" My ex broke up with me because I did n’t have enough money to go on vacation . He told me he wanted to salve money for the future but he wanted to go somewhere pretty much every weekend . "
Time and time again, money proves to be a leading cause of divorce. But finances can cause problems long before marriage is even on the table: take thissubmissionto The Cut’s advice column, where a young woman details her boyfriend’s decision to move home to Las Vegas because the cost of living in Seattle had gotten too high — in her words, “the economy ruined [their] relationship.”
As it turns out, plenty of couples have called it quits over money-related strain: maybe dating was too expensive, one of the pair proved irresponsible with a joint bank account, or one of the typical milestones of a long-term relationship (moving in together, getting married, having kids) was out of reach financially.
We recently took to theBuzzFeed Community, plus subreddits like r/Divorce, r/Breakups, and r/relationship_advice, for some answers and anecdotes: Has money ever caused the demise of your relationship? Here are some of the most gripping accounts.
1.“My now husband got divorced after 17 years of marriage. He was deployed several times. His ex-wife never worked and controlled every aspect of their finances. Toward the end of their marriage, he opened a bank account to put $75 for personal expenses (he used to commute to another state for work) and invested money into Bitcoin. When she found out that he had invested money and that there was an account that she had no access to, she lost her mind and asked him for a divorce.”
2.“I broke up with my abusive partner as soon as I got a raise and realized I could afford my apartment alone, even if it left me with $20 to my name each week.”
" Best conclusion I ever made . "
— ammarch41
3.“I split with someone at the age of 30. We’d been together six years. I wanted to buy a house. He was happy in his part-time job. There was no growth on his part during that time at all. By the end, I was a different person. It was hard to end it as he hadn’t done anything wrong. No cheating, no major arguments, nothing you could put your finger on. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t right, and I knew it. I’m now happily married to the love of my life.”
" You only get one life story and one chance at it . Be happy . "
— u / walnutwithteeth
4.“Over the course of our relationship, she basically demanded that I financially support her. When we decided to do long distance together, I paid for all the travel, which is fine honestly. It was a struggle but I don’t blame anyone for that. When I eventually moved in with her and got a good job, she took that as an opportunity to get me to buy everything for us. Food, grocery, apartment maintenance, dates, gifts, I even paid for a trip to Mexico for us.”
5.“I didn’t divorce my husband because of his fiscal irresponsibility, but I should have. I split up our finances and such, and we limped along, but if I had it to do over again, I would have divorced him the day after we got married. I found out that he had been taking my money while he was unemployed and not paying the mortgage, and we were in foreclosure. Like, I literally found out the day after our wedding.”
— atomic number 92 / UsuallyWrite2
6.“The number one thing married couples fight about is money. I cannot IMAGINE remaining married to my husband if we didn’t agree on saving all our extra money, putting money into retirement and college funds every paycheck, never carrying credit card debt, and never ever spending more than we earn. It is too easy in today’s economy to make a financial mistake that can cause you to have problems for YEARS. Poor credit can prevent you from buying a home or a car and can even keep you out of certain jobs now. I dated a man for six years, and this was the primary reason for our lack of compatibility. I would not be living the comfortable life I am now if I had stayed with him. I am very, very glad I left.”
— atomic number 92 / Ms_WorstCaseScenario
7.“My (31F) BF (30M) broke up with me because I wouldn’t give him $1,000. My BF is a type of artist. Over a year ago, I bought him some very expensive equipment. He was supposed to be moving in with me a few months ago but decided to move several states away for an important opportunity instead. Since moving out there, he has been blowing through around $2.5K/month with no real income.”
8.“It was the breaking point for my ex in her previous relationship. She realized that his relying on her for all income was jeopardizing her future and what she wanted to do with her life.”
— u / deleted
9.“I make double what my partner makes, and I have a Ph.D. He doesn’t have the same in savings or retirement, no. But he is responsible with the money he has. My ex, on the other hand, was awful. And I felt like the struggle there only exacerbated my issues with him. Nothing was ever stable for me because he fucked our finances so hard.”
" He tangle me down . And our family . Now , my partner makes less but never cart me down . "
— uranium / One - Armed - Krycek
10.“It became apparent that we want different things in life. She’s more career-driven, enjoys the finer things in life, and is more than happy to grind away at work to achieve this (I have a lot of respect for that). I, on the other hand, care much more about the lifestyle I live outside of work (the mountain lifestyle), and I don’t want to spend my life grinding out the hours when I could just be enjoying the outdoors. As long as I make enough to live the life I want to live that’s all I need, the ‘finer things’ in life have never really done much for me.”
11.“I have a (just about) six-figure job and am also in school for my Ph.D. I have no debt, I own our shared car, and I have about 50K in savings. He makes just under half of what I make, is in an office job that he doesn’t really like, doesn’t challenge him, and has no career growth. He has no debt but NO savings. Like, AT ALL. I invest, and I have a pension fund that I contribute to every month. He has none of these things.”
