Don’t be offended — I don’t think your girlfriend is trying to offend you. Her intention is really to save you money. That said…. I don’t think she understands how important it is for men to feel like they’re taking care of their women. What you want to do is very chivalrous and generous, but she’s fearful of what she sees all around her, which is men leaving women without resources, and women having turned everything over to men in trust, only to find their trust betrayed. If you each understand where you’re coming from, then you have a better chance of working on a solution together.
Relationships require leaps of trust. Over and over I tell people that there is no insurance policy that will cover a broken heart, and with surging divorce rates, it’s really understandable that she’s concerned, as a woman (women don’t rebound from break ups, financially, the same way men do), about all possibilities in her future.
My suggestion is some sort of compromise. Ultimately, the two of you work out the compromise, but one template you might work from is this: Maybe you propose marriage and you and your daughter move into her house until after the wedding (which can be a big and stressful ordeal), at which time you buy a home for the three of you. In the meantime, you can get a credit card in your name and start building good credit. If you put the wedding expenses and your living expenses on your new credit card, and pay it off timely, you’ll gain some good credit that way. You can also put a second phone line or a cell phone line in your name to build credit.
I hope that helps. Let me know how things go, and please follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url][/url].
