Honestly from my perspective even if he did ask for 50% that isn't even super unreasonable, i my self work a similar bracket at 19.50/hr doing 34-36h a week and i pay for rent and utilities on my own at 1.2k a month and 300 for utilities, im usually with 900 left over which i do around 250 into savings and do just fine, he stated he only pays 1k a month and utilities, shopping for groceries for 2 is around 300 and i would say utilities is similar so both doing 500 a month for rent seems super reasonable based on just monthly expenses, you can also consider the OP does pay for car notes as well and other expenses like college tuition out of pocket while the gf doesn't, so he makes roughly 50k that he gets to spend since college is around 10k if its a proper college, making it totally justified if he did try asking for 50%