How to ask your girlfriend to pay her share of the rent when she moves in?

Question

I am on the cusp of moving to a new part of the country (1000km from my current location) and start a new job. I have just signed a lease to an apartment (that I am able to pay by myself if need be) and have suggested to my girlfriend to move in with me.

She will be unemployed as we are both moving to this new city, but assures me that she will try and find work as soon as we move. I am not convinced that she will try at all, as she hasn't shown any initiative yet for job-searching, and is making excuses to why she cannot start. How do I tell her that if she doesn't get a job in a reasonable amount of time, or at least show me that she is trying to get a job so that she can pay half of the rent; then I will have to ask her to move somewhere else. I don't expect her to immediately start paying her share from day 1, but I do think that she at least needs to be making steps towards getting financially stable with high priority so that all responsibilities are shared equally.

My attempt was essentially asking "When we move, how long of job hunting do you think is a reasonable time frame for you to get a job before you decide to move back"

Her response was "I am shocked that you would kick me out at all, I haven't applied at all yet because ABC123XYZ, I am hurt that you would give me this ultimatum."

Answer 1

There is possibly a bigger issue here. If the question is literally "How to ask girlfriend to pay rent..", then you've almost, already, done that.

A more diplomatic approach could be just starting a conversation with "So, how are we going to handle rent?". Depending on her financial status, it might actually be unfair to expect a 50/50 share on rent, but she could pay a smaller share, or that she pay for utilities, food or some other things. Depending on her financial status, of course.

But if she is making excuses, that you don't consider valid, there is a relationship issue here; How is that going to continue? Do you think she is capable of improving?

If you do not trust her at all, those are things that you might consider much more important to get answered.

And you may have to take a risk here. Ultimately, at some point, you will have a history of behavior from her. You may already have. If so, that's important information for you to consider. But if you have no indication of whether you can trust her to truly try, you have to, at some point, consider talking to her about it or accept her explanations that she is doing her best.

Talking to her about it, however, does run the risk that she will lose trust in you.

Answer 2

The key word in your question is "invited".

(update: It was. Question has since been edited to remove that word. Skip the next paragraph to get to the actual answer, I leave it as this was the original answer, the rest of this answer is independent of the word choice.)

By our western cultural standards, if we are invited for something, we expect not to pay for it. The nature of an invitation is that the person who invites is responsible for those details.

You should have had this conversation before, and done it open-ended. Something like "I'm moving to this new place, and it would be an opportunity for us to start living together. If we share the rent, we can afford a place big enough for both of us."

That sets a non-threatening, cooperative tone to the issue. Getting back to that ground now will be incredibly difficult, especially since you've already decided upon and signed for the place. That removes the "together we can be more than each seperately" angle.

Your first point of order would be to apologize for the misunderstanding. Bend on the dialog, don't bend on your principles. Explain to her that you didn't mean to threaten her. That by your standards, a couple living together shares responsibilities. Then offer her alternatives. She can share the rent and the chores with you, or you can handle the rent and she takes the majority of the chores. Also ask for her input and suggestions on how to set up life as a couple.

This is an important conversation and rent is a small part of it.

Answer 3

Seldom I've seen a question that is so well separated into two worlds.

I think that you can settle this by dividing the risks and possibilities, and manage expectations with precision.

Your nightmare:
She moves in with you, lives in comfort on your pocket either indefinitely or until a better opportunity presents itself. Any 'love' in the equation is just that, calculative.

Her nightmare:
She moves in with you, burning all her ships, she fails to meet your unrealistic expectations and ends up desolate, desperate, on the streets.

Reality will be somewhere in between.

What should help:

1. Communicate your fears.
   Do not beat around the bush, come out with the ugly truth, and explain why it scares you so. It scares you because it may destroy your relationship. No way around it, you two are forced by events to jump into the deep without being exactly ready. Such is life.

2. Ask about her fears.
   I suspect she may be uncertain about her prospects, and she may be hesitant about lowering her standards and either fail to or capture a dead-end job.

3. Talk through the options.
   Hopefully after 1. and 2. most of the emotions are out of the way. So what are the options? Break up, long-distance relationship, not move at all (this seems to have been passed up already), move as planned (but with expectations clearly laid out beforehand).

4. Decide.
   This needs to be done together, as it involves both your lives in no small way. You have actually made this all very confrontational by accepting the job and hiring the apartment that you can pay for. This means you left your options open.

Some ideas.
This may go way too far for your taste. But I've noticed that any relationship that fails to have balance eventually blows up.

