Sister disclosed that her DP 'hid' in his ex's home for 6 months

[Coffeestout]

Hi all my sister, to whom I'm very close, has started seeing a guy and it's getting serious but she confided something to me that has shocked me about him.
He is in his early fifties and seems to be OK. Good job and own house but she recently told me something about him that made me go hmm...
In his late twenties, he was living at home with his parents and continually out of work.
He had pressure put on him to do something by his mother so - and I cannot get my head around this but it's true-he pretended to be working away but instead hid in a female friend's flat for 6 months.
Apparently he hoped to go home after his 'contract' ended which he did but obviously having been out in the big wide world his folks wanted him to continue in the same vein - which he didn't.
He ended up moving in with his female friend, who at the time was a recently divorced single mum of a two-year - old child, and they become a couple.
She gets pregnant and after about ten years of him doing nothing chucks him out.
Since then, he's turned his life around and is successful but my view has changed of him now, frankly the fact he hid in his ex's flat for months when she had a small kid makes me think he's an user.

I mean the poor woman must not have been able to have anybody round her place and to be frank as regards as benefits were concerned the whole thing was dodgy to say the least-though after all this time no longer provable.

Oh I'm not saying his ex is blameless but yes a bit vulnerable after a divorce.
Anyway this is about him not his ex who incidentally appears to despise him.

But my sister really likes him and he has seemed to have turned things around but I'm still mistrustful of him since she told me this.

AIBU people CAN change or am I right in thinking that this is such a terrible thing this guy is screwed in the head in a fundamentally awful way.

‘I'm not going to post anymore about this so thanks for the input but in all honesty I am absolutely amazed that anyone could think what he did back then was not utterly and completely awful.’
what happened to you are not going to post again?
@Coffeestout You are obviously massively over invested in this. You never answered the question as to whether any of his current behaviour is cause for concern? Is he treating your sister badly? Is he sponging off her? Is there anything he does now which makes you worried? If not, you should back off. People can change and you are being extremely unfair to not give him a chance.

@Coffeestout so the comment you thank is the one very few that agrees with you not any of the others that also offer advice

@Coffeestout actually i would trust my sister to make her own judgements as a full grown adult and pretty sure she would be pissed that i had made numerous assumptions , fair enough to show some concern but you really have assumed an awful lot and have shed no light on to what he does now , how he treats your sister , how his finances now stand etc other than to say he works and owns his own house , so already a big change from who he was then

Can they? If he was a teenager I'd think so but he was nearing 30. I think people are fully formed at that age.

He said to dsis that his child being born altered him but he still didn't get a job.

The only thing is that being forced to leave made him finally grow up. So there's that in the positive box.

I can do no more really. If I were my dsis I'd just dump him now.

But that's me.

Some people are fully formed at 30, some are not. Don’t think I was until I got married. You can’t make general statements like that because everyone is different. I think you are being massively judgemental and it’s clear you can’t give a reason now why he’s doing wrong because he’s obviously making her happy. She’s a grown woman and capable of making her own decisions.

Is your sister aware that you are posting a lot of identifying detail on a popular parenting forum? Detail that may be picked up for discussion on Loose Women or the Jeremy Vine Show? Or an article in a tabloid newspaper?

If I were your sister, I would be absolutely livid and also baffled as to how you know so much about my life and my partner.

I had three years of my life not working in my 20s. I pretended I was self employed doing contract work, when in reality I was living off savings and an inheritance. It was pre children. I wasn't in a great place mentally, and gloss over it now. I did eventually turn my kife around, and at 40 I'm working harder than ever.

Humans can be strange.

Meh. He's not the only cocklodger to have stalked this green and pleasant land so I doubt this thread is outing at all.
Could be discussing one of thousands.
Most who read this will think is that so and so? They'll probably be wrong.
Besides which she is the one who told me about him.

3 years isn’t 20 though.

Nor was she hurting anyone else.

Meh. He's not the only cocklodger to have stalked this green and pleasant land so I doubt this thread is outing at all.
Could be discussing one of thousands of people who hid in their female friends flat for 6 months and then had a 10 year relationship with that person and a child.... could be anyone.... unless he has an outing hobby, does he cycle??

"Can they? If he was a teenager I'd think so but he was nearing 30. I think people are fully formed at that age. "

I'd usually agree with OP, even a man 😂 but one that was still trying to please his parents?

