My (28F) boyfriend (31M) of 4 years asked my family to buy him a house as a wedding gift. They refused because he hasn’t really contributed to our shared finances.

My boyfriend and I have been dating for 4 years, and we’ve been living together for 3. <br><br>When we first moved in together we agreed on a 50/50 split of the bills, but after 1 year he lost his job due to COVID. I continued supporting us both until he found a job again, which took a few months. After getting a new job he said things were tough financially and asked me to continue covering more of the bills for a couple of months. That couple of months has gone on for more than 2 years now. <br><br>My boyfriend is hardworking, but he also spends his money freely on hobbies, eating out, and going on vacations, etc. He’s not lazy at all, I don’t want anyone to get that impression. I’ve brought it up that I’m starting to struggle financially now that I’m bearing the brunt of all the bills, plus paying for all these extra expenses we have together. <br><br>We are currently planning to get married in the next 2 years or so. My family has money, but it’s also a large Irish Catholic family so I’m the youngest of 10. State of the wedding is that we’ve confirmed a venue, but not a date yet, and we have a rough guest list (small St Patrick’s day wedding). I haven’t told my extended family yet, but my parents know and they are excited to help plan. <br><br>Here’s the issue. My boyfriend asked my parents to buy us a house as a wedding gift instead of paying for the wedding. My parents said yes initially because they assumed we would be splitting the costs of the wedding, and they didn’t know the details yet. They said they would work it out depending on how much the wedding ended up costing. <br><br>Our country has experienced a huge housing market boom during the pandemic, so my parents assumed the wedding would be expensive, but not THAT expensive. <br><br>When my parents heard my boyfriend’s estimate of how much he wanted the wedding to be, and saw the chosen venue, they said they couldn’t afford to pay for that AND buy us a house. My parents are pretty wealthy, but not ISLAND MADE OF GOLD wealthy. This would literally be their retirement money. <br><br>When my boyfriend asked why they couldn’t afford it, my parents said they thought he would be contributing to the wedding costs, and if not, why should they need to pay for everything. My boyfriend said he’s been saving up for years to afford to propose and buy an engagement ring, and he can’t also afford to pay for a wedding. <br><br>My parents were shocked. They didn’t realize we hadn’t been splitting the bills 50/50. It’s not their business, but they really like my boyfriend otherwise, so they were surprised to hear he’s been using our joint money for his hobbies, and didn’t think it was right that I’ve been bearing the burden. <br><br>They told him they wouldn’t be buying us a house. He’s furious. He said they’re ENFORCING SEXIST GENDER ROLES. He says traditional gender roles are bad for women, but in this case he wants to benefit from them. Honestly, I’m not really sure what he means, but he’s been shouting at me about it for days. <br><br>I asked what he meant by traditional gender roles a couple of times, but he just repeated that my parents are punishing him for being a man. He’s really angry that my parents won’t help him, and he’s angry with me that I don’t think they should be responsible for getting us a wedding and a house. <br><br>I agreed with my parents that we can’t ask them for that much, but he says the wedding costs are also MY fault for not “sticking up for” him and for choosing such an expensive venue. <br><br>I honestly don’t want to get married to someone who would guilt/shame me into asking my parents for money. We’ve agreed to wedding plans, but I’m seriously rethinking if I want to be with him. <br><br>So many things about this just feel wrong. He’s hung up on the fact my parents didn’t like him contributing money towards my business, but not wanting me to contribute money to his. <br><br>I could afford to pay for the wedding myself, but not the house, so maybe I’m just being dramatic. I really don’t even care about the money at this point. <br><br>How should I proceed? Has anyone else come across something like this before? I’m not really sure how to handle this. I think he might be done with the relationship if I don’t convince my parents to help him, but I also don’t want to get married to someone who thinks he deserves help purchasing a house just for existing. <br><br>I’ve tried explaining to him that my parents can’t afford to do everything, but he’s not having it. I’ve also tried talking to him about splitting the costs of the wedding 50/50 but he’s said no, that I’m being selfish and I should be happy he’s even getting married. Ugh.<br><br>EDIT: Holy moly, I had no idea so many people would be interested! I’m grateful for all the advice so far. Thank you for taking the time to write it. I’ve replied to a couple of people, but I can’t reply to everyone. I’m trying to read everyone’s takes on it. I’m going to update as much as I can, BUT some of this stuff is really personal, and I don’t feel comfortable sharing.<br><br>For example, I’m comfortable saying that I make significantly more than him because I made a concerted effort to develop transferable skills for my career. I had help from a career advisor when I was a teenager, and I was able to develop skills that are valuable in my field. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say I got lucky because that’s not how skills or hard work work. <br><br>I’m happy to work hard, and I don’t think that means I should have to support someone else. I understand the concept of supporting your partner. My issue with what he’s doing is that he’s saying he wants to support me, but he actually wants to leech off of me. I’ve tried telling him I want to make sure he’s comfortable, but I’m not comfortable breaking my back to pay for everything for him. I’ve offered to make sure he has the means to pursue his hobbies, but I don’t want to do it by making myself poor.<br><br>Some words of advice I got from a family friend: “If he won’t value you when you’re an option, imagine how little he will value you when you’re an obligation”. I’m not sure if that’s helpful to anyone else, but it’s been echoing in my head since the issue came up. <br><br>I also want to say that my parents have been really supportive. I didn’t expect anyone to think otherwise, but they’ve been trying to get my boyfriend to see reason, even though they don’t really like him anymore. They think he’s entitled as well, but they also realize he’s not vindictive. My parents really do want me to be happy. They’ve said that if this doesn’t get resolved, they would be happy just to have me and my friends over to our house for a potluck and we can have a fake wedding. They’re just concerned about me having money to retire, and wanting to make sure I’m not being fooled into allowing someone to leech off of me. <br><br>Lastly, I want to talk about something. There’s an over-55 community where I live with lots of walking paths, and he wants to live there because it’s quiet and close to his parents. My parents are trying to make it very clear that they do not want to live in an over-55 community. There’s a couple of reasons for this, but they’ve explicitly told him multiple times that they don’t want to live in an over-55 community. They don’t want to be surrounded by old people, and they want to buy a house that isn’t a “starter home”. They want a house they can live in for a long time, with extra room for their kids to visit. This new development is not a starter home, it’s a bunch of tract houses that they said looked tacky. They don’t want to live in tract housing. <br><br>They’re willing to live in this tract housing development if we agree to live in an Airbnb for a few years while we build a custom house in the nearby hills. My boyfriend thought that was a SPITE HOUSE. He’s been ranting about it. I don’t think my parents hate him that much, and I definitely don’t think they’d go to such lengths. They did offer to set aside money in a separate account for us to use towards a house in 3-5 years if we get a cheaper apartment now. My boyfriend didn’t like that. <br><br>TLDR: I think this might be the end of our relationship. He’s really mad at my parents and there’s not really a compromise here.