1. Get a smaller place until your girlfriend has a job. Cuddle and share the rewards on success.

2. Let her tell you what her plan is to get that new job. No mistake getting a job IS a job.

3. Let her visit and feel the waters/have job interviews instead of moving (and committing 100%) all at once.

4. Move by yourself initially and use the first period to investigate what her prospects are in the new city. Network a bit. Then decide.

Anyway good luck with the big adventure!

Answer 4

The way you phrased your question, it sounds like you've asked your girlfriend to uproot her life and move 1000k, not out of love, but because you need someone to subsidize your rent. Now that might, in no way, be a fair read of the situation, but if it reads that way to me, just based on hearing only your side of the story, I could definitely see it looking that way to her.

Asking a romantic partner to move in with you, or cross-country with you, is NOT a business proposition, and I doubt she said yes because she sees you as a free ticket out of town. So stop treating her as if her agenda is to cheat you. If your opinion of her is that she'll never pull her own weight if she can help it, and that bothers you, you should never have asked her to move in with you in the first place. You should never live with someone you don't trust.

My advice to you is to pick a place you can afford on your own, and then evaluate for yourself what is important here: Are you interested in her companionship, or just her financial contribution? If it's the former, back off a little, and give her a little time, instead of preemptive ultimatums. If it's the latter, find a platonic roommate to share expenses with instead.

Answer 5

You don't!!!

I mean you are moving in together. If she is actually your girlfriend and someone you care about, then you prepare yourself to support her. If you can't do that, then you have no business asking her to undertake this with you and should just break up now.

To be clear, it's fine to say something like "we are going to go 50/50 on the rent", but it's not ok to say "Look, if you don't give me $600 a month, I don't love you any more!"

You have effectively said the latter. You have said your continued relationship is hinged on her getting a job and paying you money (for rent and utilities).

Again, nothing wrong with sharing the bills, but what you did is effectively one step short of pimping your girlfriend out.

I suggest that you either don't move in together, and learn from this mistake, or if you both still want to move in together, accept that you are going to foot 100% of the bills for a while. Apologize for being a giant a**, and NEVER bring up the idea of sharing bills again (let her bring it up).

Again nothing wrong with splitting bills, but you need to start acting like an "us" and not a "me and you".

Answer 6

What's in it for her? She gets to move to a city where she has no work, no individual perspective/interest and no friends and gets to pay half the rent for an appartment she did not have a choice in for the chance of sharing her life with someone who threatens to put her on the street should she be unsuccessful in bringing in her due part of the rent, with termination conditions worse than if she rented from an actual landlord rather than her "boyfriend".

Frankly, I am not surprised that she isn't eager to sign up for an unknown job before even having had a chance to see what she was getting into with you.

Given that she gets to see a solid bout right now of what she'd be getting into with you, I would not be surprised all that much if she decided not to move in the first place. She'd be having a whole lot less problems on her hand.

Answer 7

Your actual question is:

How do I tell her that if she doesn't get a job in a reasonable amount of time, or at least show me that she is trying to get a job so that she can pay half of the rent; then I will have to ask her to move somewhere else.

You have already set the ultimatum, and you've wounded her a little in the process. Doesn't really matter whether she will come through with finding a job and helping with the financial obligations in your relationship. At this moment, there is already a loss of trust from her side, and a lack of trust on your side.

You are asking your girlfriend to uproot and follow you to start a new adventure. Also, she has accepted the invitation, hopefully knowing the risks involved, and sounds like she is up for it. Since at least you are going into this situation seeing the red flags beforehand, either you:

1. compromise on the rent for the unforeseeable future or
2. retract the invitation until she has found a job or
3. end the relationship now before there is major financial and emotional loss.

Answer 8

You ask bluntly, and as soon as possible!

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to share expenses when living with anyone (assuming you didn't deceive this person into thinking she's going to get a free ride for life). Just because you love someone, doesn't mean you're financially responsible for them. Rent isn't cheap.

On the other hand, love could bend the criteria a bit: if the job that she gets pays half what yours does, maybe her share of rent could be lower. If she is capable of earning more but chooses not to, there are other ways she can contribute, be it cleaning, cooking, home repairs, etc etc.

If you don't get this dealt with immediately, it can cause a real problem later, or worse yet, long-term resentment. Money is a major part of real life, and to pretend that it's not an issue would be a recipe for disaster. Good on you for asking advice from others. You'll get a lot of varying responses on a delicate question like this; it's up to you to consider them all and make up your own mind.

Good luck!

Answer 9

You've already made an enormous misstep here - you've made it about her, and not about keeping up with rent.

