Page 5 | Father constantly asking me where my money comes from…?

EinsteinaGogo · 26/12/2021 20:06

@Aloha7373

Basically: AIBU to think my father constantly asks me about my finances for toxic/jealous reasons? Or is it just insensitive curiosity?…

He used to do it when I was much younger (16/17), always saying things like “You’re going out???” “With what money????” “How are you affording a big night out on the other side of London?” “I think you’re really irresponsible spending the money you earn” etc etc.

Cut to today (I’m now 30). Every single piece of news about my life is responded to with the same questions. For example - I got engaged last year, and instead of congratulating me he just said, “But how will you afford a wedding?” “Didn’t you just get a car???” “I just think you should be looking after your money and not blowing it on getting married”.

I’ve just told him my husband and I are buying a house, and I got the same exact inquisition. No “congrats,” no “how wonderful!” Nothing except “But HOW?????? WHERE ARE YOU GETTING YOUR MONEY FROM?” “Didn’t you just get married?” “I just don’t understand where you seem to be sourcing infinite money.”

I’ve literally earned every penny I’ve ever spent. And my parents have never given me money towards my wedding, car, university nothing (except for bringing me up in their house of course). I’ve always just worked my absolute arse off for the things I want!

AIBU to think this is coming from a place of bitter jealousy in order to bring me down? Or is this normal/innocent behaviour?

You can 'train' people how to respond, OP.

"We are buying a bigger house"
"With what money?"
"I think you mean, 'how lovely, tell me all about it', Dad".

Honestly - practice your responses. It won't happen overnight but you can train your dad to either ask different questions, or at least not expect the intimidate details of your life.

EerieSilence · 26/12/2021 20:16

I had a relative like that and when it got too much, I just said, oh, selling drugs is a good business. Took some pearl clutching and smelling salts but it shut her up.

violetbunny · 26/12/2021 20:34

My mother worked as a financial planner for decades before she retired, helping people to plan their finances for retirement etc - and even she never asks me anything money related!

It's not normal, it sounds like he has some of his own anxieties about money which he is projecting onto you. I would refuse to engage and change the topic every time.

Anniegetyourgun · 26/12/2021 20:53

@DeliriaSkibbly

My father used to try this with me when I was much younger (I'd left home, had my own place and so on). His tack was to try to tell me that I should do X or I should do Y or not do A.

In the end I just told him: It's my life. If you finance it, you can dictate it - but you finance it fully to every last penny, otherwise it's nothing to do with you and if you carry on you'll find you lose contact with your only child. Next time he tried it when I was over for Sunday lunch I literally got up and walked out. He never tried it again.

Billy Joel where art thou?

Mellowyellow222 · 26/12/2021 23:35

@AnnaMagnani

I remember being really excited about a major trip - and booked round the work flights. He asked me how much they were - I stupidly told him - and he immediately told me I got ripped off. I hadn’t- I researched for months and he had no idea what they should cost

This is absolute FIL. He laid into the unfortunate BIL for spending too much on a house because back in the dark ages he could buy a 5-bed in Surrey for £40K and BIL was now struggling to buy a starter home in one of the most popular housing markets for £350K. Utterly bonkers.

I recently sold me house. It fell through twice because first time buyers parents told them you never pay over asking price.

In the market I live in it is impossible to get a house for asking - every house has bidding wars.

I sold it for more than both these people had bid - I sometime wonder if these people ever managed to buy a home with their parents in their ears.

My estate agent said it happens all the time. Parents, who often don’t live in the area and haven’t bought a house in decades, think they know best.

Craftycorvid · 26/12/2021 23:40

Gosh, how wearing! I’m sure this has been suggested, but ‘well, daddy, I’m on the game. You’d be amazed how many submissive men want to give me all their money in return for being humiliated.’

Plumedenom · 26/12/2021 23:48

I think people saying it is an age thing are very odd. My parents are in their 70s and are nothing like this. They explained that mortgage rates were very high when they were young, while house lives were relatively low. Experiences of people in their 60s would be very different I imagine. It's an age thing is basically thinly veiled ageism.

GreenClock · 26/12/2021 23:50

My late father was like this but it wasn’t jealously. He was a bit domineering and opinionated, and not very good at minding his own business. I remember him hectoring my grandmother about the interest rate on her bank account when I was a kid. He’d ask me impertinent questions about my finances, work and relationships and would sulk if his unsolicited advice wasn’t taken. I wish I’d nipped it in the bud when I was aged 20-odd.

