comment: >
  
  Life is not fair, combining resources with someone you love is
context: Every couple is different and they should decide between themselves the financial responsibilities. 
  You do you, I hope you find someone who agrees with you. I think your financial distribution is reasonable, but the premise that all couples should do this is not. It also ignores things a person may value independent of their partners income. For example if you do percentage split on groceries, but she does all the cooking is that fair? Should she charge you a rate for cooking? How about child care? You could quantify these things in dollars but it's going to get complicated. >
  
  This point is useful.  Value can be calculated in various ways, and it is up to partners to choose the calculation that works for them.
  Others might find more happiness in equality or in contribution according to use, for example. >
  
  Exactly >
  
  Couples should come up with whatever financial arrangement suits them best. >
  
  There are some excellent counterpoints in the comments, but OP seems entirely unwilling to entertain them. Which defeats the purpose of posting in this sub. >
  
  Exactly. They decide to engage in pedantry of the examples being used to highlight other factors, rather than discussing the merits of the points being made.  Bad faith post, it should get removed soon >
  
  if you are looking for what is fair, you cannot just consider what you make. you have to consider what you cost. if you are going to eat all the bread, you should pay for all the bread. if you like the heat at 72 and she likes it at 68 then you need to pay the difference in the winter and she needs to pay the difference in the summer. if you want to live in a very nice apartment that costs 40k/year and she wants to live in a home that has a mortgage of 25k/year then you need to take into account that your preferences shouldn't cost her all her income. 
  if you end up in the expensive apartment instead of the home you have not only increased her daily obligations, even at a proportional(to income) payment but also you have increased her cost of opportunity by screwing her chances at investing in a home. 
  in every sexual relationship, one party values sex more than the other. in this case, sex is a kind of currency where one party that doesn't like sex so much agrees to a sexual relationship because they value your strength or maybe your company's insurance plan (or whatever). 
  no, 50/50 isn't fair. neither is income proportional payments. fair is extremely complex. ultimately fair can only be what you both agree to, often after extensive discussion. >
  
  “ if you like the heat at 72 and she likes it at 68 then you need to pay the difference in the winter and she needs to pay the difference in the summer“ this is getting TOOO deep into it. That’s like saying if she uses more toilet paper she should pay for the difference in prices of groceries. Or if I use the tv more I should pay for the differences. It should never be that deep. That’s really EXTREME >
  
  it is the idea that you should be paying attention to not exactly the items mentioned. the greater the cost and the greater the disparity of use the more important it is to come to an agreement beforehand. these are examples to help you understand. i hope you are here to have your mind changed. >
  
  Well, that’s why I said “specifically” financially. It’s extremely hard to quantify every single thing that goes on in a relationship ya know? It’s hard to put a Number sign on daily chores, who cooks, who cleans, things of that manner are extremely hard to quantify. That’s why ideally this post was meant to focus more on the bills and the financial side of things. >
  
  
  That’s why ideally this post was meant to focus more on the bills and the financial side of things.
  
  the only difference between the bills and the cleanup is one is outsourced and the other is insourced. think to yourself: how much would i be willing to pay someone else to do these chores for me so i could play or earn more money? everything has a cost and a benefit everything in a relationship is economy even when the price is not clear. nothing is easy at first, in the long run some things never graduate past super difficult.
  i have been in a single monogamous relationship for 18+ years. i can tell you that what you want doesn't work much better than 50/50. in my relationship, we started out with separate bank accounts but over time we developed relationship specialist roles where each of us took the jobs that we did best or liked best. eventually, because i was the one that managed finances we got a joint account which i draw from to pay the cards and other expenses; now everything goes into that account. my spouse simply runs through the expenses sometimes to make sure i am doing my job and not blowing our savings.
  we are no longer concerned with who is paying what proportion because we are both happy with the distribution of the workload and the benefits we derive from each other. when it comes to new stuff or emergencies we renegotiate our roles until we find a new balance that we are both happy with. sometimes that means arguing and even hurt feelings because of bad assumptions.
  again, it is not as simple as dividing costs by income, that cannot work. >
  
