Amazing loving partner - he lied to me big time

[LaPL]

I am almost divorced, officially separated for 3 years. I have a 6 years old child. My ex husband was mentally and emotionally abusive, and even if we were living a comfortable life financially, we had our own home, vacations every year etc, my life and my mental health was hell. I got out and I got better.

A little more than a year and a half ago, I met my boyfriend and it was a beautiful love story up until last week.

Context, 4 years older than me, never been married, no kids, live alone in an apartment, well educated and decent job, no big responsibilities. He has a heart of gold, incredibly supportive, loving towards me and my child, trustworthy, loves his family and he is the guy I go to for advice. Everyone do. I love him, he's been nothing but amazing to me - we barely fight and communication is excellent. My child is very attached to him. We started talking about moving in together (I currently rent a small apartment, after the separation I had to sell my house), I always told him I wanted to go back to home ownership, but the city I live in is outrageously expensive and I need a partner to afford a family home. He ALWAYS said that buying a house was his plan too, that we will have the life we want and we deserve, that he wanted to move with me, he wanted to marry, he just needed a bit of time to think it through.

We talked so many times about houses we liked, planned our imaginary wedding (even fell in love with a venue!!) talking about how many guests we would like to invite, talk about vacations and everything in between... you get the picture. I was finally feeling so fortunate.

Well... last week he came to me with this information: I have no money, I have zero savings, I live paycheck to paycheck, I cannot give you what you want, a house, a ring, a wedding and... I possibly need to declare bankruptcy because I have at least six figures credit card debts, my credit score is so bad, I am ready for you to kick me out of your life because I lied to you all this time as I was in denial.

I am shocked and I am still processing. My first reaction was to try to understand better and now I told him I want to help him get out of this hole. Not helping by giving him money, but by moving in with me so we pay one rent and we can share expenses, so he can paying off creditors and start saving a bit. I know this is the right thing to do, but I feel so betrayed and shocked and bitter and honestly so so scared for my financial future and for the wellbeing of my child. What if he does that again? He said he hasn't accumulated any more debts in the last two years and used a "protected" credit card responsibly, but the previous years debts are still there. I can't buy anything with him because his credit score is soooo bad it will take 5/6 years to recover.

What would you do?

Thank you.

Obviously MY CHILD. my entire world. I am worried about him too, he got so attached to my boyfriend and now? What am I going to say to him?
I realize being in a relationship where you have to control your partner's every financial move is unhealthy and unsustainable. How the trust can be rebuilt? I don't know.
I am so hurt my mind is spiraling. His father is well off - what if he offers to pay his entire debt so he doesn't end up with a bad credit? I still would think that it is immature and irresponsible.
Imagine how you feel if the person you love - all of a sudden he's someone else. Worse than cheating :(

Not sure there's anything else anyone can say. OK, you already have a substantial settlement.

People who justify their lying with 'I didn't want to lose you' are liars. He lied because it worked for him to lie.

You have a settlement. He admits the debt and says he hid because he loves you so much.

Your Op paints a very different picture to the man you are now saying refused to move in with you. So, now the planning to get married and where you would live wasn't really a proper discussion. It was you getting carried away and him going 'yeah, but not anytime soon'. He still never sat you down and explained why, just kept saying 'yeah but that's years away'.

And he didn't even try and resolve it until recently?

No, I am not saying shut the door and leave. I didn't say that on my previous post upthread either.
What I am saying is that you should not move him in, nor should you have anything to do with his finances and you certainly shouldn't be controlling them.
It is not your job to save him. Yes, you love him and are in a committed relationship but relationships often go awry when one person is trying to "save" the other from himself.
You have a child. That's what you should be thinking about.
This is a disaster waiting to happen but you can't/won't see it. The most sensible thing to do would be to continue to be in a relationship with him but he doesn't move in until he has cleared the majority of the debt. If he has to get a lodger in his place then that's what he should do.

Not exactly - but not too far either.
It took me 3 years to be legally separated from my ex. So, during our 1.5 years relationship, we talked about "the intention" to one day go live together, buy a house, do all the things. He said he wanted it as much as me and that WE WILL. But we never had a chance to make an actual plan because I was still in the middle of separation. Once I separated, I was free and everything became possible and that's when he said about the debt to me - because he had no other "time" but come clean.

You are telling me, that when someone you love obviously needs help to save him from himself, I should just shut the door and leave? If you had a major problem in your life (either you cause it to yourself or not), would you expect people who care about you to just leave you?

