Frustrated with partners lack of understanding

[KevinTheBird]

I’ve been with a man for around 7 months now. It’s all going really well, he’s really kind and considerate, funny and clever and amazing sex. But I’m getting increasingly annoyed with him refusing to let me have an opinion on certain things.

I’m divorced and my exh was a very high earner. I’m incredibly fortunate in that when we split he paid off the mortgage on our house and the lump sum from divorce means that I won’t ever have to work again unless I choose to. I know that makes me incredibly privileged. But as a child and until my late 20’s this wasn’t the case at all. I grew up in an incredibly rural area and we were desperately poor. My dad was an alcoholic and my mum worked all hours to try and provide for us. My parents were also massive hippies and I didn’t attend school or have any form of education until I was 9 and the LA provided transport for me to attend the nearest primary school. Then at 11, as there were no commutable secondary schools I was sent to do weekly boarding on the mainland along with others from my area. Again, all provided by the LA.

Boyfriend is very political and we share lots of similar views about poverty etc. However, he is convinced that because I am now financially comfortable I am completely incapable of understanding ‘real’ poverty and shouldn’t be allowed to have an opinion on it. According to him as I had a horse when I was young and went to public school (it wasn’t - it was a secondary school that provided accommodation for kids who lived too rurally to commute) I was massively privileged as a child. The fact that we often went hungry and rarely had heating is just dismissed. He just laughs and says things like ‘you had a 3 acre garden, you’re completely deluded about what poverty is’. He grew up in a deprived area of a northern city so I guess our experiences of poverty are very different. But I can imagine what it’s like to live in a flat with no outside space and that be poverty, why can’t he imagine living in a house with no central heating in the middle of absolutely nowhere can also be poverty?

Or am I just deluded? Did I actually have a massively privileged, or a normalish childhood? I don’t know how to get him to understand things without sounding more like a brat.

Keep him around for sex, as others said.
But anyone who is so wrapped up in feeling superior because of their poor circumstances - and needing to put you down because of that isn’t a long term anything potential.
He’d not even make a friend cut.

@MichelleScarn

I've obviously missed the new rules with regards to what we can and can post?... arrive I hadn't actually finished my post and was going to say further about the fact if perspective re cost of having a horse and from his perspective that yes, for some people having a big house, land, being at boarding school yes it may be hard to understand that there is different types of poverty. But go you.

Would you like to rewrite that in English?

If this is a problem now, I don't think it's going to get better. It just depends if it's just this one issue, or if it's a sign of a wider problem with him dismissing the point of view of others.

I'm from a very rural area myself, but you sound like you come from an even more rural place. Most people I knew had parents who were on minimum wage or not that far above it. I had not encountered the concept of a gentleman farmer until I read it in the pages of the Guardian, even though some do exist here. The farmers I encountered were hardly living it up.

However, having seen the news and lived near a northern city, the working class or poor in the countryside does not mean the same thing as it does in urban areas. Even though we often struggle with drug lines or drugs trafficing, we don't experience anywhere near the same scale of violent crime as the city dwellers do. Those high rise towers are depressing hell holes in the sky. Maybe they weren't originally, but now many people live in tiny cramped accommodation with hardly a balcony, nevermind a garden. Most don't own their flat. The stairwells become places of fear in the worst of them. Many will struggle with different substance dependencies whilst also struggling to pay the bills. The children grow up in menacing atmospheres, where their mothers feel unsafe in unkempt playgrounds where it's not unusual to see men sleeping on benches.

Your husband doesn't come from your background and some people don't have much imagination. All he's seen is inner city poverty. When he sees you, he sees someone who has experienced some of the hardships he's encountered, but has still done well in life financially because of luck (which for him, might put you in exactly same category at the elite that many working class northerners despise). He will know people who never got there - they are either in jail or will still be struggling in a life wrestling debt, joblessness and substance abuse. On top of that, there's more income inequality I would say in large cities than in very rural areas (the exception being somewhere like the Cotswolds). The large cities can sustain very high level jobs like bankers, lawyers, tech jobs, media in a quantity and variety that you just don't get in the countryside. This display and presence of wealth harshly rubs against the deprivation of parts of the city, and some people in the north of England grow up to have a massive chip on their shoulder because of it, a deep resentment and hostility against anyone better off than themselves.