  “Ultimately fair can only be what you both agreed to” 
  That’s a very true statement and I can get behind that 
  With that being said, to answer your question I don’t know how both parties can encounter that issue of rent and mortgaging without having a serious discussion before they both move into one place. Your statement implies that one party settled for something that they did not want, and it almost makes it seem like they didn’t have a choice. Sorry. That’s just a point that I don’t know what you mean >
  
  ever to do something with a date that you didn't really want to do in hopes you'd get lucky? same principle. 
  not everything will work out for you the way you want it to work out and in the end you or your partner settle on almost everything, including the place you live. when i say settle i mean compromise, when one partner settles for something they don't love, it is usually the case that the other partner provides an incentive in some other way. on the balance, both partners can be happy with the arrangement. >
  
  So if one person works 60 hours a week to make $60k  a year and the other works a part time job for $15k a year, you think it’s fair that the first person pay 80% of the bills? >
  
  If that’s the person you choose to be with, then yes. 
  If I’m making 80% more than my partner why wouldn’t I want my partner to NOT struggle? >
  
  No one is necessarily struggling though. Why is it more fair that two people pay different amounts for the same benefit than people pay based on how much they work for the same benefit? >
  
  Income disparity. I make more. Why should my partner have less while I have more? Especially if we are living in the same household? >
  
  What are you sacrificing, or have you already sacraficed to make more? If the answer is nothing, then sure.  But what if that's not the case? Is it still fair? >
  
  I sacrificed my time to make more. So any and all sacrifices have already been made. We are both walking into a situation where the facts are the facts I make what I make and my partner makes what they make. >
  
  If it is a continuing sacrafice, one that they aren't making. but could.  Should you not get the extra wages for your extra sacrafice?
  Let's change it, let's say you both make 100k in 40 hour weeks.  You decide to do 80 weeks for more spending money. Now you have 200k/year.  Neither of you are worried about money at all.  Why should you give extra? >
  
  No, I kinda feel like if you go into any relationship with the mindset 
  “if I do this, then I deserve that”
  Then it’s doomed from the start. 
  In this Fictitious example we are assuming both parties walked into this knowing what each was bringing to the table >
  
  But isn’t your whole point just the inverse of that? You’ve been saying, basically,
  “I don’t make as much, so I shouldn’t pay half”. 
  Why doesn’t that mindset doom the relationship but the above does? >
  
  Seeing as how you're clearly unwilling to accept any angle regarding finances and only want to argue those points, I'll focus on the relationship aspect.
  All human relationships are predicated on compromise, boundaries, expectations, etc. This isn't a debatable statement, it's a fact.
  It is irrelevant what you think couples should do. The discussion of finances and how much one person pays over another is one singular aspect of the many aspects of sharing your life with another person. 
  So in a lot of cases finances may be very important to one or both people or it may be unimportant to both. But many other aspects of their lives and relationships could be significantly more important. Maybe one person really wants something that the other person doesn't care as much about and has to basically give up something in order to give their partner what they want. And likewise maybe to be "fair", they ask for something reciprocal in return.
  The entire act of negotiation and compromise within a relationship determines what is and is not fair. Not only do you not get to determine that your prescription for finances is fair for everyone else, you can't even determine it as fair for your own relationship unless tou demand that anyone who dates you follows your perspective on it. 
  You may date someone who doesn't agree with it. At that point you can decide to either compromise and do it differently or basically fight with them and try to force them (don't do this - this is manipulative and wrong), or you break up with them. Ultimately you don't get to choose anything about how the other person acts unless you do something immoral by basically forcing them to.
  So ultimately you have to decide for yourself, is this issue really that important for relationships? If not, then I'd say your claim that this is how relationships should be is a weak one. If that doesn't change your mind then you weren't willing to have it changed in the first place and think this issue is very very important. And honestly I'd be curious to know why if so. >
  
  OP, not everybody or every relationship even wants to keep track of who is paying what and keep separate financials.
  Like, for me personally, I find the idea of having separate finances in a committed, married relationship really weird. If I've already committed my life to a person, and have effectively signed up to have our assets split evenly post marriage, the idea of trying to financialize the bills to our separate accounts instead of just pooling our money and paying stuff is weird, and it's also weird to think that I and the person I am literally committed to the rest for the rest of my life might have different ability to purchase or enjoy luxuries because we wanted to keep finances separate.
  Now, other people might be totally different and splitting finances works great for them, but proposing a one-size-fits-all financial policy is very, very silly. >
  
  oP didn’t specify married. You combining money with someone you’ve only been dating for 4 months? >
  
  It doesn't matter for my point if there are some relationships where you don't mingle finances, as long as there are others where you do. >
  
  50/50 is a percentage though. It is 50%. So if they each pay 50%, then they are splitting their bills by a percentage.
  
