Coming from the more well-off side, it makes friendships with people on the other side harder as well. By chance a good chunk of my social circle in college was less well off than me, and while we liked playing games together I got weird looks for buying shirts new at Macy's or Michelin tires. It just seemed to rub them the wrong way, like they thought I was trying to show off or rub something in their face even though I'm just upper-middle-class and buying what I saw as the best product for what I needed. It's not like I was showing up in a new Lexus or something. Some of them also expected me to drive them everywhere even though they had working cars of their own, and that got rather toxic after a while.

Can confirm this. Middle class here. Have a relationship with someone well-off. I view it as cultural differences that we need to overcome. In our case we did. The only "downside" is that it takes a very consistent form of energy. I'm constantly thinking "if I'd be as rich as she is, how would I deal with the situation?" I can imagine it to some extent due to how I play poker and seeing parallels with my stack size versus my financial situation. Long story short: when I feel I don't have enough, I get very tight on my spending. When I feel I have enough, I get loose and lax. As one might imagine, I wasn't a very good poker player because of that ;-)

I’ve been with my fiancée 10 years, she was solid middle class with a single mother teacher, I am pretty solid upper middle class growing up.

I just want to say that if allowed to happen you can really be a force together, a moderation force coming from your side and your SO. She buys higher quality trash bags and tires (lol) now and I don’t splurge on stuff all the time now, and don’t waste as much money.

I really appreciate the perspective being with her has given me.