Without knowing him I can't say, but some people also want a gold star when it comes to suffering. My colleague almost used be competitive about it!! It was so strange - no matter what ailment you had, her husband had suffered far worse. It got to the point where she was actually questioning my diagnosis because it seemed she wanted her husband to be the only one who suffered like that! Not surprisingly, she didn't know half as much about the condition as she thought she did. My diagnosis was not that uncommon, but she almost want to reserve the right to its 'special suffering' status for her husband only!! It was like a hierarchy. She had some dominant, narcissistic traits.

He sounds pretty obnoxious when it comes to this.

He doesn't know your life- you were there, he wasn't!

I don't get why the land would be unsellable, or people in poverty could afford horses for fun etc, but that's irrelevant. People in real poverty don't have fun horses- they can't afford to feed themselves easily.

You're arguably discussing a form of neglect where your needs weren't met in various ways, and yes large houses can be difficult to heat.

Either way, he sounds annoying.

I live in an inner city council tower block BTW so I can see his perspective, but he's still irritating.

You've known him 7 months and he calls you 'deluded' and makes out you have no right to an opinion on something...fuck that.

He's just a short term bf. Get rid before he is anything more. Like hell would I tolerate being spoke to like that.

Ok so he owns poverty and you can't claim it? And he lacks the ability to listen to you, properly hear you, and read between the ponies? Just a dismissal of your lived experience?

It's his issue not yours. It must be some kind of core tenet of his personality and identity. If you weren't poor like he was poor then you weren't poor.

I can't bear it when somebody just won't hear you because it doesn't fit the script they are emotionally or ideologically blinkered by.

Competitive poverty is always rather tiresome isn't it? It reminds me of Monty Python. What a shame.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VAdlkunflRs

Has he not read government reports on rural poverty ? Get him to do a wee Google and read some actual studies and commissioned reports

I suppose I sort of see where he might be coming from with the hippy parents who ‘chose’ and off the grid life - as it might sound to him . I have friends who have deliberately chosen to live very rurally, have no central heating and very cold houses with kids sleeping in hats and gloves - the types with tons of animals, home schooling, lots of land, spend nothing on food with kids eating porridge two meals a day, 2nd hand wellies with holes in, one battered car they try not to use etc that’s their choice though and they live off savings - maybe he thinks your parents were those sort of rich hippies who chose that life which is different to being born into poverty to be fair. I actually think living so rurally with no resources is potentially worse than a inner city upbringing as there are more resources and connections to help you in a city, IMO

To add I actually work with kids who are from a very rural and picturesque place (Peak district) there is actually crushing unemployment and people really struggling to make ends meet especially those in small flats or terraces in market towns, you might have the view but without tourists to work in the shop or pub you work in, you’re screwed, plus freezing winters and need for decent cold weather gear and a decent 4x4 unless you’re going nowhere - so rural poverty is something I’m really interested in. He needs to do some research!

Omg, poverty snobbery! Does he bang on about how lucky you were while he lived in the gutter, like that comedy show?! Anything you say, he beats with a worse experience? Having no heat/fuel/food sounds like a bloody difficult poor childhood to me. How is he so lacking in emotional intelligence?

Oh my god, he's threatened by you.
He's trying to bring you down a peg or two as has seen you are quite independent and are doing ok for yourself.

The competitive 'who had it poorer' is to put you back in your place as a silly woman and him prove he's a man as he knows you don't actually need him. For anything.

That's my take on it.

I wouldn't be frustrated with his lack of understanding. I would be contemptuous of his pig ignorance and anyone who laughed in my face and told me I was 'deluded' about my upbringing would be lucky if I didn't smash a shovel in their face.

Smug, ignorant pig. I certainly would never be having sex with him again. What exactly is it that gets your juices flowing with this sneering fucker?

To be honest, I kinda see why he's confused because it sounds like you had a simple life, rather than a desperately poor one. It was driven by your parents wanting to be hippy rather than having dire financial circumstances forced on the family. This element alone of choice makes it different from true poverty.

Having any animal, especially TWO ponies, necessitates disposable income unless they're a direct part of your survival so I can see why mentioning that sounds privileged from someone claming to be from a poor background. Did you explain to him that your parents' neglectful behaviour of spending money/resources on the wrong things was the issue rather than absolute poverty?

@Suagar I disagree, it wasn't the OP's choice about leading a 'simple' life, it was her parents'.

If the new boyfriend can't understand that there is more than one version of poverty/a hard childhood then he's tipped over into 'chip on his shoulder' territory. He sounds massively irritating.