  So for a $300 bill I would pay $213 She would pay the remainder of $87
  To me THAT is more “fair” That is more “equal”
  
  But it isn't equal. It's equitable. >
  
  I think you are dramatically over simplifying the dynamics of having shared finances. I agree that splitting 50/50 is not what makes the most sense, but just splitting costs by income doesn't make much more sense.
  There needs to be a much more specific conversation about what expenses are shared, what are proportional and what is your own spend.
  Splitting a phone bill 50/50 where each has one line makes complete sense. For something like rent, it may make sense to look at income proportionally, for groceries it may be different depending on who eats what and how much.
  It also depends on the people and their motivations for spending and saving in the relationship. If I make more and am choosing nicer things or fancier options, I certainly could pay more for that preference. If I make less but want the same, while my partner is comfortable with a less expensive option, why should they have to pay for both the more expensive and a higher share. >
  
  So I definitely have to say that I really believe communication is key in any relationship. But I’m not sure what you are saying here….. could you give me an example of “ if I make more and am choosing nicer things or fancier options I could pay more for that preference” 
  What fancier option? Like fancier dining? Fancier furniture? What do you mean? >
  
  We are both buying new phones, i buy a 20 year old nokia stupidphone while my SO buys the new iphone 420. Price should be split not only according to income but also cost of the phone.
  Arguably splitting costs in this situation doesnt make much sense in the first place, so a better example: I get a plain soup in the restaurant while my SO gets kaviar with truffle. Price should be split not only according to income but also cost of the meal. >
  
  Wow, is this a relationship or application for government assistance. No need to be so calculating >
  
  Fr my wife and I just lump all our money together and plan together. I’ve never understood how couples keep financials separate and don’t fight about it >
  
  I can change your view: 100 is 150% more then 40.  71% more would only be 68.4.
  You make 71% of the total income. >
  
  Ummm I’m not sure what you are saying here. 
  The total household income in the example is $140k 
  I make $100k
  My salary is 71% of the total household income. 
  My partners is 29% of the total household income >
  
  Yes, but you said you make 71% MORE than your partner, in the hypothetical. That is an incorrect statement. 
  71% more than your partner’s 40K would be 68.4K as per the comment. >
  
  ackchyually its 71.4% not 71% >
  
  I believe rounding was an acceptable assumption. >
  
  Why is it a terrible idea “in most cases”? It may not be what you would choose, but it works for many. My husband and I do keep separate accounts, but we combine our earnings into one budget. We have done this successfully for 20 years. I spent about 5 of those years as a stay at home mom and many more I have worked part time. I have taken on much more of the childcare responsibilities, everything from the everyday feeding and whatnot to the countless other things like parent teacher conferences, signing them up for sports, keeping track of birthday parties, shopping for school supplies, etc. I also do a much larger share of housework. I understand this wouldn’t work everyone, but it’s worked great for us. We always consult each other about any large purchases or new expenses, otherwise we buy what we want within our means. It’s sounds exhausting and rather business-like to try to split things up by percentages, and would never work for a stay at home parent anyway. (Or even a parent like me that works part-time, and takes care of things like grocery shopping, yard work, and doing laundry during work hours, so that my husband and kids and I can relax and go have fun on evenings and weekends.) I would be appalled if my husband felt like I didn’t deserve “access to all of his earnings” just because most of the work I do is unpaid. We are a unit, a family, not business partners. >
  
  This 100%. There are countless factors as to how you ended up in the income disparity that should be considered, which is why couples should decide this stuff for themselves. 
  If you were a stay at home mom and sacrificed building your career for our family, it’s obvious that you would contribute less financially. If you fucked around partying and working dead end jobs while I went to school and worked my way up the ladder, you ought to be bringing something non-financial to the table to justify why our relationship isn’t me just being your sugar daddy. 
  The only major thing I disagree with is that you really are business partners when you think about it. The vacations you can afford, neighborhood you can afford to live in, cars you can afford, activities you can put your kids in, college assistance you can provide your kids, retirement, etc are all things that very much matter. Couples HAVE to be on the same page financially for a relationship to work. Or it’s the number one listed cause of divorce. So you sort of are business partners in that sense. >
  
