Dh always says he grew up poor. I’m sceptical.

[CredulousThickos]

He bases this on the fact they had a black and white telly until he was a teenager, no phone until he was 15, they never had a car and they went to the Isle of Wight on the train for their holidays.

He says I grew up rich because we had two tellies (one was black and white though!), a phone, two cars at times and a home computer. Oh and we went to France twice.

I reckon he’s barking. Our dads both had very similar jobs and bought their (very similar) houses for tuppence but then struggled through 15% mortgage rates. We both had piano lessons. Both wore handmade or hand me down clothes and never had Nike trainers or a Mr Frosty. Both families of five.

His parents are now minted (inheritance) and other than a few nice holidays a year they still live very frugally. Same for mine although they eat out a lot too and do have the latest things, Sky, big tv etc. ILs still have an old CRT tv and a video recorder.

So my theory is that they are just frugal people who don’t put any importance on technology or ‘things’, and that his tales of abject poverty are flights of fancy.

The funny part is, when we met he had a flat furnished with stuff he’d been given (most of it went in a skip when I moved in, I’m not kidding when I say it was grim, the sofa was falling apart). He didn’t have a landline or a pc and his mobile was a Nokia Brick (this was only 11 yers ago). He wasn’t poor at all. So his theory holds no water.

He won’t have it though. And he says I’m seeing it from my ivory tower of a privileged upbringing.

WIBU to ask his mum at Sunday lunch tomorrow?

(Lighthearted obviously before you all roast me).

If you think you grew up either poor or wealthy, what were the signifiers? Because IMO we both grew up in relative comfort.

I find it interesting that in the 70's/early 80's what you owned was a wealh indicator where it simply isnt now.

Then if you had a washing machine instead of a twin tub, a home phone and/or a car then you were well off or "posh". Now it can mean htat you are well off or up to your eyeballs in Brighthouse. Of course there was finance but there wasnt a sub prime market like there is now, you had to prove you could afford it before you go a car loan or similar.

think some parents make out they're very poor to justify not spending much on their kids especially back then.

i disagree wih he second par of ha samen. Some selfish useless neglecful parens have always done his o jusify wha hey do. In our local here are a couple of regular couples who claim ha hey are poor and can pay he ren ec, bu hey boh smoke and obviously go o he pub regularly. hey plead povery o ge hand ous, bu could manage very well if hey didn smok or go o he pub given ha hey boh work full ime and have family childcare.

Arrggh!! T not working on my keyboard so I have to go back and fill in!

I disagree with the second part of that statement. Some selfish useless neglectful parents have always done this to justify what they do. In our local there are a couple of regular couples who claim that they are poor and cant pay the rent etc, but they both smoke and obviously go to the pub regularly. They plead poverty to get hand outs, but could manage very well if they didnt smoke or go to the pub given that they both work full time and have family childcare.

It can be quite subjective can't it. Growing up, we had all the middle class signifiers - music lessons, braces, good schools etc but we lived in chaos financially.

My dad has never had a steady job and threw good money after bad on business ideas and my mum's part time school teacher salary was often our only income.

So we looked middle class but perhaps a bit down on our luck, always in scruffy uniforms and in old banger cars that often broke down. What people didn't know was that more than once the card was declined at the supermarket and we'd have to leave a full trolley behind, or that the boiler broke in the middle of winter and we couldn't afford to fix it so we had freezing cold showers for two weeks.

But then in good years (thought good years became very scarce) we had beach holidays and once a trip to Disneyland so we didn't look "poor". The financial instability was awful though, and having escaped it I've done everything I can to ensure I never have that kind of lack of control over my life again.

It's all relative.

I got a scholarship to a private school aged 11. I thought we were quite poor because we didn't have a pony or go on skiing holidays

But we lived in a 4 bedroomed house, parents both worked ft and managed to pay fees for my ds is to attend the same school a year later. We had camping holidays in France, we were a two car family and we had luxuries like a washing machine,, a colour TV and a freezer. This was in the late 70s.

When my Mum and Dad were young my Mum was considered rich because she lived in a council house with an indoor loo and a bath rather than a tub they filled in the kitchen.

My mil defo won the 'poor' yorkshiremen contest as she (genuinely) grew up starving and living in caves and eating rats and rabbits they caught. She came to this country when she was 8. You could never win any kind of hardship argument with her!

Coming back to this and expect to get slaughtered but hey ho.

Do you think that maybe your husband is saying all that about being frugal because you’re not and because of the massive massive back story that you have omitted to tell in this post? It’s relevant and important and I actually feel rather sick if you’re going to “shut him down” the next time he tries to tell you to not spend money on shiney shite.

Neither of you grew up in poverty, You both had privileged childhoods.

Yy to parents putting the kids first. I only heat my house when the children are home/about to come home. They have meat and fresh fruit and veg but I don't eat any of it. They have whatever they need whenever they need it if possible but I don't. I don't mind though as they matter more than anything.

