-million dollar company ( she's an accountant) but can't manage her own money. She is over extended right now plain and simple!! I told her if she would have just come to me and discussed it, it would never have gotten to the point it has. I told her I felt like I was taken advantage of, my stbx was supporting her etc.... There were a lot of tears from both of us. She said she would get me my money no matter what she had to do.
I don't want our relationship to be based on money so now I am feeling guilty. WHY do I do this to myself?? I told her that and she was really great about it. She said she doesn't feel that way at all and she needs to step up and help out. I was the one who got all emotional ( which is rare for me) and she was the understanding one!!
So......we shall see what happens. I will keep you posted.
Thanks!!
Plus, you now know what the problem is and can work something out together.
I think you did the right thing!Sheila and I have to regroup and discuss finances and bidgeting all the time whenever things change financially. It is better to talk about it than stew over it. We usually make a pot of coffee and get out the calculators etc. and sit down together and work out a new budget that works for us. It ends up being fun for us because we talk about what we want to do and save for.
It is something that has to be dealt with in all relationships. It sounds like she was embarrassed to tell you that she messed up her finances and did not meant to be taking advantage of you. She is probably relieved now too. Mission accomplished. New mission: Work on a new budget and financial plan.
I sure hope the two of you can work it out. Please do keep us posted.
Laurie
Check out my new blog.
co-cl of Lesbian Life Message Board
Email- didoangst@comcast.net
http://didoangst.blogspot.com/
http://homepage.mac.com/lauriedav/PhotoAlbum1.html
Pages