@thecatfromjapan Totally agree with your post

I didn’t go to school until I was 9 because my parents thought it was more useful to be able to live off the land. However, they didn’t know how to do this and our land was just the garden, nothing was ever planted there or anything. My mum was a cleaner and used to hitchhike to the nearest town and back every day, my dad occasionally worked at the nearby youth hostel but was constantly getting fired due to being drunk and getting in fights. I looked after my sister alone from the age of 6 when she was 4 and almost everyday we’d have to find berries in the hedgerows or nick some eggs from the woman down the Lane or we’d have nothing to eat (I know, it sounds like I’m about 100 years old 😂).

The land was and still is completely unsellable. It’s inaccessible unless you go through my mums house, not good enough quality for planting, not large enough for grazing and not convenient enough for housing (still no broadband or gas). The horses cost nothing so I don’t know why that would make us privileged. It was certainly lovely to have them but they were never shod or wormed and we’d buy a bag of pony nuts to last the year. It’s probably more expensive to have a rabbit!

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. It really is only this one thing that he refuses to understand. I’m not saying I had it any worse than him. I’m sure growing up in a council flat in an inner city could be very grim sometimes. I just find it weird that he considers me to have grown up as a posh girl when I didn’t even have a swimming costume until a teacher took pity on me at secondary school and bought me one!

He sounds like the sort of person that thinks rich parents aren't ever abusive!

'We didn't have as much tack as most people for the ponies' isn't poverty.

@KevinTheBird You might reconsider claiming to have been extremely financially poor as such, but you could consider that you maybe experienced neglect. It's also a bit like being in a cult. From what you say, especially with your dad being an alcoholic, no-one could say you had it easy. A friend was brought up with the cult-like vibe you describe in some ways. She thinks her dad had Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

My mum neglected me when it came to clothes, sanitary wear etc. They weren't entirely broke but she for some reason didn't think of getting me non-trampy things that would mean I wasn't bullied and stuff, or some basics.

Some kids in tower blocks are fed, cared for and supported in a way it doesn't sound like you experienced.

Your childhood sounds neglectful Op.
You don't need to justify that to posters and especially not to a partner.
They are your experiences.
Tell him to f off the twat

It surprises me how many urban dwellers just cannot seem to fathom the concept of rural poor.

My DH had a poor—ish urban childhood and when we first met he really struggled with the concept that, despite having a car and being homeowners, me and my friends were working class made good /lower middle class and most definitely not ‘veryposh‘

It took him moving here to realise that there are NO rental properties available here, you inherit or buy, or you move away... and absolutely no public transport so if you want to buy food or have a job, you need a car. And this is before you even get to the true rural poverty you describe OP.

It feels incredibly annoying just reading about him! I would seriously lose my temper with him I am sure.

Is he rather narrow minded? Stupid? Patronising?

Honestly, if you have explained it to him as you have here then he sounds bloody ridiculous for not getting it. I would have to go through it bit by bit until the thick idiot understood.

soulofanaggron which part of my childhood would you not consider to have been in poverty? We rarely had heating, all the times we didn’t have heating we only had a microwave to warm food in, my mum used to hitch hike to work and we rarely had enough food.

He sounds jealous. I suspect it makes him feel better to tell himself that your wealth and background mean you cannot relate to others who aren't from privileged backgrounds. I really wonder if he actually believes it deep down.

It’s like the two people beside each other in hospital - one with a raging tooth abscess and one with acute appendicitis. Both in pain, both deserve strong pain killers. Your situation and experience of poverty may not be the same but you both were impoverished and neglected. It’s not a competition and he’s unloving to think it is. You can feel empathy for both those patients.

He’s really kind and considerate, funny and clever

He doesn't sound any of those to me - more like a teenager with a grudge, who's latched onto competitive poverty in an attempt to back it up

At least you said you've no intention of marrying him, which is just as well; he might snipe at your perceived "wealth", but I doubt he'd object to sharing it

Come to think of it you've not said what this prince among men does for a job, or even if he works at all
Is he someone who, despite his perceptions of his upbringing, really works to make something of himself, or is it a case of sniping from the sidelines and resenting everyone else?

The last time I heard this sort of claptrap was from a guy in his twenties who'd thrown away every opportunity he'd ever had, but presumably this one's older than that? (You've not mentioned his age either ... )