Your DH was brought up in a glass half empty house and you were brought up in one where the glass was half full.

Math that is a very apt analogy. The OP glass is half full and there’s someone coming along in a minute to top it up and she doesn’t have to work to pay for it, her DH does that.

Can I give my perspective?

My parents were probably the richest parents in my school. I failed my 12plus and all the other comfortable mc parents sent their children to private school if their kids failed. Not mine. The schooling was awful and would have been in special measures had it been 2017.

My brother got far more than me. He had his own dog (he’d beat me up if I touched him), pony (which was apparently a ‘family’ pony but I wasn’t allowed to ride and they sold because my brother was allergic), scrap cars (that I had to beg him to drive) and scrap motorbike (ditto).

I otoh wasn’t given any of these things, I had very few clothes and was only ever bought one bra for my entire childhood. I bought two bras when I was about 17. I hid in my bedroom in books for most of my childhood to be as invisible as possible. To hide from my mother and my brother. My father was always working and lived vicariously through his son. He had no idea of my plight. Not that this excuses it.

I was clearly brought up very middle class. Family holidays. But in many ways, I was Cinderella in my household. I may as well have been brought up in a small house on an estate, not a smallhold farm. So looking back I felt emotionally neglected. My emotional needs were never met and I wasn’t allowed to express myself or say what I wanted.

Occasionally I did demand things I wanted, such as my ‘A’ level choice and was adamant what I wanted to do. But I got the things I wanted for myself wrong because I’d never been given direction or guidance or the permission to make mistakes. And when my mother saw I’d made a mistake, she ruthlessly berated me. I failed the subject I wanted to study. Not because I was rubbish or stupid but because I hadn’t had good schooling up to 16 so the basics weren’t there, was severely depressed, hated myself and wanted to die.

I would rather have been my friend down the road, whose mother cared about her emotional needs. Or my friends with nice and loving mothers. One in particular was so loving and I would have cut off my arm to have her.

Dh was brought up in a small house. His hobby was football. He holidayed at a relations house. He had an emotionally privileged upbringing. His family supported him to excel at school. They were there for him. I would much rather have had his upbringing.

Perhaps you need to ‘hear’ you dh. Either he is being ridiculous about not having the odd luxury. Or maybe he had an emotionally destitute upbringing and he’s confusing the two.

Cokeis, what backstory ?

And your second post there is just nasty. Do you feel like that about SAHM’s generally or is that bile reserved for lil’ old me? I feel very special.

You spend money impulsively on stuff and your DH is working long hours to pay for it. You don’t work.

Interesting comment op. I’m really glad you got something out of the other posts

Awh diddums. It’s hardly bile. It’s a statement of fact.

You have multiple issues and your DH is massively supportive and yet you post threads on here seeking to paint him in a bad light. That’s not fair to him.

I have no issue with people who choose to SAH but you SAH and spend money on dross such that your DH is working long long hours - up until recently was doing 2x normal hours to pay back all the debt from the money you spent.

OK. Going back to the original OP - some people are raised with a very strong fear of becoming poor. Is that what's going on with your dh? You might have to delve into his parents' history, and the sort of stories he was brought up with.

Perhaps he has a deep insecurity about what might happen.

Cokeis That's rather harsh. I'm thinking you'd better be able to back that up because it sounds well sharp from where I'm sitting.

Nope.

I did have a period of overspending, I was ill and it was part of that. I don’t anymore. DH did work ridiculous hours for the past year, in part to pay down the credit cards, yes, but mainly because the project he was heading needed a push.

We don’t have any more debt, and while yes he is a natural saver and I’m a spender we have a good balance now. I don’t work due to aforementioned illness, but also now because it works much better, DH prefers me being at home, the kids are happier, we don’t need any extra money.

Don’t assume you know the ins and outs of our lives just from the crap I post about on MN.

The op has a long posting history under many name changes.

I can back it up but I don’t think the op would appreciate that.

FarceFace is spot on. Not all children of poor backgrounds are frugal. Buying ‘shiny shit’ can keep the ongoing anxiety at bay.

You had tens of thousands of credit card debt and multiple threads about the shitty hours he was working to pay them and how you wanted to buy more stuff and he didn’t want you to.

I’m out. You are in denial.

How would you know about the op's name changes? You seem to know a lot about her.

That’s a little bit disingenuous. The only ‘stuff’ I’ve posted about wanting to buy was his new guitar. Which he still hasn’t bought, despite the money sitting in the bank. Because he struggles spending money on himself. And that was one thread.

I have no idea why I’m engaging with you.

It’s not fair to castigate her DH for frugality when they have very recently been @ massive debt. And possibly are still paying that debt off. And the op was wanting just a couple of months ago to buy more shit.

And now I am hiding the thread.

I think this is the same person who pops up on many of my threads to say similar.

It’s very easy to form an opinion of someone from posts online, I suppose, but she’s got it all wrong.