Boyfriend is in £9k of debt

You sound lovely and caring, but long term I think you’re incompatible. You sound like you’re sensible with money and on top of your finances whereas he seems to be clueless about where his lonely is going.

It’s also a bit of a red flag that he is on a very reasonable wage and can’t get a bank loan. Suggests he may have poor credit history or maybe other debts that you don’t know about.

You can be a nice person and not find it necessary to solve his problems/ save him/ organise his finances. If he is hopeless with money at 44 he has always been hopeless with money.
My exhusband was useless with money. He spent it on nothing substantial at all but the debts rose and rose. He left me for a 17 year old ( he was 30)who became his second wife when she was 29. They had totally separate finances and she was so much younger than him that she accepted his assertions that all was well financially. It wasn't. That marriage ended ( he and I had had 2 children. He and second wife had 1 child). He had embezzled hundreds of thousands , spent ALL of it and when he killed himself ( and our adult children had to deal with it all) he had personal debts of £ 96,000. A man who cannot manage money is not a man I would touch with a barge pole. Deeply, deeply unattractive.

£9k is really not a big debt.
Trust he is the expert of his own process

Well i earn less than a quarter of that. Admittedly paid off mortgage so if i added the 20k he pays each year on it to my income it would bring me up to £36/37 k

And i manage fine including a longhaul trip each year

OP says they can’t go on holiday as he’s paying the debt off.

How much can he be spending on food, clothes, leisure & Ubers?

Not necessarily, in my 20s and 30s I carried a high proportion of debt, was around 20k on a 30k income, sometimes my income would be around 60k, went up and down, remortaged a lot to clear it and then spent again. It was holidays, going out, nice things, pricey shops at Waitrose and M+S (they were my two closest supermarkets, you wouldnt have caught me dead in budget supermarkets). Plus the bloody service charge for my flat was huge.

I cleared it all around 16 years ago and havent had debt since. Im as tight as arseholes now.

The people saying £9K "isn't that much" or "not that bad" on his salary are indicative how how entrenched the acceptance of debt is becoming. It's around 15% of his take home pay for new job, obviously was even higher on his old salary. That's NOT a small amount at all and of course it could well be a lot more, he's already lied about how much it is.

Theoretically if he threw all the pay rise to the debt he'd have it paid off in 10-12 months but it's highly likely he won't do that. People who persistently live above their means find it very hard to cut back spending. So instead of paying off the capital of the debt they end up in the cycle of paying of the minimums, still spending as they were so getting into more debt and just shifting the payments around or getting cards declined as OP has already found.

OP is right to be wary of someone untrustworthy. and bad with money. It's also not unreasonable of her to want a relationship of equals where they can enjoy a nice lifestyle together, without her missing out because he can't afford it.

For me that doesn't sound that crazy, especially considering his income. But clearly it bothers you and you have different attitudes to money.

There are too many red flags for me. Debt in itself is not necessarily a problem if it is explainable and there is a plan to pay it back.
My problem is firstly that he lied about the debt and then how much he owed. Then he lied and said he had a way to pay it but has gone back on his word. The fact his bank also won't help with a loan to sort it suggests this is a wider problem with some history too.
At this point I would be leaving. He's not a helpless child, he is an adult who has to make his own decisions to get better and at the moment it doesn't sound like he's doing that. Don't stick around for potential, most men don't live up to it.

Well you’re making the assumption he never does anything else - holidays etc.

I earn twice as much as him and don’t have much spare tbh. I couldn’t live off £65k

The lying is bad but I think that’s because you had a big reaction to his 3k debt, which honestly, if he’s managing it isn’t that bad. About 10 years ago I had about 12k debt. I got carried away and was so naive andit increased so quickly. Once I had a word with myself I concentrated and cleared it in 4 years. Now I’m the most sensible person ever with money. His debt now doesn’t define him as a person. How he handles it does

It’s not just about the debt though, it’s how the hell can he only be just surviving on 85k when he has no kids and no car and a not-massive-mortgage-for-London.

There’s far more to this than he’s letting on.

His mortgage is only 20k pa, if it’s credit card debt the interest on 9k won’t be more than 2700k pa. Plus utilities, council tax etc. We’re nowhere near 60k let alone 85k. BT sports wont break the bank.

So he’s either got a gambling problem or a drug problem. Or his debt is and loans from friends is much bigger than he’s told you.

You’re bang to being this cautious he’s far too old to be this shit with money.

This is about can I rely on you? Can I trust your judgement? Can I see a financially secure future with you? For me, if he drew up a spreadsheet of exactly how he planned to pay off the debt in a reasonable time frame (six months) and stuck to it, I would respect that. Otherwise I would not be able to see a future together that didn't erode my mental health.

A 44 yr old man who earns a good salary and can't keep his spending within his means is pretty unattractive tbh. I think you're getting yourself far too involved in the finances of a man you have not financial ties to, but I don't think you're wrong to think he isn't the guy for you.

It's not much debt considering his salary, but at that age he should have significant savings, not be living paycheck to paycheck.

Has he got ADHD? Smoking too much, drinking too much, not aware of how to manage his finances, out of control, anxious about it, probably the life and soul of the party at times, probably a high flyer academically or is it IT or finance type role? probably able to perform well at work but not managing domestically

What do you mean mortgage is bad due to Liz Truss timing?

Anyway, its all academic to some degree, Im just musing, there would be trouble in the future for you both, he would get pissed off and you wouldnt get a resolution.

You’ve been seeing him for a year it’s his problem not yours. Keep your beak out. He will want you to come along and try and fix it and before long you will be helping him financially too. Best kept quiet on this one and leave him to it.

You’re writing about him as if he’s a little boy and you’re his mum. OP this is so dysfunctional. On both your parts. You need to kill this dead.

He can clear it if he commits to it, but does not seem to be on that mindset right now.

OP you have a money management ethic, he doesn’t.

I see this time and time again, people in debt cycles. I actually help some out, family amd friends, when they come to me for help. But the biggest problem is their lack of financial awareness and management. I think money management is a skill we should all be taught and learn.

When you look at the interest payments made on this kind of debt and understand that it goes to already very wealthy people, it is sickening. It is actually structurally embedded into our economy.

On your DPs salary he has only himself to blame.

It might be out of embarrassment. My boyfriend knows of the biggest chunk of my debt but I couldn’t bring myself to give him the full picture yet. I know it’s silly (especially since he had way more debt than me when we met!) but the shame is too big. I haven’t been able to clear it as fast as I was hoping.

Something really doesn't add up here OP, I'd be worried too.

£9K is not a huge amount if you earn that much, BUT you have to be rational with your spending.

He's got himself into a right pickle with his credit score, is paying high interest and has borrowed from friends, and can't afford his cigarettes?

I'd run a mile, quite honestly. Thinking of your own mum, isn't it weird how life deals us the same cards to see if we have learned how to play them.

Are you sure you know the full extent of his drinking? Or his debts, actually!??!?!