My feathers are mostly grown out & I'm sitting on the edge of the nest waiting for the right wind or something, the future of health insurance mostly, but my (male) partner is still years off. Sorting out how to maintain the right expectations about how I use my time (I paid for it, point-blank) feels easier than the finances post-FIRE. I want to move away from the HCOL neighborhood I live in for work & I want to keep entirely separate finances until there's more parity, but how does that work without renting? Owning is the cheaper choice where I'd like to move. On the one hand charging rent to a partner feels wrong, & maybe legally risky. On the other he wants significantly more house than I would alone.
I'm also perturbed by the specter of being seen as a kept woman, but that's probably to be blamed on an upbringing that one should be "grateful" to financial providers ... in the form of exempting them from all other accountability. I hope it's an irrelevant fear, but especially in event of a rupture I don't want to have to explain to anyone that I'm FI just to be seen as 'deserving' of the free time & assets they'd otherwise think he was paying for. Though they pretend otherwise people here still think a woman's fortunes rise & fall with their romances. My plan was to be vague about the relationship of my productive hobbies to compensation & let people think I'm gainfully working at something, whether or not it's true at the time.
Re: renting vs owning
Well first, I'm going to assume you're not married. For non married couples where I live, it's very normal for one home owning partner to collect rent from the other. There should be no legal issues with this, but it's still always good to consult a lawyer and draw up whatever agreement the two of you feel is fair.
That agreement could be that he is a traditional tenant of yours and entitled to no equity, or you could agree to an equity payout in the event of a split. This can be arranged either as the two of you co-owning, or it can be arranged where he has no actual claim to the house, but you make a separate financial agreement that you will pay out the equivalent of his share of equity. This way it's always your house and if he becomes an ex, has no say over whether or not to sell.
As for size of house, that's going to have to be a compromise regardless of whether you buy or rent. But yeah, if you two are substantially at odds on this and cannot find a home you are both very happy with, then even if it's expensive, consider sticking with renting so that you never end up with a house you don't want to own.
You're right though, the financial aspects of a relationship can be incredibly challenging if the two people aren't on the same page in terms of priorities. It requires A LOT of communication about tricky negotiations. Hopefully the house size is your only significant sticking point, but that's a substantial one that I've seen a lot of couples grapple with.
As for being seen as a kept woman, the only thing I can say is that absolutely everyone walks around every day being judged by misperceptions about themselves. You do it to, you make countless assumptions about everyone you know that are probably grossly inaccurate, and some of them very hurtful.
Whenever I start feeling bent out of shape that people who don't know me well might assume uncomfortable things about me, I try to remember that I unintentionally think all sorts of hurtful things about others that I'm not even remotely aware are hurtful.
When I remind myself that I do it too, it's easier to not take it personally, because I in no way mean it to be hurtful to anyone. It's not malicious, it's simply cognitive efficiency, we fill in the blanks of what we don't know about people until and unless we are given specific evidence to contradict it.
I assumed for years that my friend's girlfriend didn't like me because she never accepted an invite and often seemed to sabotage my friend coming over, or would call him and insist he come home early. She stopped working shortly after they got together as well, and had a bit of a shopping addiction. She seemed like a controlling kept woman, but I generally just stayed out of it and shook my head. Her boyfriend was always vague and dismissive if anyone said anything. Only after they broke up did I find out that she had experienced major trauma and had developed crippling anxiety and agoraphobia.
I wish I had known, I tried to find out why she behaved as she did, but she didn't want anyone knowing her personal business, which I respect. Who am I to be entitled to her innermost intimate truths? It sucks, and I feel terrible, but I filled in the blanks with the information I was entitled to.
You have no idea the endless secrets of those around you, and your brain glosses over them with reasonable, probable conclusions. People will always do the same with you, and assuming you're a kept woman isn't the only one you wouldn't appreciate. People make tons of assumptions about you every day that would probably irritate you to be aware of.
It's not personal, so try not to take it personally.
I long ago decided to be amused by how people might mispercieve me, and take it as a point of pride that I defy expectation so much that those who encounter me are almost guaranteed to draw inaccurate conclusions.
Any time I choose to get to know someone, it's always a game of uncovering all of the incorrect assumptions they had made about me up to that point. I find it fun because I'm proud of what it represents. For example, DH and I have the same last name, and everyone we meet assumes, reasonably, that it's his family name. I get a kick out of knowing that he took mine. I don't feel the need to tell everyone (he does because he thinks he's so damn cool for doing it), but I just enjoy knowing they're assuming something stereotypical and that it's wrong because my marriage defied that gender expectation.
People will assume you're a kept woman because what you've chosen to do is so rare and exceptional. The only way people won't make wildly inaccurate assumptions about you is if you are the most vanilla, predictable, gender normative, white sheep of the pack.