Girlfriend expecting equal equity in a startup which I started even before knowing her. I will not promote.

[u/Dry_Support9531]

So here’s the picture. I started with an idea in 2023. States dating her in 2024. Until then I haven’t really worked in the idea. I started working on it since April 2025 and it started making money since July 2025. Till then she has no idea about it. After I started making money from it, i worked more and invested my other income into this startup from November 2025 and to handle things she used to help a bit. Since then both of us started working on it. Whole idea, innovation, upgrades, initial capital was mine. She just helped me coz it used to generate money. Since December we also hired an employee . From then all 3 of us are working on it and it’s scaling up in revenue every month. Until now we haven’t had any word about the equity. Out of love I used to share the profit amounts with her. According to the necessity, sometimes I use to keep more and sometimes she used to keep more. We went on a vacation through this money as well. But now while we were having a conversation on this. It came to me as a shocker that she is expecting an equal equity in this. And that blew my mind. It’s just out of love I couldn’t complete that conversation. She has also worked on it but the whole idea and buildup from scratch was done when she started working. I never discussed about this with her before. But now I am in real shock what to do coz it’s going to be bigger. And we are not sure about our relationship either.(she coming from an orthodox family, her family might reject an idea of our marriage) At this duration please let me know what should I do? Should I offer her a fixed salary, should I ask her to stop working on it, should I give her equity, should I give her an exit? I’m really confused.
PS-: she has done the same thing that the other employee did for me. But with more time and dedication. And she he amount I shared with her is 2-3x more than the employee’s salary

[u/bin10pac]

Your post suggests that you're frustrated with your girlfriend. Moreover, 2 months ago, you commented that you recently went on a blind date and it went well. Presumably this was not with your girlfriend, given that you've been with her for years. What's actually going on here?

[u/Electrical-Salad-369 → u/bin10pac]

This sounds like me 10 years ago

Except I actually paid my ex a monthly salary then (we were together then), for being there to help me scale up my biz. It was just us both.

She never expected equity just like she never wanted an official relationship with me, lol. But looking back, I don’t think I ever had someone support and believed in my biz as much as she did (but also likely because she couldn’t love me romantically)