  
  To me THAT is more “fair” That is more “equal”
  
  Fair and equal and different concepts. By definition what you have described is “fair” but “not equal”.  You cannot be both. >
  
  I think it's unfair to the person who makes more money. What if the lower earning partner wants to work less hours, doesn't want to pursue a high paying job? If the pair isn't married, (their money not being all together), or planning to be long-term, it's only fair if they split 50-50 >
  
  Agree. Usually the higher earner has made choices or sacrifices to get there that the other may not have done. If you are becoming a long term unit, it makes sense to work together toward common goals. But if you are only dating short term, the poorer person is just benefiting from the richer one’s generosity unless they are providing something back in return (more housework for example). >
  
  Egh I think couples are capable of working out themselves what works for them. Some couples pool their money together some keep it separate. Some may view that if they are paying for more of something then it is 'more' theirs and vice versa. Many probably make similar enough incomes (or large enough) to simply not care about the difference. >
  
  Dating someone does not imply the obligation to subsidize their livelihood beyond what they normally pay for themselves.
  If you split rent in proportion to income, then your argument supposes that your partner has a right to access your wealth to finance their housing, but they don’t. If you both lived separately, they wouldn’t have the right to take your money to pay their rent. Living in the same residence doesn’t change that principle. A person does not have the right to your money simply because it’s more than what they have. >
  
  Regardless of whether it's fair or not, your math is wrong somewhere.
  If you're making 71% more, you should be paying 63% of the bills:
  Your partner makes $X, then you make X+71% = 1.71 * X. The percentage you pay is 1.71 * X / (X + 1.71 * X) (your part divided by the total) = 1.71/2.71 = 63%.
  For you to pay 71% of the bills, you need to make 71% of the total income, not 71% more than your partner. Otherwise, once you make double what she does, you'd need to pay her money as well. So for you to pay 71% you'd need to earn roughly 145% more than her.
  Going back to the CMV:
  This being said, the true answer is that it really depends on each couple. My grandparents worked it out where grandma held all money they both made and then she gave grandpa money when he needed it. It was considered as one income, together. Of course those were different times and they were already married.
  I earn over twice what my girlfriend does, and we definitely don't do 50/50 splits for exactly the same reason you mentioned. I feel it wouldn't be fair to her. When the gap was smaller we'd do 50/50, but it has widened a bit. However, she doesn't want us to split it with the mathematically "correct" percentage (based on income), as then she'd feel she pays too little, so it would actually be unfair from her POV.
  So for now, until either of our salaries increases, we agreed on 60/40-ish, rounding up or down depending on the sum (e.g. if the split is 875 on her /1325 on me, we do 900/1300 because she wants to and feels comfortable paying that).
  And we only do these 60/40 splits for major stuff such as rent and utilities. My car is my car and I pay everything on it except for gas when we go on vacation, and then we split gas 50/50. Same with groceries and ordering food: 50/50. If groceries are expensive I ask if she wants a different split or what she'd be comfortable spending, but we don't deviate much.
  So I'd say unless both people earn a lot of money as compared to the expenses, whoever has the higher salary an obligation to propose this system, but some freedom needs to be allowed to the lower-earning partner to propose changes so that both partners feel they contribute fairly, regardless of actual mathematical splits.
  So it's not really opposing the entirety of your view, but I'd argue that it's never that black and white. Financials, especially as part of romantic relationships, whether we like it or not, definitely have an emotional component to them that needs to be taken into account. And we haven't even gotten into whether one partner contributes more in terms of chores, if kids are involved, etc. that can further skew the computation.
  The key is communication, not a mathematical formula. >
  
