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AIBU?

to consider the end of the line

13 replies

DearestMommy · 26/09/2015 13:44

Please give me your views. Been with new man for about 18 months. He is self employed and that comes with it's issues I'm sure. However, he seems to lurch from one financial crisis to another. I have done his account for free for the last year and got it all pretty much sorted. Invoicing up to date etc etc. However, I don't know what goes on with his bank account. I don't have access obviously so have no idea who has paid or hasn't. But that's not really my remit. However, clearly he doesn't manage his finances at all well. He doesn't have debt as such but doesn't have much spare cash. I can live with that. Up to a few weeks ago we lived a sort of half in half our relationship. He was here more than not so I wrote to working tax credits people and local council and said I was was no longer singe parent so did not need single person discount on council tax and working tax credits any more. the correct and honest thing to do I guess. up to this point we had an arrangement that I paid the monthly bills and he paid for all food and petrol for cars and other add hock items now and again. But a few weeks ago he got stung by his own his son. He did some work for him (who is also in the same line of business) and he never paid him. The upshot was no money for food or fuel and no I now discover he doesn't have any money to pay a huge tax bill in two months time. On top of that his (grown up) kids keep tapping him for money and not paying it back. They all live on the edge of the law, non tax paying individuals with a passion for getting into debt an not paying their way. This is now starting to impact on our (my) standard of living. A few weeks ago I said that I was not going to be compromised financially while his kids spunked all their money and then came to him which in turn resulted in him not being able to pull his weight here. I divvied up the household costs and said that is what you will give me each month or week regardless of what is going on. Fair enough he agreed and started to pay. But it continues. His son's are still doing things that will get him into trouble. He promised a few weeks ago that he would try to not do business with his family any longer. He doesn't need to. He's well known in the area and trusted by all his customers. I have just discovered that his sons are doing work without the correct licence but using their dad's licence number to certify said work and registering him as the licensed engineer that carried out the work. Also they did a job for a less desirable individual and fiddled the invoice and said individual is now trying to extract a huge amount of cash from my partner because the son used his license number to to the job. Said individual is now threatening to "smash up the place". Police and liaison officers are now involved. My man told his son not to do the work because he knew what he was like but son ignored in and did it anyway. I feel really angry at all of them. Am about to ask him to leave. He is a lovely bloke, and would, in the main, do anything for me, but be responsible for his own welfare. But i have to preserve my own welfare. Luckily there is no joint issues financially. But of course the heartache. I love him but really can't, as responsible citizen with a government job, be involved with people that live so outside the law. Am I being unreasonable in telling him to leave? This is not new to him, the arguments about the risky business behaviour started about May this year but I've not felt anything I've said has got through.
Your views please. And thanks for reading this little lot.

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formerbabe · 26/09/2015 13:48

That would be way too stressful for me...I'd move on.

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WhereYouLeftIt · 26/09/2015 14:18

"Am I being unreasonable in telling him to leave?"
Absolutely not unreasonable.

"He is a lovely bloke, and would, in the main, do anything for me, but be responsible for his own welfare."
Even without the rest of your situation, this would be enough for me to end the relationship. I want to be a partner to an adult, not a nanny to a faux-helpless manchild. Eugh.

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CaoNiMao · 26/09/2015 15:53

There's more to life than this. Get rid.

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sproketmx · 26/09/2015 17:15

Apart from anything else I don't think your lifestyles are compatability. Even if his kids are grown up if they're in trouble he will continue to help them and that will continue to get to you. Maybe best just be friends

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Topseyt · 26/09/2015 17:34

If the shady lifestyles and activities of his adult children could impact and jeopardise your own future and your job then you would not be unreasonable to view this as a deal breaker.

I guess it is easy to sit in judgment on the sidelines and say what he should or should not do, but he does need to be much more in control of the situation than he is. At present the situation is controlling him and placing you in an impossible situation from which the only way out could be to simply leave.

