u/Fun_Suit4543

I recently moved to my now fiancée’s city, about two hours away, for my career. She still lives with a roommate to help keep rent costs down. I make probably 3–4x her income, and throughout our relationship she’s constantly been stressed about money. Even while I was in school with essentially no income, I covered probably 90% of our expenses through savings and student loans.

She also has student loans, but only pays the minimum and has built basically no savings after nearly two years of working. I wouldn’t call her irresponsible or a huge spender, but there’s definitely room in her budget to either pay more toward loans or put money away consistently. Meanwhile, during school I passed on countless trips, bachelor parties, and other things because they simply weren’t in the budget for me. She, on the other hand, has said yes to every wedding and bachelorette trip despite living paycheck to paycheck. I understand it’s hard saying no to weddings, but skipping a bachelorette trip for financial reasons is something most people understand.

Early in our relationship she also adopted a dog. I love the dog now, but financially it was honestly a terrible decision for someone already stressed and depressed over money.

Fast forward to now: we’re engaged, and I moved to her city because she loves her job and I was ready to leave mine anyway. I assumed we’d eventually move in together. My thought process was simple — I could cover most or all of the rent while she focused on paying down loans and building savings so we could eventually buy a house after the wedding.

Outside of the weddings and the dog, she’s actually pretty modest. She rarely buys things for herself, shops out of her wealthy friend’s closet half the time, doesn’t spend much on herself, and drives a very basic car she bought out of necessity.

The issue is that she recently told me she has very strong beliefs about not living together before marriage. It’s one of her “non-negotiables,” and there’s definitely family pressure involved too. What confuses me is that when we lived two hours apart, she would stay at my place for days at a time with the dog and her family was perfectly fine with that. So I struggle to understand where the line is between that and actually living together while engaged.

I’m having a hard time with it because I feel like I’m planning for us as a team financially — saving for a house, paying off debt, building investments, creating stability, funding the things we want to do together — while she doesn’t seem to think much beyond the present. We’ve sat down and looked at her finances together, and even she agrees there’s room to save more or make extra payments, but it just never happens.

She asked me recently if I was upset with her, and I told her honestly that I am. It feels like all of the long-term financial pressure is now on me: buying a house, building savings, creating stability, and even being able to enjoy the rewards of sacrificing 10 years to build a career that can support a future family.

I moved to her city so she could stay close to the job she loves, her friends, and her family. But when it comes to the person she’s agreed to spend her life with, it feels like there’s no willingness to compromise. It starts to feel like emotions, traditions, and family expectations matter more than practical reality.

What I can’t wrap my head around is this: the biggest stress in her life is money, yet she’s unwilling to take what feels like the most obvious step toward improving that situation with her future husband.

To add: she is truly an amazing sweet human that i love deeply and want to be the mother of my children. This has been a constant battle and it has recently come to a head since moving.

Am I insane?

Me (30M) and my fiancée (27F) have struggled with her mom since the beginning of our relationship 3 years ago. She’s very much the “I had it hard, so you should too” type of parent. I’ve tried to stay respectful, but between wedding planning and years of comments and behavior, I’m honestly reaching my limit.

She refused to let us move in together before marriage. Fine — traditions, I can respect that. But when my then-girlfriend asked if they could revisit the conversation once we got engaged, her mom acted open to it. Meanwhile, when I started planning the proposal, she completely stepped in and planned a “last family vacation” instead. She also said she couldn’t host an engagement celebration at her house until FIVE months later.

What makes it frustrating is that during that exact window, my girlfriend was deciding whether to renew a lease with her roommate. So it worked out perfectly for her mom to later say, “Well, you already signed another lease, so you might as well stay where you are.” And because the proposal was supposed to be a surprise, I couldn’t explain any of this to my girlfriend at the time.

So now we’re engaged, living separately in the same city while rent is insane, and it feels like her mom got exactly what she wanted.

On top of that, her mom constantly talks about how much money she makes as a realtor and how stressful her job is. She talks to everyone like they’re either children or employees. She repeats these speeches to me and even to my friends — all grown adults with careers, marriages, military service, medical professions, etc.

At the same time, she’s done almost nothing to help her own daughter financially. My fiancée works full-time as a nurse and still has over $60k in student loans because her mom had her take out high-interest loans, then immediately removed herself as a co-signer after graduation instead of helping her get established. After rent, loans, and a car payment on a car that was basically all she could afford at 23, she’s left with barely enough for gas and groceries.

That’s where a lot of my resentment comes from. It feels like her mom cares more about appearances and impressing friends than actually helping her daughter succeed. She spent thousands on a week-long “last family vacation” while her daughter was stressed, drowning financially, and wondering when I was going to propose. Meanwhile, she’s throwing her income in my face while her daughter struggles paycheck to paycheck.

My own parents felt so bad about the situation they literally offered to help pay off some of her debt.

What makes it harder is seeing the difference in how she treats her other daughter — fully supporting her lifestyle with no expectations while my fiancée, who is genuinely one of the kindest and hardest-working people I know, gets treated like struggle is somehow good for her character.

Even her friends warned me about this dynamic when we first started dating.

Now that we’re engaged, I can’t shake the feeling that her mom set her up to struggle financially and now looks at me like it’s my responsibility to clean it up. And the thing is — I love her daughter deeply, so I’ll do whatever I can for her. It’s not even about the money anymore. It’s the principle and the lack of respect.

I was raised believing parents should want their kids to have an easier life than they did — that parents owe their kids everything, and kids owe their parents nothing. Her mom seems to believe the exact opposite.

Am I wrong for resenting her?

To add: most of these issues root out of decisions as a very young adult when you trust your parents to help make decisions with you. The engagement fiasco was me being respectful and taking the high road being I will have to deal with this person my whole life. I’ve burned enough bridges by speaking my mind and have gotten into enough fights in my life to know sometimes saying nothing is better. Flashing out on my future MIL doesn’t seem therapeutic when trying to plan a special day for my future wife.