AIBU to cut contact after years of lies about money?

[TheGingerMoose]

AIBU to never speak to my father again?

I have recently discovered that my father has been lying to me about his wealth. In fact, it transpires he has been lying about it for the entirety of my adult life.

Ever since I can remember he has told me that he has made a lot of money. He has spoken to me often of investments that he has and assets he is selling. My parents’ lifestyle never matched this (indeed we had a very modest upbringing) but he always explained this by having put money off shore and, in particular, investing it for me and my siblings in the future. Much money was purportedly in trust for me and my DC, pending his death.

This talk had a very profound effect
on me when I was in my 20s. I was led to believe that money was headed my way and me and DH consequently did little to plan for our future. Why invest in a pension if you have a very substantial inheritance? I know this was stupid but we were young and wanted to enjoy our money.

Anyway, in short, a recent event has revealed that there never was any money.

My siblings believe he may have schizophrenia and that this has been the result of decades of delusions. But is that possible? I really struggle to believe that he hasn’t just lied to inflate his self-worth and I refuse to give him an out by just blaming an undiagnosed mental illness.

It’s not about the money. I just struggle now to believe anything he has said to me over the whole of my life. And that hurts so much.

Agreed. It’s not naive to trust what your own parents say. I mean, I personally have never run an eye over my parents’ bank accounts to check that they have the resources they’ve indicated or that the family home isn’t secretly remortgaged to the hilt. Not many people do, I imagine… we tend to take the assurances our immediate family gives us on trust.

Round about the time he realised you might suspect there was no money after all, perhaps?

It's a typical behaviour for some to exert control in that way.

I’d still be making other arrangements! It sounds as though she didn’t know exactly how much was in the trust fund or how it was saved? If it was in stocks and shares then it may not have performed well anyway! I just think it’s a bit lax not making plans while having no idea exactly how much was put away in the trust fund! It’s all very subjective!

I also have no idea exactly what sort of money my parents have they may be in hock up to their eyeballs (I’m assuming they’re not) hence why DH and I have our own retirement secured!

I've always lived by the rule that until I physically see the money in my bank account, it doesn't exist.
I could have led a life, a different life based on the money I believed I would be getting but I didn't. I chose to live my life as if it didn't exist and made all my financial decisions based on myself not being reliant on others money.
I did eventually get a huge lump sum earlier this year...all the more sweet that it's in addition to the financial security I've already built for myself.
You've learnt a hard life lesson.
Also, your poor Dad living all these years with a mental health issue.

I’m sorry but you are a bit silly for relying on money that isn’t yours to begin with, whether true or not.

So your mum sat there and let him tell you all this nonsense about a trust fund and never put you straight?

A lot of the responses are rubbish but typical MNs. The vast majority of people in the real world would be upset if a parent had lied to them for years.

Exactly

Of course yanbu.
He lied to you your whole life, even about his health.
The fact that this influenced your own spending is not unbelievable.
I can well understand your hurt and upset.

If you cannot believe what your own parents volunteer to you, who can you believe?

There is something equally distasteful in parents loudly promising money to an adult child, and it never materialising.

Fortunately it was just consistent with my fathers arsehole behaviour and I never paid any attention to it.

You are not unreasonable. My DD knows all about my planning for her inheritance, it’s what I want and for her to make informed choices and maybe do more further education and so on. If everything I was saying was a lie, that would be awful and so cruel. What a terrible thing for a parent to do to their child

Really? Not to rely on what a parent tells you? Who can you trust then?

It's deeply bizarre he chose to lie like this. But I'm not sure I'd believe there was this huge quantity of money. I mean where did he say it came from? You must have known roughly what he earned. And the fact you had very modest lives and possessions.
I feel it's not likely I'd be banking on this. Especially if there was no proof it existed.

And plus the fact how would you know when he was going to die? He could be in a care home for 20 years and any money would be gone. Even if it did exist in the first place.

So you're mourning for something that was never there. No doubt it's the trust issue that hurts the most though. He could be deluded, he could be mentally ill. Who knows?

I think relying on inheritance is wrong. In this case it was fabricated anyway.

But even if he had a substantial amount stashed away it was never guaranteed to her. What about possible care costs ?

I understand you feeling hurt by this. Honestly though my parents and my DH’s parents are reasonably well off and I imagine we could inherit a decent amount, but equally it could al disappear in care fees or they could decide to spend a load on something cool for themselves (I hope they do!), it’s just crazy to ever rely on inheritance, even if you literally see evidence of the money- if it’s in their name your never know what will happen to it- even if their intentions are genuine. If you had a child trust fund then you’d have had access to that at 18 and it would be your money. I get you feeling let down by the lies though.

I don’t think it’s about the inheritance it’s about the lies - imagine you were lied to your whole life, needlessly, by your mother or father.
What a sxxxt

What an appalling thing for him to do of it was never true. It sounds like you don’t really get on anyway, so would it be a big loss?

This sounds like personality disorder territory.

I would be pretty devastated to learn that my own father had been lying to me for my whole life. I’m sure there will have been many further lies as well.

I would certainly be inclined to go very low contact which feels less of a loaded decision than no contact and can mean pretty much the same thing.

That’s different. Everyone is well aware that care costs need to be covered and inheritance is from what’s left.

However, in the case a trust was supposedly set up in OPs name so care costs wouldn’t have had an impact on this.

The dad is full of shit. Plain and simple.

Thanks for all the responses. I was expecting a range of views.
To be clear, I have made provision for my future as has DH, but we’ve started later started later than we should have. I agree with making your own provision now I’m in my 40s but when you’re told there is a trust fund for you and you are a teenager/ in your twenties, then who isn’t impressionable?
He claimed to have set up a Swiss trust
so the money wouldn’t have been available to him to withdraw or for care fees.
He was also employed in a role that made this believable. He purportedly made a lot of moneu when we were little but lost it in a bad deal but the trust would have been protected
from this. That explained our modest
lifestyle in our teens. At least this made it all plausible to me. But now I don’t know what
to believe.
As I say, the biggest thing for me is the total lack of trust.

Similar but different.

we were always told we were treated equally. All grandchildren, and children got exactly the same.

i did notice a couple of small things but brushed it off.

then when dad died it turned out sister had been asking for money and guilt tripping dad into paying. Private school fees, new kitchen, car, mortgage paid off, all sorts. Her children got big cash gifts. Nobody said anything, even mentioned it to us. They lived a standard pensioner lifestyle, comfortable but no holidays, no extravagant purchases etc, so we didn’t even dream they had that sort of cash.

don’t speak to any of them any more. However we never planned for any money or inheritance 🤷‍♀️

We don’t but it would mean cutting ties with my mother and DC not seeing her.

But surely your mum has some culpability here too?

Or was he secretly saying all this to you and hiding his financial affairs from her?

This is tricky. My df would have followed my ‘d’m’s lead and if I’d cut contact with her, he would have gone silent too.