Well, by definition you can't save someone from themselves. They're going to take themselves with them everywhere they go. They can change the situation. You can't. I've also seen people enable those they love to get more deeply enmired in a situation. If you pull someone out of debt, they'll just get into debt again, because there's a fairy with a magic wand who makes it all go away.

I wouldn't expect people who care about me to leave me. I'd hope my family would help me. I'd hope a long term partner, seeing me make a mistake, would forgive me. But that's not the situation here. This is someone systematically deceiving you. In that situation, I'd expect anyone with any sense to get the hell out of dodge, yes.

Your latest update actually makes it worse - he was happy to future fake you when you weren’t in a position to take him up on it. Now that you are he’s revealed the debt and why it can’t happen.
If he truly wanted to, he would have spent the last year sorting things in readiness - he hasn’t.

And seeing it from his point of view - his girlfriend of 18 months has been planning the big house, big wedding and is now planning how to control and dictate his finances indefinitely whilst he lives under her roof to achieve these things (if ever).

Neither of you seem to have a particularly healthy idea of partnership or reality.

Tell him you gave your entire settlement to a dog's charity. Say it wasn't appropriate to bring monies from one relationship into another...
Watch his face fall..

Obviously MY CHILD. my entire world. I am worried about him too, he got so attached to my boyfriend and now? What am I going to say to him?

That really doesn't matter, say anything. But don't move in with this liar. You need to think of your child here. You moving in with someone terrible with money, who lies easy, will not end well.

What do you mean he had no other time to come clean? He had from when he started planning a future with you?

I am not sure anyone can help you.

You can’t save someone from themselves. You are setting yourself up to be miserable again. Watching what he spends, looking for secret debt etc. not knowing wether he is being honest or not.

You say your son is so attached to this man and ‘what will I say to my son’, aren’t you angry you are in this position.

He lied to you, got close to your son and waited until you felt you couldn’t walk away because of your child? He developed a relationship with your son knowing he was lying to you. You are now in a position where you feel obligated to help. Where you feel the ties are too deep to walk away. That while you weren’t separated he thought it was fine to lie and future fake.

Your child will be fine. If you broke up, in 6 months you and your child will be absolutely fine. He will still be looking at years of paying this off.

In all honestly the more you post the more I think the PPs that said he was lying, might be right.

Are you sure it’s not an excuse to not move your relationship forward?

You are telling me, that when someone you love obviously needs help to save him from himself, I should just shut the door and leave?

Sorry, but you sound almost like a soap opera character. There is no such thing as a man NEEDING a woman's help to save him from himself (or any person NEEDING such help from another). You can't save anybody, you're just deceiving yourself, thinking that you have to sacrifice yourself for his salvation. He's an adult, a very rational and calculating adult, since he managed to lie to you AND to your child for such a long time. So he is perfectly able to save himself if he wants, with the help of his own family, without NEEDING to burden the life of another innocent family.

You are telling me, that when someone you love obviously needs help to save him from himself, I should just shut the door and leave?

Er yeah - you can’t save other people and if he needs help he can pay a therapist.

You also need therapy to figure out where you for these weird ideas about relationships from. You seem to have confused partner and counsellor.

I don’t know if he’s lying about the debt, but her updates persuade me further that the timing of the reveal may be to end the relationship.

But it's not your job to put yourself in jeopardy trying to fix a full grown mans life.

He's a grown man. It's not your job. He's not a child that needs babying.

By all means, continue to date him if you want. Why you would I don't know but hell, it's your life.

But never marry or move in with him! He lied to you for years! And you'd never be able to trust his financial stability. And by association, yours.

Women are conditioned to help and be nice at our own expense. It's toxic and its dangerous. This man is a threat to you and your child's future.

If he could lie about this for so long, what else could he lie about in future?

He isn't your family, he isnt your husband. There's no reason to get involved. Feelings mean fuck all if he could put your kids future at risk.

And you might think 'oh it'll be fine, I know what I'm doing'. But you clearly don't, because you're letting feelings for a liar cloud your judgement on your own financial future.

If you want to support him, do so - emotionally. Don't move him into your frickin home ffs!

I do have a healthy idea of partnership and I know it is not this. 100% not it.
I am literally trying to be compassionate towards someone I love.
He lied, yes, he future faked me, yes. I am deeply angry. I am struggling to just remove him out of my life like that, knowing he has a huge problem to overcome. It's easy to walk away, but couples do overcome infidelity, tragedies etc. I am trying to understand if he is worth it, because before all of this, I was 100% sure he was the man for me.

He's not lying about the debts. I saw his bank account, I saw his credit report in full - all the credit cards where there - all written off by the bank (and handed over to collectors). The debts are real, how much exactly I don't know. Is there anything else? I don't know.

