Sorry for the long story in advance this a lot to unpack.

I (22M) live with my gf (20F) at my parents house with 3 full grown dogs (one of which being “our” husky pit mix) and with my 15M autistic brother. To say our household is chaotic is an understatement. For some context, our financial situation isn’t the best. We have $12,000 in credit card debt.(8000 of which was from her before and during our 1st year of dating.)

I had surgery in December on my collapsed arch in my right foot. The last six months prior to the surgery was honestly hell. I’m an electrician at a textile plant so I am constantly on my feet 12 to 14 hours of the day. Along with climbing ladders, which is pretty frequent and working on my hands and knees, most nights I would come home and have to practically hobble in bed because my foot would ache so much due to the arch issue. Due to being under my parents insurance and they have already met their deductible for the 2024 year, it was decided that the surgery needed to be now or wait 3 to 5 years until I have my own insurance (my company’s insurance doesn’t cover pre-existing claims unless they’re older in three years of having said insurance.)

I found out I was needing surgery in October and we didn’t have a lot of time to save so by the time my surgery came around I had about 500 in savings. Fast-forward to middle of March and I find out I am not cleared back to work until May when I am off crutches and further more girlfriend‘s hours are getting cut (she is a cashier at Food Lion and this is pretty normal for everyone given the time of the year) during this whole time, I’ve been pretty stressed saying I make almost triple what she does and basically have nothing to show for it. Up until this point we were barely getting by but now I fear it’s even worse now that her hours have been cut down to 25-30 per week.

I try talking to her about money and every time it ends in her feeling like it’s her fault and ultimately ends in tears and frustration. I try to be supportive and overall nice trying to not have the stress of the situation get the best of me. for some more context, I went through school debt-free, working a full-time job averaging 50 hours a week, so debt stresses me out A LOT compared to others that I’ve seen. i’ve talked to her about me working from home or doing delivery jobs and she gets more upset saying “i don’t wanna talk about it just heal and wait until May to go back to work”.

While I agree I need to heal 100%, sitting back watching our financial ship sink while not doing anything doesn’t sit well with me and being used to “the provider” title i feel useless and very depressed overall. Without anyone’s knowledge, I signed up and got approved for several delivery apps and started driving 2 weeks ago. I tried applying for several work-from-home but was denied due to position requirements I don’t have or being fulfilled already.

Most days she works closing shifts which are 3-11 most nights. This works pretty good because I am up with my brother in the mornings to put him on the school bus at 8am and she doesn’t get up until 12:30 or 1 PM. I have been using this 4-5 hour period working for said apps and having made 150 dollars already in total. She has become increasingly my suspicious lately seeing little bits of 20-30 dollars get deposited regularly (we are joint-finances and she doesn’t really pay too much attention to them)

I have been feeling really guilty about this for a bit and haven’t told anyone until now. I don’t want to discourage my gf in anyway as she has gone through a lot with family trauma and physical abuse from previous relationships so I know she is trying day-by-day. AITAH for doing this behind her back and more importantly how do I tell her without being malicious or anything of sorts.