My boyfriend, Marcus, had been talking about Valentine\u2019s Day for weeks.
\nHe insisted on taking me to one of the most expensive restaurants in town, even though I suggested somewhere simpler.
\nDinner was wonderful until the $480 check arrived.
\nMarcus pushed it toward me and casually said, \u201cYou can cover half.\u201d
\nI was confused.
\nHe had invited me, chosen the restaurant, and repeatedly told me the night was his treat.
\nWhen I reminded him of that, his expression changed.
\nHe didn\u2019t argue.
\nHe simply paid the entire bill, stood up, and walked out.
\nI sat there embarrassed, wondering what had just happened.
\nThen our waitress approached.
\n\u201cHe left this under his plate,\u201d she whispered.
\nIt was a folded note with my name on it.
\nThe first line read:<\/p>\n
\u201cI brought you here tonight because I needed to know what kind of partner you\u2019d be when money became uncomfortable.\u201d
\nI kept reading.
\nMarcus wrote that he had recently lost his job and was terrified to tell me. Asking me to split dinner had been his strange way of testing whether I would support him.
\nI was stunned.
\nNot because he had lost his job.
\nBecause he had turned our relationship into a test instead of simply trusting me with the truth.
\nI called him later and told him exactly that.
\nWe talked for hours.
\nThe dinner wasn\u2019t what nearly ended us.
\nThe secret test was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My boyfriend, Marcus, had been talking about Valentine\u2019s Day for weeks. He insisted on taking me to one of the most expensive restaurants in town, even though I suggested somewhere simpler. Dinner was wonderful until the $480 check arrived. Marcus pushed it toward me and casually said, \u201cYou can cover half.\u201d I was confused. He …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10465,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10463\/revisions\/10465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}