There is a difference between a person not mentioning debt to their partner and a person pretending that they did not have it. He basically deceived you to make himself look attractive and desirable for you. If you knew from the very beginning what kind of baggage he was carrying I doubt that your original post would be titled "amazing, loving partner.." I can understand that this is hard for you, but in my eyes, you do not really have a choice.

OP you're seeing this situation through rose tinted glasses. Stop seeing the man you want him to be, and see the one standing in front of you instead. The man that has lied to you for your entire relationship.

The thing is though op, the question should not be 'is he worth it?'. But 'what am i worth?'

You are right, relationships go through hard times. But this isn't a relationship - because it was all a lie. He futurefaked, lied and now could potentially drag you down with him into the toxic mess he has made of his life.

Where was his concern for you when he played out his little act about what he wanted from your future?

The bare minimum in a relationship is trust and respect. This relationship has neither.

It's like you're still coming down from the drug of all his future faking. Of the 'what could be's' that never will.

How the trust can be rebuilt?

You can't rebuild trust because you never had trust in the first place. Only deception. It was all a lie. The person you thought you were getting to know does not exist.

the person you love - all of a sudden he's someone else.

This is the wrong emphasis. It cannot be love, because this is not how love behaves, nor is it how love allows itself to be treated.

I do have a healthy idea of partnership and I know it is not this. 100% not it. I am literally trying to be compassionate towards someone I love.

You really don't. Your own sense of loving him, your choice to love him, it is not trustworthy. A healthy person does not love someone who treats them like this.

You need to put some hard graft into your own therapy, to unfuck your ideas about love and relationship, and learn how to prirotise self-love and protecting your child.

Imagine how you feel if the person you love - all of a sudden he's someone else. Worse than cheating :(

Then why on earth would you even entertain this, literally insane to even consider continuing this let alone living with the guy smh..

Youve made up your mind so invite him to live with you. Everyone is telling you not to do it and you’re bending yourself into knots excusing the behaviour, and trying to convince yourself you’re doing the right thing.

What are you going to do if he gets depressed and decides to piss it up the wall again, this time it will be your child in the middle.

Utterly foolish.

It is unfortunate he felt pressured to give you monetary things like a house or a wedding or a ring. Why did he think you wanted those things from him? Those aren't things one person needs to give the other. And why are you talking about controlling his money? Everything about this is unhealthy. He may be a great guy but this relationship isn't healthy at all. He feels pressure to 'man up' and be your provider and that likely contributed to him hiding his debt given the expectation he would be a rich guy who could buy you things.

You need to walk away. Build a life for yourself and your child and buy your own house and go into a relationship as an equal not wanting a man who buys you things.

I think you're being given a hard time, OP. But then, I am not a sensible person to give you valuable advice! I married DH#2 for love, and he is skint but working on it. I'd be dishonest if I didn't admit that at times I wish I'd been more hard-nosed. At the same time, I know I was right that he has a heart of gold.

It's really hard when you come from a background of abuse. I did, too. After divorcing DH#1, I made some terrible mistakes with wolves in sheep's clothing. I know DH#2 is different. But I only know this after many years of living with him, and after recalibrating my red-flag system with plenty of trial and error. You don't really have either under your belt yet.

That's not to say you're wrong, just that you don't have a solid evidence base yet on which to base any long-term decisions.

In an ideal world you'd have the loveliest man in the world who's also solvent, responsible, and canny with the cash. But it's hard to argue with the kind of compatibility that makes life easy in all other respects. No one is a fly on the wall in your life, except you. You've made a shocking discovery about your DP's background and I honestly think it's too soon to know what to make of it. Proceed with caution, obviously, but keep an open mind if he's as good as you say he is.

It's easy to walk away, but couples do overcome infidelity, tragedies etc. I am trying to understand if he is worth it, because before all of this, I was 100% sure he was the man for me.

Well you were sure he was the man for you because he was lying about who he was. It’s the image of himself he created that you’re in love with and it’s a mirage.

Infidelity breaks far more marriages than manage to overcome it, and generally ‘overcome’ invariably means suck it up and never trust 100% again.

I never wanted that. I wanted an equal partner - where we BOTH contribute to the life we want.
He can still contribute to that, as I said, he has a good job, he makes more than I do a month and he just got promoted. He "just" (just?? ahaha) carry this incredibly unhealthy debt and he did nothing up until now to resolve it. He just left it there and carried on with his life and his bad credit.
He was dishonest with me, he could have said something in the line "oh you want to buy a house? I think I need to rent forever because I am not in a position to make big purchases or enter into a mortgage at the moment"