Not sure if I am overthinking this but here we go. Throwaway because, yeah. I (52F) have been in a long distance relationship with my boyfriend (53M) for a little under 2 years. I live in Chicago. He lives near Myrtle Beach. We work in very different fields but make about the same amount of money. We both have college- aged children who still live at home. Since we've been dating we have seen each other in person 11 times. He has been here twice. All of the other times I have traveled to him. When I go there I pay for flight, hotel and rental car. It's generally about $1,000-$1500 total. He will usually pay for most of the food and activities. When he came here, he paid for his flight and hotel, about $500-800 total. I paid for most of the food and activities.

Is this how it should be? Should he be paying for me to come there at least some of the time?

Let me be clear. I don't NEED the money. It is not a financial hardship for me to pay that amount every few months. I just don't know if it is fair or even if it should be fair. I only know of one other person who was in a LDR and her man paid for her to come out and see him each time. I did ask him to split the hotel cost with me once as it was summer and the prices had gone up considerably. I could have covered it no problem but I didn't see why I should have to . He did pay the portion I asked him to pay but it felt weird to ask. I have not asked since and he has not offered.

A little added info:

Why hotels? Neither of us feel comfortable with the other one staying in the home with our children. Yes they are grown but still.

What's with the rental car? He is legally blind so he cannot drive. I rent a car when I go there. I use my car when he comes here.

Why i go there more often? He works a 9-5 and does not have a great deal of vacation time. The times that he came here were holiday weekends. If he tried to come here on a non-holiday weekend we would only have Friday night to Sunday night together. I, on the other hand, work three 12- hour shifts per week so I can technically be off for 8 days straight without using any PTO (If I work S, M T, I technically don't have to be back to work until the following Th, F, S.) Selfishly, I would rather go there and have 5-6 days together than have him come here for 2-3 days.

How much longer will this go on? We have had serious conversations about marriage. We are committed to one another and know that we want to marry one another. We will likely get engaged within the next year and marry shortly after that.

So what do you think Reddit? Am I overthinking this? Should I bring it up with him or just let it go?

TLDR: should my boyfriend and I be equally splitting the cost to see each other?