My girlfriend and I intend to get married, but she asks me where we are going to live, and tells me that my salary isn’t enough, because she would like to have an apartment and a car. I tell her that we can have all we want if we both fight for it. And she says that I am the one who must be responsible for everything, and that she can help me with part of it....

I think that she is telling me all of this because she gives a large part of her salary to her family, and her mother always says that we should think carefully about getting married.... Sometimes I think that her mom says this because if her daughter married me, she would lose part of the financial help that she is getting. I don’t know what to think or what to do as to whether I should get married or not.

Dear Friend,

We congratulate both you and your girlfriend for talking about this important matter before making definite plans to be married. You are preventing a great deal of marital conflict by discussing your feelings and desires now rather than waiting until it is too late, when you are already married.

Your girlfriend has let you know her expectations, and you now have the chance to decide whether you want to fulfill them. You believe that she, as a married woman, should contribute the majority of her income to the household in which she lives. In contrast, she may believe that she should continue to contribute the majority of her salary to her mother’s household.

The most difficult issue is that your girlfriend expects you to provide more than you are able to give. She wants things that you say you can’t afford and that she is not willing to work with you to pay for. What does she expect you to do? Does she want you to get an additional job? How are you supposed to satisfy her expectations when you can’t afford the things that she wants?

You ask yourself whether you should get married or not. Hopefully you can see that the answer is obvious. No, you should not get married at this time. The differences between you and your girlfriend cannot be solved just because you love each other. If you marry now, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of her nagging you because she is dissatisfied with what you can give her.

Wise Solomon said, “Better to live in a desert
than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife.”1 Even though you love your girlfriend and she may be wonderful, her unrealistic attitude and desires could make her the quarrelsome and nagging wife that Solomon warns against. You must decide whether to wait a few years to see if she will change, or to break it off with her now. Pray and ask God to help you make the right decision.

We wish you well,

Linda
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1 Pr 21:19

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