Has my DP been stealing my electricity?

[Rugpulledfromunderme8]

This is my first post after much lurking and it might be a bit outing but sod it, frankly. Apologies if this is a bit long.
So, I've been with my (now-ex) DP for nearly four years and he lives in the flat above me (which is how me met).
He's been living with me with a view to selling his place and we were going to buy somewhere together.
We've had a few rows along the way but generally been living together ok for about two and a half years.
So, the past few mornings I've noticed that a double socket in the spare bedroom has been switched on. (With nothing plugged in) I work during the day and he's doing his flat up, so he's at home during the day.
Thought nothing of it, I plug my hairdryer into the neighbouring socket and thought I'd knocked it. Until today, when the alarm clock was flashing and plugged into the 'wrong' socket - indicating that it had been unplugged and plugged back in again. A long extension cable was under the bed. (the kind that wraps around a wheel type device, so really, really long)
I shouted through the bathroom door to ask what he'd been using the socket for. No answer. Then he laughed and said he was listening to the clock radio on the alarm (so obviously not true, who sits in a spare room listening to a clock radio?!)
Basically he refused to tell me what he'd been doing. Said I'd imagined it, it was me, he'd done nothing. I got so angry because it's blatantly obvious he's been using the socket for something and he won't tell me. I can't begin to imagine what he's been doing and why he won't tell me.
So I clearly can't trust him in my flat can I? I've asked him to move out.
He says I'm being unreasonable, clearly don't trust him and 'shouldn't' be living with someone when 'I'm not the sort to trust anyone in my house.'
Wtf? I'm shell shocked. AIBU? What has he been doing?

Does he really own the flat above or was he just squatting and now has occupied your property with your permission?

I think he's best off out of it tbh

and so is OP... and now he'll need to PAY for his own day to day existence...

It would be like finding out your partner was stealing your loose change from out of your pockets when they did the washing. Petty and cheap

You see, I feel thr opposite. That your long term live in partner wasnt allowed to use your loose change or your electricity because you pay the bill, as what's petty and cheap.

My husband and I both help ourselves to each other's loose change when we need it, in fact we keep it in jars. We also use the electricity without permission.

You probably also both contribute. He doesn't. He has the means to but doesn't.

If he’s immediately said I used the extension lead to listen to the radio in my flat I’m sure OP wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.

But he didn’t say that. So he obviously knew he was being a CF. Alll he had to do was ask

Some folks live lives that just seem sad. That you'd see using some of your loose change as theft

Bluntness, I often borrow money from DH’s wallet and vice versa. What I don’t do is specifically go through his clothes looking for cash to put in my own pocket, to “get one over” on him.

I used to work with somebody who did do that to her partner, in fact she used to boast about the fact she’d stolen £3 off him over the weekend. She definitely saw it as stealing his money, not pooling their joint resources. No way would she ever have lent him 10p for a phone call, she was spectacularly stingy and mean. It comes from a very adversarial and petty worldview. She also stole from our employer.

That’s what jumped into my mind Tribble.

DH and I did something similar OP to what I think you thought was happening.

I was doing up the flat I lived in when I met him. Working four days a week at a job to fund the renovations.

After a bit he started helping me a little with the work. Then after six months we wanted to move in together. I moved in with him whilst we finished off the flat. After a couple of months living together we decided it was working well so I sold my flat and moved in with him whilst we 1) Started looking for a house we could buy together (using my proceeds as deposit) 2) Did some minor bits of repainting before putting his flat on market too.

Wind forward another few months and we’re 1) Engaged 2) Living ina new house together whilst the sale of his flat went through.

I’d didn’t pay my now DH any rent or bills for the few months I was living in his flat because it didn’t seem worth working it out whilst there was so much else going on and I had bigger costs like solicitors fees etc. to pay. But I did give him a chunk of money once my sale proceeds went through (which he then put straight towards the house deposit anyway) and then put virtually all the rest of the proceeds straight into a house deposit. Then once we found a house we liked and had an offer accepted, he put his flat on the market. We didn’t do that earlier in case he had a quick offer and we had nowhere to go.

You thought you were getting into something like that didn’t you OP, but it just started dragging on and on. At the start, you thought this was going to take a year or 18 months and instead it just dragged on and on going nowhere.

The electricity thing was just the final straw.

I just think he sounds like a cheapskate, always trying to get someone else to fund him.

I had a couple of those over the years, they're tiresome.