When it comes to handling money with a friend, family member, or partner, things can get rocky pretty quickly — especially when a disagreement reveals that you have ~very~ different ideas of what's fair.
So we asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share their stories of times when money ruined a relationship, and their responses were absolutely wild:
1. "Toward the beginning of the pandemic, my (then) best friend was feeling low, so I invited her to join my bubble and stay with just us in my family's vacation home, to which I was retreating for the pandemic, for as long as she wanted."
"Despite having a vacation home, my family is not wealthy; hers absolutely is. It didn't occur to me to ask her to contribute financially because it was supposed to be a nice gesture, but she turned out to be a horrible roommate. She didn't clean up after herself (crumbs on tables); wasn't proactive about helping around the house; left things like candy wrappers, empty water bottles, and once even a used tampon for me to deal with; ate my food without replacing it, etc. After almost two months, I asked her to either clean up after herself or contribute financially. Rather than be accountable on either front, she chose to go back home and cut me out of her life. Idk, maybe I'm the asshole."
2. "An ex made a ton more than me (I'm a teacher, so...), but he never paid for anything. We went to a zoo for his birthday (I paid for both of our tickets), about eight or nine months into dating. After a while I started feeling faint, so I asked if he could go buy me a banana or something to get my energy up before we continued walking."
"He said no. To buying a fucking BANANA."
"He then explained to me that HIS ex used to expect him to pay for everything, and so he didn't want me to expect the same thing. APPARENTLY he used to pay for ALL EXPENSES PAID TRIPS TO AN ALL INCLUSIVE RESORT for her."
"So, long story short, because he paid for everything with his ex, he had decided to pay for nothing at all for me...even a banana."
"Needless to say, we did not last."
3. "I’ve been shamed and questioned by a friend for buying a car. Because I was paying my car off and couldn’t afford to go out every weekend night to get wasted, she stopped including me. When I worked long hours to get ahead with my own business, I was accused of shutting her out. For years I questioned whether my behavior really was that disgraceful. I know now that she just had issues with my life choices because they weren’t the same as hers. We aren’t friends anymore, and I don’t miss her."
4. "Post-college, I was out with my then-boyfriend and his friends, who were planning to move into an apartment together. I had just moved out of my parents' place so they were eager to pick my brain."
"We were all employed and making OK money, and his friends had been very proactive with researching places and costs. When they asked my boyfriend how much he planned to contribute in rent, he said a number that was...ridiculously low. Like, so low I'm embarrassed to write it. Think rent, but 100 years ago (yeah, seriously, that low). It quickly became clear he hadn't done any research about rent or moving at all and I started to reexamine our past interactions. I realized that he was a reckless spender with a complete lack of awareness of the basic cost of living, to kind of a baffling degree. It was a lightbulb moment for me, and we broke up soon after."
5. "I broke up with a now-ex because I wanted to go back to school. He was supportive until I realized I miscalculated how much I would have to borrow. Only then, once he heard that, did his true colors show. I was suddenly not smart enough to pass my classes and would never be able to find a job and pay off my loans. He even asked how much money he would have to give me to make me forget about going. So I dumped him, went back to school, and never looked back."
6. "I worked for my brother-in-law (wife’s sister's husband) at a recruitment startup. He headhunted me for the position and paid me well for a while. It was all a front while he gambled with other peoples' money."
"We went from a decent office in his other firm to a rented unit. Then he pulled the emotional heartstrings. He said he couldn’t pay me but he’d sort it out as soon as he could. That went on for three months."
"He ripped me off on a promise of paying me later, eating away at my savings and putting me in debt."
"Last time I saw him was at a family wedding. He tried to act like nothing had happened. I refused to acknowledge him."
7. "My then-friend/roommate and I were looking for a new apartment. We worked for the same company, at the same level, and received the same salary. She insisted at every place we looked at that she pay less per month."
"I did all of the work finding listings that suited her strict budget and never received a thank-you. She would say she was broke and had no savings.
I continued to be as accommodating as possible until one evening with a group of friends in causal conversation, over a game of Monopoly, she announced that she had €40,000 in savings. She proceeded to make fun of a fellow coworker, with two kids, having seen his bank account savings at only €7,000 while looking over his shoulder in our company lunchroom.
Monopoly (and money) really brings out the worst in some people! I sat her down the next morning, said we couldn’t live together, found an amazing apartment, and completely cut her out of my life."
8. "My boyfriend (now ex) really wanted to go to Peru on vacation. Always been a dream of his. I didn’t have the funds to purchase a $700 plane ticket to Peru yet he really wanted to go! So he offered to purchase my ticket. After I stated several times he didn’t have to do that, he still wanted to. Jump to months later after the trip when he brings it up in conversation of him, wanting me to pay him back. Excuse me? You offered to pay for it! We didn’t break up solely from this one incident, but it was one of many in a long list."
9. "I dated a marine who was just about to get out of the corps. When he got out, we moved in together with the expectation that he would get a part-time job and enroll in school to also start receiving those benefits. I also cosigned on a Jeep for him so that he would be able to drive to these places."