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DearestMommy · 26/09/2015 22:09

Thanks. I know I've got to do it. I really don't think he realises the gravity of the situation. I think he thinks I'm overreacting. I get the impression his ex, the mother of his four sons is the same type. Very risky personal behaviour - dodgy violent boyfriends, drinking to excess and getting into awkward situations etc etc which he has had to bail her out of a lot since they divorced 10 years ago. She lurches from one disaster to another too.

She's asked him for money several times since we've been together - but drives around in a much better car than I could ever hope to own. He tells me that he just says no but I'm beginning to doubt that now.

One prime example is this year. We could just about afford a week in the UK in a caravan. We took his youngest son with us and when we dropped him back she took him straight off to Turkey for a holiday and then asked my partner for some money on her return saying that the lad needed a shed load of stuff for school.

Did I mention that he pays more in CM than he earns some weeks but hasn't the heart to reduce it in case she says he can't see the lad any more.

I rather stupidly listened to his tales of woe of his the family business, headed up by his father, going bankrupt and taking him down with him off in resulting in him losing his home and then leaving the family in debt when he died a couple of years ago.

How he lost the house to his wife when he divorced and she wasted it all in a year spending all the equity instead of buying something else. I hear of her mother who was left a half million pound house back in the 80s and now lives in a small council flat unable to pay her rent having spent it all on holidays etc etc.

Just writing this down scared the bejeezers out of me. I lived through that crisis that was the 1991 crash and seeing my mortgage interest rate go up to 15% and a third knocked off the value to the house. Basically all of my equity had disappeared after over 15 years of house ownership gone!!! Careful buying and selling over a period of 9 years building up equity wiped out in a matter of weeks. Facing having to sell and not to being able to buy. I really don't want to go there again. I really can't cope with the idea of someone that has let that happen to him twice and doesn't seem that bothered about it.

I am so scared of losing the good stuff (his kindness and generosity is without doubt the main thing) but I personally think the good stuff will become less and less as he gets too comfortable and assumes that I'm just going to go along with it like his wife did. He says that he adores me and wants to be with me. He bought me a car when we first got together because I saw one and I said I liked it. Next think I knew it was parked on my drive. However, I find out months later he cashed in a pension scheme and used part of it purchase the car. The rest he spent on stuff for his sons like motorbikes and biking equipment. We are both in our late 50s and not the sort of thing he should be doing I'm sure. He says that his wife never questioned his finances, just went out and spent it when it came in. I can't be like that. I need to know that there is enough for the important things in life and some left over for treats. Not much to ask really is it?
Sorry this really is a rant. I used to be so bad with my finances when I was in my twenties but feel now it is time to take stock and prepare for older age.

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WhereYouLeftIt · 26/09/2015 23:03

"I really don't think he realises the gravity of the situation."
Nor will he, ever Sad. If he's spent decades lurching from emergency to tragedy via chaos, surrounded by people who think this is how life is lived, then it's just too ingrained to change. All that will happen in that he will embroil you in his mess.

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MillionToOneChances · 27/09/2015 00:06

It's sad, but I think the differences in how you think about money doom the relationship to failure.

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LindyHemming · 27/09/2015 01:35

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AlpacaLypse · 27/09/2015 01:52

I'm really sorry, because on lots of levels he sounds like a total gorgeous sweetheart. Unfortunately he comes with several highly reliant adult children and a highly reliant ex wife. You cannot delete them, and it would be outrageous to even try to do so.

Head says walk.

Heart says, cry quite a lot. Then walk.

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Imustgodowntotheseaagain · 27/09/2015 09:20

I think you need to have similar attitudes to money to have a long-term future with someone. He's clearly on the side of 'spend it if you've got it' while you sound like a more careful planner.

But the red line for me would be the dodgy business dealings. It sounds like his sons' abuse of his licence risks the safety of your home. I couldn't live with that. I'd be asking him to move out for my own safety, and the welfare of my kids.

Sorry.

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DearestMommy · 27/09/2015 22:06

Thank you all. After a day of arguing, discussing, tears and more arguing I have to come the realisation this is not going to work and have asked him to leave.
I guess this should have gone into "relationships" www.mumsnet.com/emo/te/3.gif.pagespeed.ce.ohOMRL_vp7.gif

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LindyHemming · 28/09/2015 04:07

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