Look deeper.

Sorry but I genuinely don't know what you mean by this.

@Coffeestout

Some men, despite how old they are, are ruled by their parents. It's a thing that stems from childhood. Just bear that in mind, that's all I'm saying

His confession prompted my sister to do a bit of digging.
In all fairness he does indeed own his own house, and yes she's been there so no lie there and a tick in the positive box but it was left to him by a relative in their will. They left him a bit of money too.

As for being successful, well he'd shown sister pictures of things he'd made and sold. I'll just say these involve craftsmanship and leave it at that so It is true that he does work but the zinger is that this doesn't seem to be a regular thing.
His income from this is supplemented from other sources.
A lot of what he said was taken at face value but now she's getting to really like him and since his confession she looked into his lifestyle further.
She's a bit hmm about it all now. He's not lied that's for sure in the sense he does own his own home and does indeed produce work that sells for quite a bit of cash but not exactly truthful either.

He also seems unhealthily involved with his widowed mother. She still does his laundry, cooks him meals to take home etc. Reminds him to pay bills etc.
I guess in the first flushes of romance you let these things wash over you.

Interesting update,
Inheriting the house and some money is the same pattern
It's come to him without any effort or motivation from him, and he's bigging up his hobby to sound like a business..,, my exh hobby was model airplane making( huge things from wood)
I'm glad your sister is slowly opening her eyes She's lucky to have you

Like I said she had a long conversation with him following his confession.

He's just been extremely lucky with the house and inheritance.

The meals his mother cooks often just sit in the fridge until they go mouldy. I think he's as useless now as he was then.

Utter cocklodger, however, I don't think he needs my sister for money, but then I'm not sure it was strictly about money with his ex, more like someone to organise his life for him and take care of him.

Didn't want to live independently.

My sister always ends up doing the masses of dishes he's accumulated when she goes round his house.

She just rolled her eyes and thought typical man but by goodness it goes a lot deeper than the sexist stereotypical 'man useless at housework' cliche-he's slack in ALL areas of his life not just housework.

Yeah of course I can't know exactly what his relationship with his ex was like but given what I know, I can make some damned good educated guesses.

It is quite outing given the amount of detail you have given and wouldn't apply to thousands of people like you think
Pretty sure your sister would recognise its about her unless you have massively changed things

Also your sister managed to find out a load of new info and relay it all to you to post on here quite quickly
All a lot of drip feeding etc going on

@Summerslam exactly there is a lot of detail and information , Op seems to think it could apply to many . I would say with the level of detail , thats not the case

If his mother kicked him out all those years ago because she didn't want to babysit him why does she now babysit him?

As I said previously, he is not the first cocklodger to have stalked this green and pleasant land with.
Plenty of guys have 'fallen' in love on needing somewhere to doss in
live.
So no not worried at all.

@Coffeestout he may not be but the amount of detail you have given
I know his age , his mum is widowed , he inherited a house, has a dd he doesn't see and many many many more things . This is quite specific

Well firstly, he's not actually living with her anymore.
Secondly their circumstances have changed: back then he was a guy nearing 30 and his parents were nearing retirement and wanted to be alone. Who can blame them?
Less 'selfishly' they thought he might be able to change his life around at that age I guess.
She's an elderly widowed lady now remember.
She's probably just given up on him doing anything at this point.
Yes this is speculation but it is plausible.

No is defending being a cock lodger.

The point is that you have added loads of extra detail, in an attempt to prove he was a cock lodger. 20 plus years ago.

honestly sounds like you don’t like him, didn’t really (hence the reference to the relationship with his mother) and want backing for interfering in your sisters relationship.

The relationship board has loads of posts from loads of women that post in relationships on here, who admit they kind of fell into a relationship with the person they are with now. They settled with them for loads of different reasons. Including ‘security’. Do you think those women are vagina lodgers? Or does it depend on wether they do their own washing or not?

sometimes people do fall into relationships without there being a negative intent. Has it ever occurred to you that some people don’t care wether their partner works? I live in quite a poor area and there’s lots of families with neither adult working. Quite a few, I know, have no intention to or will only ever work occasionally cash in hand. I am not judging them, because I get how easy it is to fall into that trap given how shit wages are.

But you really seem 100% convinced that him not working was an issue for her and proof he took advantage. When it’s not.