[jhap]

Yes in so many words.

She has told me about how her coworkers make fun of men behind their back when their wives are promoted to higher positions than them (e.g., things like "we know who's in charge of that relationship"); asks me questions like how would I afford to pay for my parent's cancer treatment if they were to get cancer; reminds me I will not be able to afford a house while her friends are buying houses; has expressed dissatisfaction for me preferring designer Uniqlo collections rather than actual designer clothing; and has given me a hard time about being in a low income field (not studying CS or engineering).

edited: I thought of more points to add.

[hluska]

Hey bud, if you ever need a random person to talk to, my email is in the profile.

[jhap]

hey I really appreciate that, thanks for the kind offer!

[xavierlint]

The conclusion I understood from your first comment is something along the lines of: "it's now more important to me to make more money since it affects my longtime girlfriend".

Meanwhile, my gut feelings about this say that I wouldn't want my partner to feel this way about my income status.

[jhap]

Yeah right, so I've been having mixed feelings recently. I'm considering dropping out of my program to get a data science type job in industry or I'm wondering if this just means I'm with the wrong person.

To bring things back to the original question, I think this whole experience has made me skeptical of people who optimize their life around income (past a certain point). At the same time I think chasing a higher income is probably an addictive to some degree, so I understand how people can fall into that and I think it might change people (my girlfriend obviously was not like this when we met).

My takeaway as a low-income person, is that I think high-income people will always dismiss me if I make these types of statements. "Of course he thinks this way, he's just a poor a student!". It's this kind of tautology that makes it impossible to deny being an alcoholic, etc. As far as I'm concerned, from my current position, it is impossible to persuade anyone that is dismissive about low-income people to think otherwise.