Plumedenom · 26/12/2021 23:55

Reading about your dad's background and age, I bet he struggled hard to get on the housing ladder given the mortgage rates in the 70s and him without a degree probably starting out on the bottom rung of a big corporate ladder. He probably massively increased his income through his life but remembers his 30s as still being a struggle and is genuinely wondering how you're doing it.

Musicalmaestro · 27/12/2021 00:12

Plumedenom
But lots of people didn't have degrees in the 70s, and were able to be home owners.

Ohyesiam · 27/12/2021 00:27

@StFrancisdeCompostela

Next time, just tell him ‘onlyfans’. He won’t ask again after that.

What does this mean

MintJulia · 27/12/2021 09:40

@Plumedenom

I think people saying it is an age thing are very odd. My parents are in their 70s and are nothing like this. They explained that mortgage rates were very high when they were young, while house lives were relatively low. Experiences of people in their 60s would be very different I imagine. It's an age thing is basically thinly veiled ageism.

Remember that in the 70s, only 10% of people went to university, many women were still expected to give up their careers when they married. Women were paid significantly less. The employment market was completely different, many people stayed in one job, didn't move around to maximise their earnings,

Mortgages were often based on the man's income only. Mortgage availability was limited. Credit was much less available.

So many things have changed, but people's long-harboured worries about money haven't always changed with them. Just because your parents managed well, does not mean everyone did.

Georgeskitchen · 27/12/2021 10:19

Maybe he just worries you might overstretch yourself financially

Plumedenom · 27/12/2021 10:22

I agree @mintjulia, but the OP only confirmed much later that her dad was 75. He could have just as easily been 45 in which case the economic situation would have been dramatically different. In every decade, someone struggled with money. It's not an age thing. It's a "his experience" thing. My point is my parents are his age and have a vastly different attitude to money. Yet people are lumping these people together as if all over 70s share the same weird attitudes and they really don't. Women in the 70s were working more and more. I don't like it when people lump them with women of the 50s. The life experience of our mothers was completely different to our grandmothers and we need to change our narrative.

Unloved21 · 27/12/2021 10:33

I really think this is down to the generation gap. Your father is old enough to be your grandfather. So possibly much older than the parents if your friends?

I was just thinking a few days ago about what is now considered to be a standard monthly bill such as multiple mobile phone contracts, Netflix and Sky. Even if your dad had a good wage he may have been brought up in a home where there wasn’t much disposable income which may colour his approach to money. He would have seen he soaring interest rates in the 80s, high inflation etc

Only you know what your dad is like and the posters here can only respond based on their own experiences but from my upbringing (with no money and a lock on the phone 😂) I wouldn’t assume it’s jealousy or coming from a nasty place.

KohlaParasaurus · 27/12/2021 11:17

I'm in my fifties, have always earned a decent income, and my mother still seems to think I'm going to end up penniless and homeless if I take a week of unpaid leave or spend money on something other than groceries. "Are you sure you can afford it?" she'll say. When she was younger she was always wanting to talk about savings rates and mortgages and has been known to whip out a pocket calculator to show an acquaintance how her mortgage was better value than their mortgage. Embarrassing.

She's now doing it to my children. Two of them are academics in funded positions whose partners are also earning, and she sucks her teeth over how they manage for money as if they were still students.

I'll tolerate all of that because she has kept all her own financial paperwork in order and now talks quite openly to me about it so I'm not going to have to deal with a mess when the inevitable happens, but it's almost as if she can't get her head round the fact that she's modelled sensible management of household finances and I've learned from her.

GrannytoaUnicorn · 28/12/2021 17:25

As soon as you said that he's 78 it clicked. My Mum is 77 and is convinced only rich people can become first time buyers. When her and my dad bought their first home they only needed a deposit in the hundreds! She's absolutely disgusted at house prices now seems to think that it's impossible without a £50-100k deposit. Perhaps it's something like this and he thinks you've suddenly got hold of £100k?!

urbanbuddha · 28/12/2021 17:34

I like to think it’s coming from a good place of concern, as others have suggested - it’s just that he never actually congratulates me on any of this stuff, or says he’s proud.

Tell him that.
If he's 78 and didn't go to university it might be strange to him that many women can earn a decent salary.