It's entirely reasonable to ask your girlfriend who is living with you to help with the rent in some capacity - after all, if you can't pay it, you're both out of a home. But by focusing on whether or not she's 'actually' searching for work, you've turned it around and made the issue about her instead.

You need to bring the real issue back into focus - explain to her that it isn't about criticizing her behavior, it's about making sure you can continue to pay for and live in your apartment. You could even offer to help her search for work - it's very hard, and very stressful to find employment these days, especially in a new place that neither of you have any roots in.

If it continues to be a problem though, and it's clear that she isn't taking this seriously, then you need to have a more complete one-on-one conversation with her about your living situation.

As an aside - you did invite her to live with you, so if you didn't have a plan for if your girlfriend couldn't find work, that's not her fault, it's yours. Keep this in mind when making plans for the future.

Answer 10

I am not convinced that she will try at all, as she hasn't shown any initiative yet for job-searching, and is making excuses to why she cannot start.

You sound like a frustrated parent of an unmotivated 20-year-old, not a loving partner in an adult relationship. Why did you ask her to go with you? Maybe you should move alone and try to find a partner you will view as an equal (but independent women have expectations of their own). Either that or accept your girlfriend as she is and willingly support her financially in return for the non-monetary support she can provide.

Answer 11

You say: "Polly, I'm really, really sorry I messed up. I didn't explain myself very well and I'd like to start over: I've decided to move to Melborne/Brisbane/Sydney/wherever. I'd be very happy for you to come with me, but if you do, I expect you to contribute fairly to our shared costs (food, and rent). I'm willing to support both of us for a couple of months, but I'm not willing to support you indefinitely."
Although I think your distrust of her shows that the relationship is doomed, and that you should not have asked - since you already know your feelings for her aren't very strong. I also think she'd be a fool to go along. But hey, I could be wrong.

Answer 12

Moving in with a girlfriend/boyfriend is like marriage.

If you move in with your girlfriend because of convenience and/or because you don't feel comfortable breaking up with her right now. Those actions will become infinitely more difficult to do once you've been sharing the same residence for a while.

And this is just on the emotional level, there are also legal ramifications to consider.

For instance, evicting a co-tenant (a former girlfriend/boyfriend) who doesn't pay rent (and who has never paid any rent) may almost be impossible (even if you moved out yourself, you may still be liable for the rent to the landlord).

And there is also the concept of de factor relationship in Australia (in the UK and the US, we call it common law marriage). The idea is that you may be considered legally married to that person after having spent a certain amount of time living with her.

In Australia the term de facto relationship is often used to refer to relationships between any two persons who are not married, but are effectively living in certain domestic circumstances.

source

But it could be worse than that, if she needs a partner visa to enter Australia (which I have no idea if this is the case because you didn't say one way or another), you may both be required to prove/swear to the fact that you've both been in a de facto relationship for a while now.

Again, please both realize what it means to take this seemingly innocuous step of traveling and moving in together.

Understand also that you will be uprooting this girl from her own local environment. If she travels and moves in with you so far away from her home, she will have no local family, no local friends, no job, and no support network of any kind, except for you.

Are you ready for that responsibility? What will you do if she becomes depressed? What will you do if she wants to fill in that void by having a baby? Will you even have time to be with her? And if she's not working now at her location because someone is supporting her, don't think that she will start working after the move if you or her parents are still supporting her after the move.

Even if you pay for her trip and subsidize a huge part of her expenses, it may make more sense that you don't both move into the same residence and that you only get yourself a small studio/a shared room for yourself.

And even if you move in with her, it may be better to have her follow you three months, or even six months later.

Now based on your username, I'm guessing that you're a computer programmer. Also, since your girlfriend is not working, I'm assuming that her job prospects are limited even if she does find a job.

Having her move in her own shared place under her own name (not yours) would be one way to make her independent from you and to motivate her to find an actual job. Also, sharing a place with roommates would teach her how to get along with roommates, which is a valuable skill to have if she doesn't have it already, and it would force her to be semi-social with her roommates, instead of only relying for companionship on you (since I assume you'll pretty busy once you start working, at least at the beginning).

Answer 13

Explain your side of the story, you want things to be fair for you as well

You don't want to pay 100%, which is fair and everybody can understand that. Just explain that you don't mind being a buffer for a bit because you're in a (supportive) relationship together, but that that has it's limits as it's your money which you should be able to spend as you prefer (like maybe some nice flowers for your girlfriend ;) ).

You can bring this up in increasing intervals, she should have time to fix it. First, you bring this up lightly, then slightly more assertive, until it is a hard deadline. This can take a few weeks/months.

