Woman Upset with Partner After He Pays Off Her Debt

• A man is seeking advice on Reddit after he paid off his girlfriend’s student loan debt as a birthday present, despite her wishes that he didn’t.
• Money is a continued issue between the two of them, as she often disagreed with his tendency to spoil her with unnecessarily elaborate gifts.
• After paying off her debt, the Redditor’s girlfriend blew up at him and left, and now he’s wondering if he’s in the wrong.

A man is seeking support from the Reddit community after secretly paying off his girlfriend’s student loans, leading to a significant rift in their relationship. 

The poster, who has been dating his girlfriend, Amy, for four years, describes her as “the best girl you’ll ever meet.” However, their backgrounds differ significantly, with Amy coming from a single-parent household that often struggled financially, while the poster acknowledges his privileged upbringing. 

The couple’s relationship has been going generally well with occasional disagreements centered around finances. However, most of these arguments stem from Amy’s discomfort with her boyfriend spending money on her. 

“I would gift her nice jewelry and she always seemed to dislike it,” the poster writes. “Me being love struck upgraded and I bought her a new car. We got in a big argument that time and she told me she didn’t want me to waste money on her. She’d rather me spend that type of money on something important but she is important and I want to spoil her.” 

To navigate this issue, the man developed a strategy of pretending to buy items for himself and then offering them to Amy when he “didn’t like them.” This approach seemed to improve their situation temporarily. 

However, the real conflict arose when the man decided to pay off Amy’s student loans as a birthday gift, involving her mother in the process. 

“Last week, with the help of her mother, I paid off her student loans. I thought it would be a nice gift to her considering it was her birthday but once everyone left, she blew up on me like never before,” the man writes. 

Furthermore, he also wanted to pay off the debt because he was looking to propose to Amy. “I want to propose soon but she wants to pay off her debts first so we have a clean slate to start on,” he writes. 

But Amy’s reaction was intense and left the man confused and hurt. Additionally, her words struck a chord with the poster. “You can’t understand why I’m angry because you’ve never had to struggle and you’ve never felt the pride of finally doing something yourself,” she told him. 

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Now the poster is grappling with his anxiety as he realizes the gravity of his actions. “Now that a few days have passed I’m getting anxious and I’m starting to feel like a real jerk for invading her privacy,” he notes. 

He continues, “Our whole house is decorated to her taste and it smells like her but she’s not here. Each time I realize that, I feel more and more stupid.” 

While the poster saw his gift as a thoughtful sentiment, many Redditors believe he should’ve spoken to his girlfriend about the situation before jumping the gun.

One user writes, “I understand you want to give the world as you know it to your gf and that your gf wanted to accomplish this goal before getting married. You doing this without talking to her comes off as manipulating her into your world without her consent.”

Another user shares, “She’s mad at you because you took away her agency by going behind her back and paying off her debt, which was a life goal of hers. She even said as much.”