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Corbis Images

Corbis Images

According to a 2013 study, fights about money that occur during the early years of a relationship could mean that the couple is at greater risk for divorce. After coming across this interesting post on Reddit’s relationships message board, we can certainly see how researchers arrived at this conclusion.

The poster, who we’ll call “Aaron,” is pretty frustrated because his stay-at-home girlfriend of four years, “Lisa,” recently received a lump sum of money that she’s not trying to share. Currently, Aaron is paying all of the bills while Lisa pursues her dreams of becoming a painter.

“During the time we’ve lived together, we’ve budgeted all income as ‘ours,’” Aaron explains. “[We] split up all the money. Extra money after bills and household stuff and savings gets split 50/50, and any money she makes painting goes back to supplies. I think pursuing her art is worthwhile but think it’s relevant to confirm that it is an expensive activity that doesn’t make profit yet.”

Thanks to Lisa’s grandmother, who left her a hefty inheritance, she’s now $15,000 richer, but ole’ girl seems to feel that this money should be handled differently than the way that they’ve been handling their money. Basically, she wants to do what she wants to do with it and feels Aaron has no say in how she spends it.

“She recently inherited about $15k from her grandmother’s estate, that she was not expecting. She hadn’t realized money had been left for her,” Aaron continued. “It’s been a few weeks now since she found out about it, and she does not want to discuss it with me at all. Her stance seems to be that it’s her money and not my business.”

“My opinion is that we should treat it as any other income, and budget towards savings and vacation funds and such. And perhaps get a second car, since we share mine,” he added.

As we shared in the beginning, he’s bothered by Lisa’s seemingly questionable moves, and he’s wondering if he’s wrong for feeling this way. What are your thoughts on this situation?

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