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.

Well, I know the basics about him before me, I asked about ex girlfriends, he never ended up married, the relationships lasted 1 or 2 years, not many. He was single for a while. No big red flags tbh, lots of people prefer to stay alone if they haven't found the right one. I met his family and they all seems lovely and normal people. Brother lives in nice house with his wife and kid, mom lives in her house alone and she is nice, dad lives in his condo with his wife.

In my city, houses are $1M and up - it's VERY normal for someone single not being able to afford the mortgage, even if you have a downpayment. That is my issue for example. I could afford the downpayment for a house, but not the carrying costs associated with it, that's why I rent and that's why I was hoping to own a house with my SO one day. That's literally 100% of the people I know do here.

He admitted he has self worth issue and he was overspending to impress other women in the past. He recognizes it was incredibly stupid.

An your last point, yes, that concerns me very very much.
I never had big savings myself until now, due to moving into a new country at an older age, starting life over, going to college to gain a second degree (in a new country as an international student, that was expensive) - stopped working for a year to care for my child - but I have no debts at all and now I have ok/good savings.

So yes, his behavior was wildly irresponsible.

thank you, I think I just want to say thank you, because your comment is true and understanding of how much I am hurting right now.

You are 100% right, so thank you.

This thread reminds me of those Social Catfish videos on YouTube, where there’s a 70 year old widow in Arkansas who believes she is engaged to Johnny Depp / a doctor / someone in the US Military and has been sending tens ( or even hundreds ) of thousands of dollars to him through bitcoin / mules because they are “ engaged”. Even though they have never met and only exchanged texts.

The scam busters get all the information together, show her that the photos are of stolen off social media and that her lovers IP address is in Lagos, explain why all his cheques have bounced and why he is asking for thousands in gift cards etc. And the scam victims refuse to believe the evidence right in front of them, they just keep parroting back what the scammer has told them.

They are completely brain washed, it’s too painful to give up on their fantasy 🙁

If your feelings for each other are as strong as you think @LaPL why not take a break on this? If it's meant to be, it will happen when he's sorted his life out. Just as if it was another addiction. I am not an expert on addiction, although I know women who have had partners with addictions and who have been told at support groups that they (the women) have to step back and allow their partner to recover (or not.)

It's too much of a risk in my opinion to carry on seeing him.
The carrot for him is if he sorts his life out you might still be around and want him.

Don't try to rescue him, just leave him to do what he says he will. The alternative is you end up in another dysfunctional relationship like your marriage and you end up hurt.

@ALLIS0N wrong thread? Are you supposed to be posting about the mum going off to Nigeria to marry a scammer?

@LaPL no wonder you are hurt, you must be all over the place trying to figure out what to do for the best

No I think she might be right because I was getting exactly the same vibe!

To be fair I literally just watched that jonny Depp one yesterday so I thought that was why I was feeling that way. Interesting that someone else got the same feeling.

I think this is an exaggeration. Is not that he proposed or else.. he came clean when I can just walk away with zero consequences. I don't see the scam. Because if it was a scam, it's not a very good one since he told me at one point. Yes, I am hurt, but this is all the consequence.

I think its also the fact that you didn't go '£120,000!?! Fuck that, cheerio!' too though. The people at the end of these online cons just don't seem to want to belive they've been sold a lie, even when they are alerted to this person not being who they said they were.

Hense the similarities between your situation and that.

Obviously yours is a lot more complicated though. I mean, you've met the fella at least. But the argument would be that alas, he still arguably, isn't who you thought he was.

Are you happy about the fact that he proposes to walk away from 80% of his debts? Yes, it's lawful, but the fact remains that people who gave him credit in good faith are going to lose a LOT of money. Do you think that's morally OK?

I can’t believe he still thinks the holiday is a good idea. Or have I misunderstood?

I would have some sympathy (or at least not be as suspicious of him) if he had actually been trying to get his debt down in the time he was seeing you.

But he went and booked another holiday. Whilst knowing one of the reasons he has such huge debt is taking holidays he can’t afford. And how is he going pay for his half? By reducing how much of his debt he is going to be paying off?

Oh right so he's in mountain of debt spent freely on himself and probably other women and then along you come to be the adult.

No treats for you. Just at least five to ten years of scrimping. Maybe a lifetime of it.

Have nothing more to do with him!

If he goes bankrupt, how long before he can actually buy a house with you?

He should not file for bankruptcy. It depends how fast he can pay off his consumer proposal (giving lump sums will shorten the length of it) and then start rebuilding your credit with carful financial planning. It might take several years, yes.

And no, I think it's basically stealing borrowing money and not giving the money back. But if/when you are in this overwhelmed situation, there's not much else left to do. And believe me there are nasty consequences

several? 3? 5? 10?

what if he fancies a couple more holidays? How long will you put your life on hold?

why are you assuming we can't afford the holiday? I can, and I make less than he does every month. And I also pay for my child.

