<human>: Can you give me a shortened version of the text?

Hi r/relationships.

This isn't a problem or a sad post, it's really just a question. My man and I are doing all the recommended things that lead to financial stability, and our situation has definitely been improving. We're proud of ourselves. 

Currently, our finances are separate aside from splitting rent and groceries. This system works great. However, he has a greater earning power than I do (and likely ever will have - he has a degree and certifications, I am a mere uneducated cube rat). It is likely at some point that, as we expand our lives, we will want to move upwards and onwards, and I will not be able to afford "my half". The amount I can afford for rent, for example, is limited. The amount I can put towards mutual retirement savings, or even things as simple as matching lifestyles. I feel like I may hold our financial progress/growth back as a couple.

He has said before that his goal is to provide, and I very much appreciate him for that. However, I am incredibly and insistently an independent person, who takes the ability to hold my own as a point of pride. There is nothing to say I could not increase my earning power via education and etc, which is what I intend to do, but I have a dreadful fear of becoming a burden in any way. It would shame me to my core to have to ask for money I did not earn, even if it was for something as necessary as toilet paper.

Are there any couples out there who are dealing, or have dealt, with income disparity that could give me some encouragement or pointers on this? How do you deal with one person making more than the other and not being able to shoulder their half of the burden? Am I proactively making a big deal out of something very simple?
<bot>: I am afraid of the day I cannot "match" my boyfriend's half of our joint expenses, and am unsure how to deal with it.