Her contribution does not perse have to be financial. She can clean up, do dishes, laundry, grocery shopping etc. Her contribution can be time, giving you some more spare time.

Answer 14

(1) Things got off to a poor start by asking hard questions about rent. Try to get past that by not bringing it up again, at least for now.

(2) Moving in together into a smaller place first just means you will have to move again when your finances are better settled. Just assume all will go well and get the apartment you both really want the first time.

(3) It's a lot easier for her to find a good job once she's there than to do it by "remote control". She just may surprise you by finding a job quickly once you both move in. Take a "leap of faith" by waiting to make money demands on her.

(4) Paying for a whole small apartment is more expensive than half a bigger apartment. For that reason alone try to make it work.

(5) I assume you know her well enough to know if she has career ambitions of her own or is just looking for someone to pay the bills.

(6) If it doesn't work out, get out. Have an exit strategy in place.

(I'm in a situation not too different from yours. I should take my own advice.)

Good luck.

Answer 15

Give her the chance, like you said you planned on paying the rent, you would pay it if she live there or didn't. She may not know where she will be working until she knows the area and plans on getting the job in a close by area. Look at it this way, you're not alone in a new area, and it's you that is asking her to change her life for you. Support your G/F and encourage her with support not negging. Help her to find a job, ask her what she wants to do, and help her find it or whatever you have to do to help. Relationships are worth keeping, and money is paper. there will be times that you will go through droughts, and good times also, best to have a good friend to go through them with.

Answer 16

"How do I tell her that if she doesn't get a job in a reasonable amount of time?" Be nice but tell her using that exact language so it is made extremely clear. Yet, kill it with kindness. Meaning, cook her dinner and buy roses so when you tell her "I love you but if you do not get a job and help with bills you cannot stay. I will be patient but soon I will need your help and cannot do it without you."

You will see her effort if she is putting it forward. I currently live with my partner and luckily we have never needed to supplement the others income but I find that if we are clear with communication we never need to interpret the others meaning. Do not sugar coat it or be general.

Be exact.

Answer 17

First of all, let me assure you - you did not hurt her. She just wants to avoid this discussion. Imagine the situation is opposite: she has a room, you move in, she expects you to pay half the rent. Would you be "hurt" by that?

Also, consider this fact: it's impossibly hard to change an adult person, even for a professional psychoanalyst. If you believe something is wrong with her attitude, don't expect it to be magically fixed later. No, love does not help too.

Answering your question, no in this case you should not "ask" her to be your partner. You should require that she is not your passenger (unless you want one of course). If she is a decent person, just not ready for this serious step, she will react adequately. If she is not, she will not.

Answer 18

I have invented a quote, myself, that I often think applies to these situations. Of which I am myself involved in one.

Here come the down-votes though :(

But hold on please!

"Women want something for nothing. Men think their nothing is something"

You're essentially discussing a financial matter.

In my opinion, in a 'fair and unrealistic' world. The woman wouldn't even CONSIDER moving in with you unless she could contribute financially equally.

And vice versa if a woman requested a man to move in with her.

So if she's willing to move in with you (without the raw capital input for rent), in even the smallest way, shes getting something for nothing.

On the other hand, you're protecting your finances by ensuring that your girl friend carries her weight financially. But we're talking about RENT that you've claimed you can handle anyway (You think your nothing (rent) is something).

Hehehe.

What's the reality?

Read some books about relationships, and what is typically attractive to the other sex.

There is undeniable evidence that what women typically find attractive about men, is different from what men typically find attractive about women.

For example, in my own life; I value the following

1.) Physical Attractiveness 2.) Sexual Fulfillment 3.) Praise and Respect

For my spouse, her values are:

1.) Financial Stability 2.) Affection 3.) Conversation

(From: His Needs, Her Needs)

~~~~~~ TL DR; and conclusion

My point is that a relationship is about ensuring that both people involved feel secure, fulfilled, and that they are valued.

Maybe she shouldn't pay rent at all. If financial stability is important to her, that could become a very attractive attribute you provide for her.

Having a honest and open conversation about how each people participates EQUALLY in the relationship is a must. She could contribute to the 'team' in an infinite amount of ways that doesn't mean paying rent.
~~~~~~

In my own relationship I have a live in girl-friend, who doesn't pay rent.

This has been an ongoing relationship for two years now. And at times, she is 6 years younger than me, that I have to stand up for my contributions to the relationship versus hers.

An honest and open conversation has helped our love and made both of us feel fulfilled in the relationship.