Cocklodgers - Myth or Reality? Vote please.

[GarlicMonkey]

Been chatting about my own short lived, but significant, historic cocklodger experience with DP. Mine was such an entited baby & although I got him out of my house (back to his mum's back bedroom) & my bank balance pretty quick, it took ages to shake him off completely. I'd wrecked all of his dreams, robbed him of his future, waa, waa, strop.... aye mate, your future of eternally living like a teenager while I provide for you.

DP thinks it must have been a one off because 'there surely can't be many people like that?'. My single friend has explained to him her online dating strategy for early cocklodger detection (it's great, she should publish it) after being stung once but he's still pretty stunned & in denial.

So, are they rare & me & my friendship group have just been unlucky, or are they a definite thing to be on guard for?

YABU - No, they're not a thing.
YANBU - Yes, they're a thing.

Any stories also appreciated.

Some women ( often divorced or with children) demonstrate their financial independence in new relationships and seek to be clear they arent looking for financial support.

Some cocklodgers take this as a green light to do and pay fuck all indefinitely.

I divorced one. While I was working away from home and living in a boxlike room, he was throwing lavish dinners for ladies in the house we’d bought and bragging about how much he spent hiring tennis courts. When I left, he emptied the joint account. Then he tried to block the divorce with stories of how he wanted to reconcile while bad-mouthing me to anyone who would listen and simultaneously pushing for the house to be sold because he ‘needed the money’. He tried to apply for alimony though there were no children and we had not been married long. He had a job, it just didn’t pay enough for the lifestyle he thought I should fund. Ugh, what a turd. Never again.

@IncandescentSilver but surely in the circumstances you mention, it's just the truth? They're being kicked out so urgently need a room?They might well be arses which is why they're getting kicked out, but can't see why it makes them a cocklodger?

@IncandescentSilver, I don't get your posts at all. Couples separate all the time. For various reasons.

Most of the time, the woman get to stay in the house, at least until divorced, or the housevis sold. Often, the man needs to find somewhere else to stay whilst paying for the mortgage or at least half. A cheap room is all they can afford after paying the mortgage and child maintenance.

Why are you judging these men knowing nothing if their circumstances?

This thread has just made me realise that one of my exes was a cocklodger!
He moved in unofficially, had zero money while I worked (and studied full time) to get us money for food, and paid the rent.
I never thought about it until now. Rose tinted glasses have gone in the bin - what a prick!

A thing, yes, but less of a thing than many MN posts would suggest.

Not me thankfully but a couple of dear friends (no connection with each other) have longstanding cocklodgers. Big similarities though - both snared late teens/early twenties by guys 10+ years older. Both so bright but dragged down by lazy fuckwits.

I never discuss thier partners with them (learnt early on how futile it was) but do try to encourage hobbies, travel etc.

They’ve both given up so much for utter waste of spaces, bought the line that a shot partner is better than no partner.

Placemarking....in case "the list" of questions is provided. Also love "cocklodger lite"...the beauty of hindsight lol

My nephew is a cocklodger. He moved in with his pregnant gf when he couldn't live with his parents anymore. He could never hold onto a job and nothing was ever his fault. Several years and 2 kids later, she chucked him out. He sofa surfed for a while and eventually ended up living with his mum again.

I love my nephew, he has a lot of good qualities. I also recognise that he is not capable of being a decent partner in a relationship with a woman.

Just instinct Rubicon. They always claim to have well paid jobs, jobs which would easily allow them to pay for a hotel for a couple of weeks or an Air BandB.

But no, it's always the same story, they want everything rushed through, which of course doesnt give time for credit checks, reference checks, etc..

It's a huge red flag when some stranger wants to move into your home almost immediately, and makes me really uncomfortable.

There was one time the chap seemed so decent and trustworthy that I said yes, I could do it in such a time frame (3 days ie by the weekend!), so could he please pay £800 into my account (deposit plus one month's rent in advance) and have an email from his employer to me by the next day plus a copy of his passport as proof of ID. He went pale, started stuttering but said he would get it organised. I never heard from him again!

And why is it always men being thrown out in this way? Never, ever women.

Perhaps the female versions go for make landlords?

Yanbu. Not experienced it myself but v common with families I support.

Not dated one myself. I have had two friends end up with cocklodgers. I would say both of these women put having to be in a relationship above everything else and seem too grateful and gracious towards men overall. Whereas I found men a bit of an inconvenience even from a very young age. As soon as anyone is in a relationship you need to consider the other and I was extremely careful with my time and money as both are valuable commodities. I was surprised I could find a man I could tolerate enough to marry let alone have dc.

