Is this a red flag?

[CupofTeaandSliceofChocolateCake]

Hi,

I’ve been chatting to a man who I met on Bumble for a few weeks now. He wants to meet next week. He is divorced (I’m almost at the end of my divorce) and he said his wife had an affair and left him because he was working long hours. She is now living with the OM (marriage planned) with her (and Bumble man’s) 14 year old daughter.

I have to admit that I’m not feeling any vibes from this man but would meet up with him for a cuppa or something just to see if he’d be better in real life.

It turns out he has a full-time role in the public sector which he says is underpaid and he gets £1700 a month take home pay. His mortgage is £750 and he pays £250 a month for child support. He doesn’t see his daughter as she wants to stay in the town where she lives and go shopping/do girlie things plus he works a lot.

He has another two jobs on top of his full time role. He said he works 80 hours a week! Keeps saying he needs the money.

I am in a well paid job.

He reckons he can retire from his main role next year and get a lump sum to pay the mortgage off and the child support payments will stop in 3 years. I don’t have a problem with him supporting his daughter. He should. I’m more concerned that he doesn’t make the effort to see her and then complains about another man bringing her up.

I actually said to him that I could see his ex-wife’s point of view with regards him ‘working all the time’.

I don’t think I’m that interested in him anyway but would this put you off?

If that was in reply to me, I wasn't insinuating that you were up to anything sinister.

I think it's more suspicious that he would share this much information.

Ah, crossed posts that partly explained re the hours and money. The fire service isn't brilliantly paid but even in that case, he has enough not to be moaning to a virtual stranger plus if he's writing himself off at 50 as having learnt no skills in decades of literally saving lives then he's either a bit depressed or looking for a kick up the arse. You're not online dating to look for someone to build up or heal.

Are you new to online dating?

1. Take everything they tell you about past relationships/ex wives etc. with a massive pinch of salt. People lie. I absolutely expect a good chunk of what he’s told you to be a pack of lies.
2. Don’t start quizzing someone who’s essentially a stranger about their finances.
3. Have fun. This all sounds much too complicated.

No, I was just I wasn’t being sinister in general.

Fairly new to it, yes.

A starting trainee salary for a firefighter is £28k. That's take home £1900. It goes up to £38k fairly quickly.

All of the above and...

Don't spend weeks messages. I fell into the trap of messaging too often/too long when I first started (I think it's pretty common) and realised after a few disappointing experiences that it's much better to exchange a few messages over a few days - enough to feel confident they're not a sociopath and that there is potential - then either arrange to meet or move on.

Too much messaging means you end up building up an idea of them AND the idea of a relationship with them before you've even met. The person you end up meeting could be very different to what you had built up, and/or the connection you felt when messaging might not translate in person. Speaking from experience!

You're already ending up being his therapist.

And I would suggest he's partly going on about how broke he is, to avoid having to do much on dates.

Firemen get a good wage once they've worked there a while, well above the average salary for the UK. So I wonder if he has debt or something.

I wouldn’t have dated my partner if I knew how much he worked. He hide it well first few months. He makes a good wage and in my eyes can be greedy. But he worked minimum wage jobs for years till he got this break and wants to secure his future.

when I realised I was ready to leave as I never saw him. We had a chat and he scaled it back as he didn’t realise the impact. We now do set days so he can plan his overtime. It’s not that inflexible that we can’t change.

He said he had lost people before due to this and didn’t want to lose me. We did work it out, but there was a point that I was going to walk as I felt money was more important than a future.

it can work. But if I knew at the start I wouldn’t have gotten involved. Glad we worked it out as he is ace

A lot of firemen do 4 on 4 off,or 3 on 3 off and some do have 2nd jobs while they aren't scheduled to be in.

Firemen earn a decent salary, usually enough to live on without needing a 2nd job.

I think the not seeing his daughter is a huge red flag, teenagers still like shopping and food out - why isn't he doing the bare minimum with her?

He works 4 on and 4 off so, yes he has time to do another job. However, he is working almost every single day in some form. Not only is this overworking and destructive to any relationship but is it actually legal?

He said his daughter will only see him when she is being treated to something like new clothes, phone etc. She is using him for money but I suppose that’s teenagers for you!

He seems to be on track to be ok in a few years time but I don’t think I can take the risk of having someone who is always at work. His first marriage ended because of it.

He has said he has no debt. He really poured it all out to me and I did say I felt uncomfortable him telling me this. He got 50% of the FH.

When he isn’t working his 3 jobs he in on-call for his local fire station!!! This means he can’t leave his little village/town!

This sounds way too intense before you've even met.

Dating should be fun.

Thank you, next.

Yes, it should be fun! I agree. I will think about what to say to him and move on.

Is his name Walter Mitty?

This sounds less and less credible with each update. That's him I'm questioning, not you OP!

As previous replies have pointed out, the take home salary for an experienced wholetime firefighter in the UK is a fair bit higher than he's told you.

I'd also expect that he'd need to declare secondary employment. I'd be very surprised if working an extra 40 hours per week, plus being on call at another station would be approved. No one wants a tired, unrested firefighter at an emergency.

Sounds like he's prepping you to ask for a loan, never to be heard or seen again.

He’s just phoned. I didn’t answer. He has sent a message which I haven’t opened yet. I think he knows I’m being quiet today. I’ll say something later to him.

My exact first thoughts!! This is nuts.

So he's working 80 hours a week from three jobs and still struggling financially. I smell bs. I also smell future cocklodger.

He did say their pension payments were higher due to retiring from fire fighting at an earlier age.

I agree though - it’s not going anywhere.

He also said that, when he was with his wife, she earned more than him! So, I find it difficult to understand why he was in such a tricky financial situation with two working adults in the house. He divorced 3 years ago. His wife had an affair and cited his long working hours as the reason. It’s not like they were in debt so not sure why he needed to work that many hours even when he was with his wife. I asked him how long he’d worked the extra jobs and he said 16 years!!!

But not his daughter

⛳⛳⛳⛳⛳⛳⛳

If you already don’t like him before you’ve even met him then why are you even considering meeting him? Relationships are usually downhill from the initial passion/excitement (not that there seems to be any here) anyway.

I just can't get over how much you know about a man that you haven't met! That's not a dig at you by the way, I've experienced my fair share of oversharers on OLD.

Don't overthink your message by the way. Doesn't need to be war and peace.

Then scratch it down to experience.

Sounds joyless