Who Pays in a Relationship?

Welcome to Love Life, I'm your host Matthew Hussey. Now here's a secret about men that most women don't realize. Men really want to feel manly around you. If you know how to make him feel like a man, he'll want to be around you day and night. So how do you do this? I'm gonna give you my five most powerful phrases for making him feel manly around you right after we get into today's topic. We have a caller on the line today. That caller is Nicole. Nicole, are you there?

I am, Matthew. Hi, how are you?

I'm wonderful. How are you? You good?

I'm good. I'm really good.

Fantastic. So what was your question, Nicole?

Well, I have a question about a dating situation I'm in right now. sort of involving money and finances and who pays for what and, you know, at what stage of the relationship, you know, you should either be more on more equal footing or and so forth. So let me give you a little bit of background. Dating this guy for about two months now. We're both in our early 40s. I'm divorced. I have four kids. He's single. He's never been married, no kids. I'm on obviously, I'm on a pretty tight budget. You know, I budget everything out and got the kids as my priority. And he makes a lot of money. and has a lot of opportunity to do whatever he wants. And a situation came up recently where he invited me to go skiing and he sort of said, well, do you have your own equipment and I'll drive us and I'll get the hotel, but I don't cover lift tickets. It's sort of a rule of mine. I don't cover the cost of lift tickets. Will you be able to do that? And I said, yeah, I'll be able to do it. That's fine. It was one day lift tickets. So I went and did that and we went and had a great time and it was fine. Situation came up again, however, just recently. He wanted to go skiing again, a little bit longer time away, two nights this time, two days skiing, and he had the rule, you're going to have to pick up those cost of lift tickets. I didn't happen to have the money at the time, so I said to him, you know what, if you ever make an exception to your rule, kind of short on funds right now, I'd love to go with you. Thank you so much for the invite, but I'm not going to be able to cover the lift ticket. So he said to me, well, I'll cover the cost of one. and still wasn't really able to do at that point, so I had to decline. And it became sort of an issue between us because he was sort of like, you're making such a big deal over the cost of one Lyft ticket. I don't understand. It's sort of rash over, you know, measly $80. And, you know, my point was, you know, to me, it's not a measly $80. It's, you know, it's, I'm not able to be as spontaneous as you. You know, I love spending time with you, but in situations like this where it's a spontaneous sort of situation and I don't have the money, Will you be able to cover it? And he was, he was, but he wasn't. So my question sort of is, is this a real red flag? Is this, I'm concerned going forward that this is going to continue to be an issue between us who, him being financially sort of sound and me really not, and the ebb and flow of my funds is a little more dicey than his. I don't want him to start resenting me and having to pick up the tab all the time. I'm not about that. I definitely am looking for more of a partnership. In reality, I'm not able to do all that he's able to do. So, I just was wondering if you had any thoughts about that. I just don't know how to really go forward with it. Because like I said, I don't want any resentment to build up. I don't want it to become an issue in the future. But it is a real issue.

Yeah, it is a real issue. The reality is, what I find to be very important and where I think already you're ahead of the game and I'm pleased to hear it, is it's really important to lay out to someone where you're at financially. When he says, you know, I want to go skiing this weekend, and you say to him, you know what, I'd love to do that. But honestly, you know, I don't have the money to be able to go and do that this weekend. You know, that sounds amazing. It sounds romantic and I'm sure we'd have an amazing time. I just can't stretch to it. I wish I could, but I can't. and you can always say, by the way, I don't mind saving up for it if you want to do it in four weeks or eight weeks or whatever. I, you know, I don't mind saving up for it because I'd love to do that with you. And always stress that, you know, always, always stress the feel-good factor of, you know, I would love to do that. That would be so much fun to do with you. But at the same time, be honest about your situation, because that allows somebody to make an informed decision. There's nothing worse than someone going away with you, assuming that you're going to pitch in and then When the bill comes for something, it's awkward 'cause you don't say anything and they go, oh, they just take it for granted that I'm gonna pay. That's never a good feeling. So you did the right thing by being upfront in the beginning. Now, the one change I want you to make is in your mindset. I don't want you to wear it as baggage. I don't want you to see it as embarrassing. This awkwardness occurs at every level. There'll be someone who your financial position is a dream to them. And they would find it hard to hang with you because of what you're able to do. So this happens at every level. It's important that you don't wear it as baggage, that you show that you're comfortable with your situation, even if you're working to improve it, that you're comfortable with your situation now and you don't feel embarrassed by it. It's just the reality of where you are. And then if he wants to entertain it and say, you know what? Screw it. I really wanna go with you. Let me pick up the thing. At that point, by the way, I still would add in, look, I love that gesture from you. I just, I never, you know, wanna just take that for granted and for you to feel rewarded because you're paying for me, because that wouldn't make me feel good. You know, I always want us to come to things on an equal footing and I'll always help where I can. You know, you have my word on that. I'll always help where I can. But, you know, I don't want you to feel you have to 'cause you really don't. And then allow him to reiterate, no, I really wanna go with you, because then he's really confirmed that this is coming from the right place, coming from a place of his guilt or his feeling of, oh, well, I guess I should. So just that little reinforcement that you're completely okay if he doesn't wanna pay, that you don't take it for granted that he's going to, and that you would always help where you could, is something that really puts people in a good mindset. Because right now, it's probably not to do with the really to do with money for him. It's to do with mindset. And it's to do with him not wanting to be taken advantage of. And it's really important that you show him that at no point will you take advantage just because-- you're not in the same situation financially. And then if at the end of the day, it's almost like I'm running through some checklists here, right? Because if after all of these boxes have been checked and you've done everything right, if he still feels that it creates friction and your lifestyles are incompatible and he doesn't want to finance you going through that as well, well, then that's okay. That also means you have your answer in the relationship, doesn't it?

Right, right.

Nicole, such a pleasure. Thank you so much for calling in.

Thank you so much, Matthew. Take care.

All right, take care. Bye-bye. So we started off today talking about the power of making a man feel manly around you. But how do you do this? It can be challenging to strike the balance so that you don't sound patronizing when you do this, which is why I've carefully crafted five perfect phrases that that you can say to any man that will make him feel like his best self around you. To download these five phrases, just go to lovelifepodcast.com/compliments.