Living Together

My boyfriend and I are older - 53 and 64 and started living together after a year of dating.  We have moved into his home, paid for, and I am in the process of renting out my condo - I am paying a mortgage.  How do we determine who pays for what in the relationship?  We had a disagreement this morning as I have hired some cleaning help and he doesn't want the help and feels I should pay for it.  We tried splitting up the cleaning chores prior to the help, but I ended up being the only one to clean.  I told him I was not a maid, and he informed me he is not a Gardner.  He makes much more money than I do, but this has been a tough financial year for him as he is self-employed.

I want to do things right regarding the expenses, but don't even know where to start.  Any advice?

First of all, please take a moment and understand that your ability to agree on how you live under one roof will make or break your relationship. Living together gives you valuable insight on how compatible you are, and you can get a glimpse of whether or not the reality of being with this person for the rest of your life will make you happy.

Not to scare you or be pessimistic, here. Just understand that this is a good evaluation period before you make a commitment like marriage.

What my SO and I do is split expenses based on how much money we make. I make more than he does so I pay more rent. I also advise you to look at things this way... If you value hiring a maid and he does not, expect to be the one to pay for it. You're not going to be able to force someone to do something they don't want done. Also remember that the amount of time you have at home has value too - If he's working longer hours than you, you will probably be the one to foot most of the chores. Find out what chores you both don't mind doing, versus things you absolutely hate, and try to divide it that way.

I Roth,

I am in similar situation to you (52/62....my house/mortgage paid) etc

Dont have time to write now, but will later.  So please check back!

I think the place to start is to sit down with him and have a discussion about finances. Discuss what bills each of you has already (debt, car payments, mortgage, etc) and what bills you have as a couple (the rent/mortgage for where you are currently living, utilities, food, etc.). Some couples decided to split their joint costs 50 50 and remain solely responsible for their individual costs, others decide to split their joint costs depending on each other's income (ie the one who makes more money pays more to the joint bills), and other's decided to merge all the income as one and pay all the bills from that money (joint and individual bills).

There really isn't one way that will work for everyone.

As far as housework, that's another conversation. I would talk about what chores you hate and which ones he hates and try to compromise (for example, I hate laundry, DH hates dishes, so I do the dishes and he does the laundry). I'm off more than he is, so I do the rest of the housework (he works 60-80 hours a week, sometimes more). I usually end up doing the laundry to because I am home and he isn't. But, that's what works for us.

I hope you guys can talk these things out and go from there.

Thank you to mom2jess_n_ky for my beautiful siggy!