  It depends on what you buy.
  Suppose you make 100k a year, and she makes 0k a year, and does household chores. She might well not have the money to pay any bills, and you could choose to support that because having a live in sexy maid is fun.
  Or suppose you earn 200k and she earns 40k, but want to save your money. You might agree to live a lifestyle that a 40k person earns, and avoid expensive purchases, and split it 50/50.
  Suppose you earn 100k and she earns 40k, and she wants to get expensive stuff you don't want. She can spend her money on that, and you don't need to contribute 50%.
  There's a reason this is important. You need to communicate and negotiate these things, and lots of people over or under spend. There's lots of different ways to do things. >
  
  Here's one thing that hasn't been mentioned already: divorce. 
  In many parts of the world, a divorce forces assets that were accumulated during the relationship to be split 50/50. 
  So no matter what you think of as fair or equal while in the marriage, in the unfortunate case of splitting, the most fair thing to do would've been to initially split the cost of everything 50/50.
  Now that's out of the way, I believe in laziness. Splitting bills 50/50 is easy. >
  
  I find your idea silly. If you chose to live with someone as a partner it's only fair you combine your earnings into a single budget and pay any outgoings out of it. But in saying this in YOUR household you can do whatever >
  
  That can cause psychological and relationship problems. Because then every time you get a new shiny toy, every time you do an expensive activity alone, you are taking money away from the partnership. Every time you want to do something for yourself you are per default doing a bad thing and need to defend yourself. You can never do things in the moment anymore. That's not healthy. >
  
  I believe that if two people decide to be together, they are one unit. One, inseparable unit.
  How do I decide how to split the bills between myself and myself? I don't. I have a certain amount of money, and it is spent where needed.
  The family has a certain amount of money, and it is spent where needed. >
  
  At what point do you establish that level of trust/unity though. You’ve been dating for only 3 months? The first date? The wedding day? >
  
  at the point you decide to share anything, IMO. Otherwise, just remain two different people and you pay yours, I pay mine, and for insignificant expenses like a dinner date or movie tickets, 50/50, or decide however they want. >
  
  What about the person earning more pays 100% of the bills until their remaining income matches the other, then you split 50/50. That way you each have exactly the same amount of money left over after the bills are paid. That seems to maximize the fairness the way you're describing it.
  So in your example, if you had 80k worth of bills over the year, the person earning 100k would pay the first 60k of bills, then each person would pay 10k, leaving them with 30k to spare each. >
  
  Curious to hear OPs response. I agree that this method is (at least in spirit) what OP describes in both the post and comments. >
  
  So before I married my wife this is exactly what we did. I kept a spreadsheet and broke out a general percentage of our normal bills and she paid me each month for it to split the burden evenly, not just split the bill evenly. Now that we are married this is not really an issue since we have a joint account. If we did not we would continue to split the burden. 
  From my understand this is not really all that uncommon, at least from the reading I did at the time where it was a common recommendation as well as talking to friends who also have done this. So I would challenge the assertion you are making that it is not normalized already. 
  Outside of finances however, relationships should absolutely be an even split of effort. Chores should be as even as possible, effort to plan dates should be even, choices around where to live, groceries to buy, furniture to get, etc. >
  
  Is work effort split evenly? Because if we are splitting chores evenly (let’s say 20 hrs/week each), but I work 50 hours and you work 30 hours, you have 20 hrs more per week in free time. I am working 70 hours total and you are working 50 hrs total. >
  
  I’m with you. My husband makes double my salary. We both benefit from most of the things we buy, but $200 hits me a lot different than him. >
  
  If you aren't committed to spending the rest of your life together you should divide joint expenses evenly. If you are in  committed relationship you shouldn't be dividing expenses at all. This percentage business makes no sense in any scenario. >
  
  What if you just put all the money in the bank, pay the bills and don't worry about percentages? >
  
  I generally agree, however life doesn't work like this, maybe she should learn the harsh way? >
  
  I think the contract needs to be constantly changing.
  My girlfriend will probably earn more than me for the next 2 years. So we discuss openly on what would make us both happy. >
  
  What if you don't know them? >
  
  What about paying by use? She watches Netflix all day, I don't so she pays. >
  
  Info: Are you talking about a room mate or a spouse? >
  
  not a proper cmv response, just correcting the wording here. While strictly speaking a proportional payment would be 71ish% of total household income, you don't "make 71% more than she does". that would be 40k +0.71*40k =68.4k
  ((100k-40k)/40k)*100% is 150% more than what she does. ie 40k + 1.5*40k = 100k