AITAH For asking my partner to pay rent?
I (24M) have been dating my partner (24F) for around 5 years and we are ready to take the next step and move in together. She is currently a full-time student living at home with her parents, while I have a full-time job and own an apartment that I live in, and I currently have a roommate who I split bills with, and he pays rent.
When we started talking about living together, we agreed that we wouldn't want my roommate to still be there, so he would have to move out. Before I was going to have that conversation with him though, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page about the situation with her moving in. Essentially, she wants to split bills, but not pay any rent. She's completely adamant about this, and is refusing to move in otherwise.
I do understand her reasoning to some extent. She wants to be equal, and from her perspective she doesn't want to be paying to live somewhere while I'm not paying. I've tried to explain that it's not quite that simple and that things like maintenance, insurance etc. all cost as well, and that's my responsibility, and her response is simply that she'll pay half of that as well.
My view is that just because I own the place, doesn't mean she can live here for free, and I'm not really comfortable with her splitting the costs of owning the place with me, because she doesn't own the place. Does that make sense? We haven't even talked about the amount she would pay, but essentially I was thinking I would take my regular payments for upkeep of the flat, and charge her half, plus some extra in case our boiler blows up or something.
It's really become a bit of an impasse, and she seems so offended that I would even suggest/consider this. Like, it's the whole principle, not any specific figure. I've thought about trying to reframe it but it just seems like the whole concept is a red line for her. It's a shame because we do both want to live with each other, but this has become a real sticking point and I don't want it to be the reason our relationship goes down hill.
So, am I being unreasonable? Any suggestions for a compromise?
Edit: I should probably clarify that my expectation was that she would split bills and pay some regular amount of rent, and then I would cover all maintenance etc.