"He never enrolled in school and never got a job despite ME constantly looking and trying to set him up with interviews. He complained that I was sending him to interviews for women's work since they were for assistant-type positions (these were the only things he had experience for!). He would just sit at home and play video games while I went out to work. Then, he had his cousin move out with us to 'help him get away from their hometown,' and he just sat there and played video games. I ended up supporting myself and two fully grown men for six months before I finally had enough and ended our three-year relationship."
10. "I had a friend who, looking back, liked to use me but I'd pay for food and stuff so that we could hang out sometimes when she didn't have enough money to do stuff. One day she joins an MLM and asks me to buy stuff. I say no because I refuse to support any pyramid schemes, and she gets mad saying I should be supporting her. She got quiet when I said, 'I do support you, and that's why I'd use my money to make sure we could hang out.'"
11. "My ex didn’t have a job and wasn’t looking for a job. I paid for food, dates, even gave him some money for rent once. I worked a full-time job and did everything. The tipping point was when we got in a fight and he said that he deserved to be treated like a king!!!! Like excuse me, YOU haven’t done shit... Long story short, we broke up and he moved back in with his parents."
12. "When I was 24, I decided to go back to school and get my degree to become a teacher. However, I had to do all the financial stuff on my own and didn't qualify for very much aid. I asked my aunt to cosign my private student loans for me since I couldn't do it alone."
"She agreed as long as I swore I'd pay them off and not go into default. Cut to my second semester at my dream school and I was diagnosed with stage 2 ovarian cancer. I had to drop out of school to undergo surgeries and the ordeal left me severely depressed, suffering from anxiety and PTSD. I ended up defaulting on the loans because I had no income and couldn't go back to school or work.
"One day, at least two years later, my aunt publicly commented on a Facebook photo I shared saying she was ashamed of me. There were emails about how I ruined her life by defaulting on my loans. Not once in all that time between the cancer and that Facebook comment had she ever asked how I was doing or inquired as to why I couldn't make my loan payments. It was devastating."
13. "One of my first boyfriends was the worst. He refused to work, so I worked full-time at a hospital. He made me quit my job because he thought I was cheating instead of going to work. After we ran out of money, he made me go sell my plasma for money but he wouldn’t do so himself. Also anytime I got a phone, he would take it and go sell it. It was a horrible relationship and I hope no one has to go through what I did."
14. "My ex was going through some very serious mental health problems that legitimately made it impossible for him to leave his study, much less leave the house to work. I loved him and did everything I could to support him and get him the help he needed to be able to function again."
"After years of being the single income and going into debt paying out of pocket for both his healthcare and just trying to keep our heads above water, I was at the point of burnout from the stress and constant overtime. I BEGGED him to get even a part-time job just to take on some of the burden. He both refused and broke up with me cuz I told him I couldn't do it anymore. Over the next year, he both asked for money and got intensely angry at me that he had to get a job. I loved him so much but I will never again break myself for someone else. Ten years later, I'm still struggling with that debt and my own mental health issues that were exacerbated by the aftermath. Please learn this lesson. Self-sacrifice to the extent that you wear yourself into the ground isn't love and it isn't the right thing to do, no matter how much you love and want someone."
15. "Lived with my then–best friend. Her dad owned the place and I just gave the rent and utilities to her each month. One time, some of my money that I kept in the drawer went missing. I always knew exactly how much I had there so I noticed."
"I gave her that much less that month and told her I deducted the money she took from me. She said OK; in my head, that meant her admitting she did it. No apology, nothing. She started being mean, in terms of 'you cannot use the plates in the kitchen because they are mine' and 'buy your own toilet paper' (we used to go halves on everything) and stuff like that. It got to the point where we didn't even talk anymore. I moved out eventually and never spoke to her again."
16. "I went to visit my brother in San Fran when I was about 19, and my mom gave me her credit card and said to buy a few people some souvenirs. I kinda panicked and bought something for literally everyone in our family — aunts, uncles, cousins, significant others."
"Once I bought one gift, I felt like I couldn't leave anyone out. A true moment of actual panic-purchasing. When my mom got the bill, she didn't speak to me for over 6 months. It was 20 years ago and we have still never spoken about it. I could pay her back now but I am too scared to ever bring it up again."
"I truly felt like shit. She was a waitress so we were not rich, not even close. It was an accident and it is the worst thing I have ever done."
17. And finally, "The entire maternal side of my family is divided and destroyed because of money. We used to be super close and loving. Then my maternal grandparents died within six years of each other and right before Christmas.
"Trouble began when my Mom and her three siblings began cleaning out their childhood home to be sold. That whole time, one aunt asked again and again when she was going to get her inheritance and no one had an answer fast enough for her liking. This led to her bad-mouthing all of them to anyone who would listen about how everyone was 'keeping money from her.' She didn’t come to family events for the next eight years, and there are still some family members who wont speak to us and have us blocked on social media."
"Basically, my entire family situation has been a mess since because of the chain of events that began with my grandparents' deaths."
Has money ever damaged one of your relationships? Share your story in the comments below.
And if you've got money questions on your mind, you can always check out our personal finance posts.