It's one of those AITA things, where a man and his family invited his girlfriend on a nice vacation, but he makes a lot more than she does. Since they split all costs 50/50, it meant she took a second job and skipped some expensive meals in order to participate.
You can see the comments on the thread above in order to get a sense of how people are reacting.
As for me... The first thing I wanted to say was about what 'fairness' is.
Or rather, I heard a great analogy somewhere that described how people chose to divide a cake. And you can say 'slice it evenly so everyone gets a piece' and call that fair.
But you can also say 'the person the cake is for gets a larger slice, and everyone else splits the rest', and isn't that fair too?
Or what about 'the person who made the cake gets to decide who gets it'
Or 'the immediate family of the guest of honor each get a full slice, and the rest get smaller slices'.
Like, while I do think there's some abstract notion of 'fair', it's often not as simple as 50/50.
Hell, the Bible even had a story of a woman who gave everything she had. And it wasn't as much, numerically. But it was a far greater sacrifice than the fraction of their wealth the rich put in.
But leaving aside what is 'fair', and all the nuances the thread in the link got into over courtesy to an invited guest, or what's expected between a boyfriend and a girlfriend, or (again) the callousness and utter lack of empathy, I wanted to talk about a couple of other things.
First, the concept of a team. Yes, I was annoyed as a child at having to pick up after my brothers. 'it's not fair' (there's that word again), 'it's their mess, they should pick up after themselves'. And I won't necessarily say I was wrong, so much as that Dad had a point too..
Which is that teams (and family) aren't necessarily about everyone doing 'their fair share'. It's about the team, as a whole, getting it done. And sometimes one person can't do as much... And others pick up the slack. Who it is can change (especially if someone catches the flu, or is in the middle of finals, or something else that's temporary). Sometimes it might not be temporary at all, like with multiple sclerosis.
In that sense, focusing on 'fair' is destructive to 'family'.
My parents had a joint account. I think mostly it was all a joint account? Idk, maybe they also each had a personal account with a monthly stipend or something. For the things you want for just you. Each couple has to come up with an agreement their okay with, and money is one of the biggest things couples fight over so I would hope they're both okay with whatever they agree on.
But if you care more about 'my partner, teammate, life mate, spouse' paying 50/50 than having them around... And if you'd honestly rather eat dinner without them than help out...
Then yeah, probably for the best if you break up now.
The poster seems to think he deserves 'better', ie a girl as rich as he is. Which cue eye roll, whatever. This will sound snarky but I mean it sincerely...
He clearly values his money more than having this girl around.
Sure, they probably should have talked about things ahead of time. Or maybe she should have said something when she was skipping meals (though outsiders only see a fraction of what's going on in a relationship, so Idk what else she might have been picking up on) but at the end of the day if you want to do something and the other person can't afford to do it... There's only a couple of possibilities.
a) Don't do the thing
b) Do it without the person
c) Help out with the costs, however much you're comfortable doing. (If it's not enough to cover their financial gap then you're pretty much back at a or b)
Obviously, part of the reaction in the thread is because most of us, if we had the resources and cared about someone, would choose c.
What else are you going to do with that money anyway? And isn't life kind of lonely and sad without the friends and family you care about? As Neil Diamond said 'Money talks, but it can't sing and dance and it don't walk'.
The only reason I could think of for choosing money over a real, live, person (absence scarcity, and in this situation presuming you actually like the person)...
Scratch that. With those conditions I would choose the person 100% of the time.
And maybe I'll never be a billionaire, but I can't help thinking I'm probably doing better regardless.
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