Look, I had a mortgage before, so technically a debt with the bank, of thousands of dollars (like $600k) - is not that I was broke and I wasn't planning on living and enjoying my life for 30 years until I paid all my mortgage off.

He's basically planning to do the same, afford his life AND pay off his debt (well, a portion of it) monthly.
Even if that isn't a mortgage, but a nasty debt out of his selfishness.

Would I ever do it? Not at all.
Lots of people do it - yes.
The government allows it? also yes.

I think if you borrow money and you don't give it back it's stealing. And yet, business do this all the time.

He is not ignoring his debts. Ignoring would mean head-in-the-sand attitude. No, he's very much aware of his debts and has formulated a plan to welch on them. A debt relief order (or whatever you call it in Canada) is a legitimate instrument for people who have ended up with so much debt it is unmanageable. His debt, whilst significant, is not unmanageable for someone on his salary, nor indeed for someone who can manage to stash away $20k in cash. He's just decided he's not going to bother even trying to pay it off and instead will lie and cheat his way out of it, if he can.

I'm struggling to remain sympathetic towards you to be honest. I get the shock this must have been for you but you've had a few days to process it and you've clearly decided to turn a blind eye to how completely lacking in morals this man is.

Good luck, you're going to need it.

If anyone care for an update, I am not moving with him to "help" anytime soon if not at all.
I am still grieving the relationship and what I thought of him, I want to make sure he does what he says he will do to get his life in order, but if I am unable to regain any trust, I will eventually fall out of love and I will end the relationship for good.
I am just giving me time to grieve, I am giving him time to start the responsible path and then we'll see. But I see him so differently now, I can barely look at him.

For all the people who says "dump him now" - I know how easy that is to say, you don't know how difficult it is for me right now.

Are you sure this isn't a scam from the start?

Take your time and sort your head out

I'm afraid though that the relationship has changed and you will start to feel really sad about that

At one point the sadness and mistrust will probably outweigh any love you have for him but it can take a while to get to that point

He might pull it out the bag and turn things around but I'm not convinced

@LaPL First of all, I want to say I am really sorry that you find yourself in this situation, anyone can see how painful this must be.

👉I very much doubt that his huge debts are the full story with this guy.👈

For 18 months he's made all the right noises for you to be able to trust him, befriended your son, pretended that his life was sorted out, sustained your illusion of a sunny future together, all this whilst in an intimate relationship with you, right?
Meanwhile in his 20+ years as an adult, he hasn't been able to sort his s... out or even sustain a relationship for more than 1 or 2 years. But basically, since you've come along, he's changed?
Something really is not right. 'Normal' 40year olds don't behave like this.
To me he sounds like someone who either has psychological issues or like someone who is a bit of a crook, probably both.
Personally I wouldn't be able to enjoy going on holiday, let alone sleeping, with someone who I thought I knew and has revealed himself to be totally untrustworthy. I would still go, but with someone else.
You have to review everything that passed between you in the light of him keeping important information from you and stringing you along with quite normal, but in this case, impossible, hopes.
It's sad, no doubt. It can be humiliating to admit to making a bad choice, but it's never as painful as actually living with it.
Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation that is so wrong that we throw everything we have at convincing ourselves that it's not that bad, instead of cutting our losses and freeing ourselves.
You saying that it's worse than infidelity but that you can rebuild trust, 18 months after meeting this guy, give me the shivers. Why would you want to saddle yourself with such a complicated relationship? You have so many things going for you,
Your son doesn't need a person like that in his life.
I'm sorry, I wished I had more positive things to say to you, but from what you say about him, he does give me the creep.
When he says that he's shocked you haven't walked away, he's telling you what he thinks he deserves and what you should do if you want to save yourself.

As a similarly debt-burdened person myself (the similarities end there, but I do understand this), the total will be almost all interest. I repaid the capital donkey's years ago but, at around 30% APR on each card, couldn't sustain the monthly payments after my income disappeared. My creditors all refused to freeze interest when Step Change asked them to. Since then. my debts have been sold and re-sold to collectors with the interest still building.

The amount I owe now is over 20 times the original. Mine are much older than this guy's debts; his initial overspend must have been far higher. The morality of extortionate interest rates is a long debate, but my point is that he wouldn't have spent $120k on his holidays, etc.

I very much doubt that his huge debts are the full story with this guy.

I'm afraid I agree with this and the rest of @Yseult101's post.

@GarlicGrace you say you are in a similar situation, where the debts went out of control. Of course he did not spend $100k on holidays, this debts are from 5/6 years ago, obviously the actual money borrowed were much less.
I am sorry you are too in this situation, and I hope you are doing something to eventually get out of this.

Mental health issues - you all talk about this quite freely, diagnosing someone you never met, you never talked to. There is so much stigma around mental health. The way I see it, your brain is like any other organ. If this guy had diabetes you would suggest me to walk away?

I suffered from chronic anxiety (I still do sometimes) my entire life, I used to get panic attacks and all. Does that makes me a bad person?