SIL has had a string of cocklodgers, she is owed thousands. Again she values being in a relationship too much. One of the friends with a cocklodger is starting divorce proceedings, she has confided in me over the last few months, he bought zero assets to the table. She seems to think he will not want 50%, no dc involved at all, they got together in their late forties. We will see I thought she was absolutely nuts marrying him and said so. He may get 250k on divorce minimum. She is convinced he will not want anything.

Dp is really paranoid after he learned the term from me. I catch him mowing or something and he's saying 'I have to help you might think I'm a CL!', despite not living with me and being a full time school teacher 😂

If it was so rare, there wouldn't be songs and novels about it going back many years... eg the song "Just a Gigolo" from the 1920s, and various films and novels, etc. At least a proper gigolo takes care of his appearance and treats his job as an art form, and doesn't just lie around drinking beer and farting on the sofa.

One of my first serious bf was a cockloger I realise that now. He leeched off me constantly and his mother encouraged it!!

How do these freeloaders exist?

What is it their families are getting wrong?

I was living in my own place and he moved in. Apparently I owed him as he moved from his mums house (rent free) to mine.

The icing on the cake was when he offered me £100 to treat myself as I was essentially leaving in poverty covering food/bills/expensive vet bill (shared pet) as he didn’t like me living like that... at least £1300 going out my account on the first of the month but £100 to treat myself. If he had offered it as a slight contribution to the council tax that would have been something but to treat myself?

@Sewsosew

I worked with a woman whose son was a cocklodeger. Professional student and then a ‘musician’. Married someone and had 3 kids. According to his mother (when the woman had come to his senses and thrown him out after working and supporting him for years) was that she was only after his money? And she wasn’t sure those children were even his (apart from looking exactly like him).

😲 wow, that one is definitely a subspecies - "only after his money" (pah, lol) and riduculous disingenuous "suspicions of cuckolding" - I've come across a similar family! 😂

I encountered one years ago. They are real. One day when i had enough and forced him to contribute or get out (both on same money and bills split equal) he had his tail between his legs saying he had nothing to show for it. He was horrible in so many ways. Used to pinch from me, hit me etc.. When i think back the hate comes flooding back and i hope karma gets him.

Picsinred, I expect his mother is using cognitive dissonance to avoid recognising what he was really like. I presume there is a dichotomy - if your child is exploiting then that is what partners do for love, share and so on. If your child is exploited then their partner is a CL.

Two I know the background of seem to have freeloading parents. One worked excessive hours so she could pamper her little boy and really hated his partner because she didn't look after him properly.

They are definitely everywhere. I've had two.
No more men living with me ever again.
My cousin had one too.

The first cocklodger just didn't really see why he should work. He would work for a while, build up savings and then stop working and live off the savings which lasted a long time because he was basically living off my back. When I eventually booted him out he told some friends a right sob story about him being on the streets in a foreign country because I'd kicked him out with no notice. I know this as I heard the phone call while he was lying around on my couch. They sent him money for a fucking train fare to where they lived and he scrounged off them for 6 months (the man in that couple was also a cocklodger and my ex sent me emails saying it was great living with them as the wife provided and cooked all the food and he and the husband sat on the sofa gaming and only had to shout and a coffee would be brought, or pizza or whatever. They also had enough of him eventually and the poor woman has since had a complete breakdown because of her cocklodging husband).

My second cocklodger was more a cocklodger by stealth. He sort of paid his way and was generous with trips out, meals etc... but actually he was using the money he was saving on rent to get pissed with his mates all the time and to pay for prostitutes as it turned out.
He's well on the way to being a cocklodger again with his new gf though can't move in with her until her divorce is finalized.

They are everywhere!!!

Have followed thread with mixture of surprised / horrified fascination. Would be deeply ashamed myself to be dependent on DP unless a SAHD or incapacitated in some way. Maybe this is cultural / generational change and among younger men it is seen as less of an issue, but thread suggests that cocklodgery not confined to those of relatively tender years.

How do these men who blatantly scrounge off women justify it to themselves - where is their pride? What mental gymnastics do they pull off to convince themselves it's OK?

RE: Hobosexual.
This is slightly different to a cocklodger. It is a person who enters into a sexual relationship with someone and/or falls in love with someone rapidly because they need somewhere to live fairly urgently - eg. parents given them notice to leave; wife kicked them out and they are sofa-surfing; they've fallen out with flatmates or the landlord wants the place back or something.
Lo and behold - 5 minutes later they are hanging around a woman with her own place and love bombing. Then the toothbrush appears, clothes etcetc. and before you know it BOOM... they are there.

They may or may not turn out to be a cocklodger but I think hobosexuality and cocklodging go hand in hand. My second cocklodger moved in with me by stealth and it was pretty much because he couldn't bear living with his parents any more and they were pig sick of his drinking. He was definitely a hobosexual.

Outwest, I think they either don't care or it's the 'because I'm worth it' - their company and time is more than reward for the DP's contribution.