" I ’ve put pressure on him to face for a honorable caper , or have propose he upgrade his schooling ( he has a arcdegree that he is not using , never has . Says he require to but never has had a job associate to it ) . He ’ll apply for one or two , not learn back , and forget about it until I nag again . I ’m at my witticism ’s last . "
— uracil / exorbitant - Bid-3771
12.“My ex was offered a job with a startup on the other side of the country throwing all kinds of perks at him, and he didn’t hesitate. We planned to get married, buy a house together, have a baby…and poof. Because if this startup doesn’t go under, as many of them do, he might get some money. He wasn’t hurting for money. He was already doing pretty damn well for himself. He wasn’t in debt. He could already buy himself whatever he wanted. It is absolutely wild to remember how he used to tell me that I was the most important person in the world to him and ‘I’m never going anywhere.’ And not even one moment of hesitation to ditch me to grab even more money. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
— u / JaxyBaxy
13.“I love my boyfriend a lot. But…he’s so bad with money. I’m a student, and he promised I could live with him until I’m done studying, basically for free. But I’ve lived with him for three months, and for two of those months, he’s been completely dependent on my savings, recklessly spending his own money. In total, I’ve lent him $2,000. Now, my savings have dried up, and I have no monthly income. I don’t see getting the money back ever, which I’m not all sour over. It is what it is. BUT, now he has gotten the idea to get a bigger and nicer apartment closer to his job that costs 2/3 of his salary. And I can’t move in with him there because it’s too far away from my school. Also, I don’t see how he will afford it.”
14.“My ex left me for a job. When I’ve tried to explain to people how I feel like my value is less than the dollar amount of his salary, they look at me like I’m crazy and don’t seem to get it. But that’s exactly how it feels. He isn’t a materialistic guy; his high cost of living in the new city eats away most of his money, so it’s not like he’s saving anything, and if you break it out by the hour, he’s probably making less than he was before. So it just doesn’t make logical sense to me.”
" Like he loved me , and I was special to him , and he claimed he was attached to me , but his Modern braggy check and all the perk that came with it were more important to him than I was . So now I ’m like , ' Well , I ’m worth less than $ 180k , I guess , ' LOL . I sympathise we ’re young and need to focus on careers , but you may do that while with a partner . I even plan to move with him , but when it come to it , he did n’t need me anymore . entirely tossed aside . "
— atomic number 92 / No - Explanation-3577
15.“Recently, my boyfriend of four years told me he is afraid of commitment because of his long and bad marriage to his ex. He’s been telling me since day one that he’ll marry me and we’ll grow old together (we were friends before we became an item). I believed him since I had no reason not to. He tells me every day I’m the best thing that ever happened to him and that he loves me very much. He even told my family we’ll get married.”
" Then he inherit a large sum of money , and now he say he change his mind about getting married . His reaction is that he is sorry for lying to me for the retiring four year and that he misled me . He even said that once he inherits money , we ’ll get marry and make our relationship functionary . Now he ’s backing out . I even told him I ’d signalize a prenup . He says it has nothing to do with money . I am so bollocks away by his decision overnight , and I ’m devastated . "
— u / dissimilar - Bug-9094
16.“I met this guy online and we chatted for a little over a month, then we had a couple dates. He really is the most amazing, sweetest guy I’ve ever met. I haven’t really dated much because it was hard to find someone that I felt comfortable being myself around, but he was. But I had to end things before it got too late, because it just would have never worked. It was too hard for me to go on dates without a car, and I felt too ashamed for him to pick me up because my place is so ugly, and it’s an almost two-hour drive between us.”
17.“My ex broke up with me because I didn’t have enough money to go on vacations. He told me he wanted to save money for the future but he wanted to go somewhere pretty much every weekend.”
— u / Paris_France2024
18.“I’ve been married for 14.5 years and together for 17. My husband is from another country, so when we were first together, we had an ‘under the table’ job. We then moved and started going through the very long and arduous process of getting a green card (and eventually citizenship), so I knew he wouldn’t be working for a while. A while turned into 12 years. We don’t have kids and he was not keeping house, cooking, cleaning or taking care of the animals, I got home from work and had to cook every night. Any time I brought up him getting a job, he made me feel like a monster. He only decided to get a job after my second VERY serious surgery.”
19.“Our marriage hasn’t been easy, and after our third anniversary, a clause in our prenup provides a financial lump sum for me in the event of a divorce. In the past three weeks, things had been going so well with us. My husband tried to get me to remove the clause, decrease the amount by 2/3, and finally push the date out a year. Our third anniversary is in three days. I felt strongly about adhering to the terms of the prenup (that was his idea).”
" So today he had me served with divorce theme … twice . The sheriff fall , and subsequently , another process server met me in my driveway and gave me the papers again . I guess he wanted to be sure I got served before the deadline .
I love him . I ’m so disappointed and angry . Being told you ’re just not deserving the monetary risk hurts . I could have correspond to alter the prenup to keep our marriage going so that part is on me , but I did n’t recall it was just to require me to deepen it . We worked firmly to reach that agreement with lawyers the right way so everything was equitable .
He always told me the worst part about have money is the idea you might recede it . I hope he and his money are happy together . Actually , I just hope he does n’t do this to anyone else . "
— u / sharkey_8421
20.“Last weekend, my boyfriend dropped on me that he had over $320K of debt. We had spent the 4th of July together, and we talked about our leases ending, moving in together, and getting engaged. I knew he had student loan debts (he did disclose this within the first few months of dating but did not say how much).”
Note : submission have been edited for distance and/or clearness .
