Dear Abby: Relationship finances, sorta

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: My girlfriend and I each own our homes and have about the same mortgage payment. She ends up staying with me most of the time because I live closer to where we both work.

I recently found out that she has been Airbnbing her condo a lot of the weekends when she stays with me. I feel taken advantage of even though it doesn't really affect me whether her place is empty or she's getting rent.

What is the etiquette on such an arrangement? Should I be getting a cut? I feel if I told her I wanted to stay at her place and rent out mine, she would want some of the money. -- WEEKEND ROOMIES

DEAR WEEKEND ROOMIES: There is no rule of etiquette governing whether you're entitled to some of the income she receives from renting out her place while she's visiting you. Discuss this with your entrepreneurial girlfriend and see how she feels about sharing the wealth. Her reaction will give insight into her character.

Comments

[ambyr]

I don't know that this is an age thing as much as a personal preference thing? I prefer very explicit up-front conversation about money at all stages of a relationship, because otherwise I find it's too easy for one party to begin to feel like the other one "owes" them something intangible for X, Y, or Z. And that's historically gone to icky places pretty fast, especially once you add gender into the mix. (I am reminded of this article from the 1960s, which takes a very old-fashioned approach to marital finance but with which I nonetheless agree on the basic point that preventing financial arrangements from becoming explicit is ultimately to the advantage of the person with more power, not the person with less.)

[recessional]

I find it's too easy for one party to begin to feel like the other one "owes" them something intangible for X, Y, or Z. And that's historically gone to icky places pretty fast, especially once you add gender into the mix.

This.

And even without gender, like . . . I sort of have the feeling that nobody else in this thread has actually encountered someone who did this kind of thing very cold-bloodedly and deliberately in order to make as much money off a situation as possible? And that kind of exploitation is absolutely something I've encountered.

Where it's an issue of "if I live at his house then I save gas driving to work, utility use at my house [because the lights/heat/whatever aren't being used even if they're hooked up], I probably save on grocery money, and he won't feel able to ask me to contribute to his house stuff, so that's a good [whatever amount] right there." These people have been a feature of my life, from time to time, and they absolutely do exist.

And the smart ones will never do anything that QUITE crosses the line but will never the less come out of the eventual end of the relationship having made solid amounts of money off the person they're breaking up with.

I dunno.

[kaberett]

Ennnh that is something I have come across.

And actually on re-reading I suspect that my attitude depends a lot on how accurate I feel if I told her I wanted to stay at her place and rent out mine, she would want some of the money is, and I'm finding that difficult to judge given, as you say, the idiolect problem of "getting a cut" and the lack of detail about... their actual respective financial situations.

[recessional]

Yeah. That's why my reaction is v much "insufficient data, cannot make any judgement."

Because I have ALSO encountered the kind of penny-pinching jerk who will literally count ever litre of gas they ever spend on you and hold it against you! and, like, everything in between. There can even be one of each in a relationship! And in fact I had another friend who was frigging BOTH. (Everyone else has horrible ex stories; mine were all platonic friends.) But, like.

"Trust but verify" is v much my general attitude in re money and any kind of relationship.

[nonethefewer]

They do. My ex did this to me. My current spouse literally wrote him a check to get him off my back.

[recessional]

ugh that is AWFUL. I'm sorry that happened to you.

[watersword]

This is totally offtopic, but that Guardian article is AMAZING.

"I am not a warped spinster waving the feminist flag." I'm putting "warped spinster waving the feminist flag" on my business cards.