Can you talk about why it bothered you?

"I guess I'm just very aware of feeling like a kept woman, because I did survive on my own for a very, very long time. I moved to New York when I was 22, with $300, and I waitressed and interned full-time. I know how to do that, I've done it, and now I'm at a point where I don't have a low income, but still, compared to him, it's not as much."

How did you react to his increase in expendable income at first?

"It's hard if one person has enough money to live a certain lifestyle, and another person has money for a different kind of lifestyle. Like when he ordered Seamless, I wasn't going to be sitting next to him on the couch eating instant ramen. And if he wanted to go out to dinner, it was hard for me to say, 'I can't go out to dinner.' So it was easier to hide it, go out, and then when I was alone, eat eggs for dinner. I didn't want him to know that I couldn't afford it.

"So when he first started making a lot more money than I did, I opened a credit card, because I wanted so badly to not rely on him pay for stuff. I racked up a bunch of debt, like, $2,000, and I ended up just cutting it up. I paid it off, but I think I needed a bit of reality check."

Have you two started talking about it more or being more transparent about when you can afford something?

"I've gotten a lot more comfortable with it, and I think he understands my feelings better now, the fact that I need to pay for things sometimes. When we go on vacation, he'll ask me what I can afford. If he buys the plane tickets, I'll pay for the dinners, so it feels like I'm contributing. I'm not saying I accept gifts all the time, but if he does offer to pick up the check, when I can't afford to split it, I let him do that. But I would never accept money from him. If I had a dentist bill, which I need to split up into payments, I would never let him pay for that."

What about if you get married?

"That's something I've thought about. I think it would just depend on if we merge our finances or not. Because then, it would all feel the same, I guess. Hopefully, I just make a lot more money. I've found myself taking on more and more freelance work; it's not a bad thing, because it's what I enjoy doing. But I feel like I wouldn't run after opportunities that involve making more money if it weren't for the fact that he's chasing it, too."

How do you two handle paying for things now?

"For rent, I pay a little bit less than him. He pays for utilities, but I usually pay for the groceries. If we go out to dinner, we'll usually split it. Or say we do dinner and drinks, I'll pick up drinks and he'll pick up dinner. Big purchases, he generally pays for — if we go to a wedding, the hotel, flight, wedding gift, that kind of stuff. Things that would significantly hurt the way I spend money throughout the month. By now, it's almost an unspoken thing for us, where he can sense if I don't have a lot of money, but it's still something I think about a lot more than he does."