After my relationship ended with my ex-boyfriend back in July 2013, I knew I needed to break out of the same patterns I kept falling into throughout my whole dating experience. Aside from being with people who were not compatible with me, I noticed I was the one who always had the job and who predominantly paid for everything we did. I wanted to find someone who shared the same relationship values as me and I wanted someone who would be my equal in the relationship.
When I met Jesse in September 2013, I immediately knew he would become a genuine friend, someone I could talk to about anything. Even though we have different personalities, we have a lot of interests in common. The more we got to know each other, the more I realized that not only were we compatible, but I felt like we were equals. That became extremely important when we started dating. We made it a point to always split date nights, unless it was one of us treating the other out. It made everything simple, easy and fair. I felt like we were both putting in the same amount of effort. It also helped us open up about our financial situation early on in our relationship, from talking about our debt to how much we make. We wouldn’t be in the successful relationship we are in now if we didn’t start with that foundation.
Fast forward six years later and it is still exactly the same and even more important now that we’re engaged. That foundation we built to immediately split all our dates and open up about our finances paved the way for all the responsibilities we split now. The amount of things we split only grew in importance – rent, bills, groceries, activities, our puppy. And, we began to split our responsibilities outside of our finances.
We both know how to cook, so we make sure we alternate nights on who is responsible for dinner. We co-parent our puppy, so we have a set schedule on who walks her in the morning and the afternoon then we alternate nights to make it fair. We both like a clean apartment, so on cleaning days Jesse will take care of making sure the floors and furniture are clean (mostly from Lilo’s shedding), while I wipe down all surfaces. Pretty much everything we do that pertains to our home, we split as equally as we can. Of course there are some instances where one person does more of a thing than the other (there was a hot streak where Jesse was making all the dinner). In these cases, we do call each other out to have the other person step in more (more often it’s Jesse calling me out – whoops!).
The most important thing here is that we do make sure each of us pitches in whether it’s financially, around the house or taking care of Lilo. It’s been a huge part of how we communicate with each other as well, always checking in with the other person when it comes to making a decision. I truly feel like both of us care about the same things, more or less, and it really is the biggest reason why our relationship works so well.
Creating set schedules on who does what takes care of making sure everyone is doing their part around the house. We don’t write anything down on whose turn it is to do something, we try to remember (or lately we’ve been asking “whose turn is it?”). But, if it’s something you and your partner are just getting into, definitely create a shared google calendar to use as reminders or as a “chore chart”. When it comes to splitting our finances, we’ve been loving the Splitwise app, so as soon as we pay for something – rent, bills, groceries, etc – it immediately gets put into the app. Now, of course, one person might know how to cook or one person might make more money or schedules might not work out to split everything, but the message here is to make sure that everyone is providing a helping hand in the relationship in the areas that work best for the both of you.
We try to do the best we can to make sure we’re equally invested in each other and our home; it provides a stronger sense of security knowing we are each other’s support system. It also allows us to keep our independence. I feel like I can still take care of things without relying heavily on Jesse. I believe that every step of the way we WANT to be together and have easily made that commitment by simply agreeing to splitting all our responsibilities.