He isn't skint.

[AmIbeingUn]

NC for this as personal/outing. Am wondering AIBU? Or WWYD?

Began seeing a local man met on OLD. We matched so perfectly: same age, local, some mutual acquaintances, similar hobbies, outlook, politics, music taste, humour etc. Found him incredibly sexually and emotionally attractive and vice versa.

We became very close and cosy very quickly: daily contact, usually in person, in and out of each others' houses for coffee and a chat, sleeping over at each others houses often, meeting each other's friends and family. Talked loads, for hours, about a wide range of subjects and very frankly. Within weeks we were so close and comfortable with one another it felt like we'd been together for ages.

The only thing that wasn't perfect was that he had no spare spending money. He had gone part time at work to give him the time to renovate his house, singlehandedly, and those renovations also ate up all the money he had left over after paying mortgage and bills. He warned me that, until the house was finished and he returned to full time working, he could not afford to spend much on going out, going away, buying me gifts, unless it was cheap and we split the costs. I am not materialistic so I did not care and to be honest I am a homely person who is more than happy to have dates at each other's houses, cooking each other a meal or watching a film. For Xmas he saw something in a charity shop window which he knew I would love and he even admitted it had cost him only £2 and said he felt guilty and mean and sorry and hoped I would tolerate his being skint until he got back to work and could treat me properly and take me to a swanky restaurant now and again.

Whilst chatting and being in his home whilst things were happening in his daily life he would mention now and again that he was down to his last few pounds, or that the purchase of some essential building materials or an emergency dental problem or vet bill had wiped his bank account. I am not wealthy but I do have a couple of hundred pounds left over every month which I usually just put into a savings account. He never once asked me for money and in fact when I offered to lend him money once or twice he absolutely refused. When I offered to treat him to a fancy meal out or a theatre ticket he also refused, saying that unless he could pay at least his own share, he would not go. I saw these refusals as a confirmation of his honesty and integrity.

One day I was at his house reading the paper after breakfast and he was opposite me on his laptop. As he went to answer the front door I took the dirty plates to the sink and as I turned round to walk back to the table I could not help myself, my eyes were drawn to the screen which had some kind of spreadsheet of figures. I was absolutely staggered to see that he had stocks and shares and an ISA totalling £1.5m. When he came back into the room I just pretended I had not seen anything because I knew I should not have been snooping but I went home and was literally in shock and also really angry that he had been lying to me the whole time.

Next time I stayed at his I deliberately snooped when he was in the shower, and read an open letter about the sale of a flat he owned (which he had never mentioned to me). £250,000 from the sale had been deposited into my boyfriend's bank account about a week before, and yet that very day he had been saying how broke he was.

Am I in the wrong for snooping or is he in the wrong for telling me for a whole year the lie that he is struggling financially from month to month?

What would you do? Confront him and admit you snooped? End it? Tell yourself his finances are none of your business?

I know this isn't the point of this post but I wouldn't worry about taking charity shop clothes from someone less wealthy, I was turned away when trying to donate things from two charity shops recently as they were inundated. Also, some people buy second hand for environmental reasons, not just to save money.

Initially I would have said he’s protecting himself …. However, as your posts have continued I think you are validated to feel enraged with his choice to live a miserly life.
You have 3 choices:
Say nothing and get angrier
Say something and get dumped
Say something; he comes clean and you both start to live a little and the opportunity to be completely honest with one another
In summary … you have to say something

Oooh this is intriguing. I definitely wouldn’t dump him. Essentially you love each other and that’s the main thing. But I would play the long game. He may well be testing you, but if you have a million quid house of your own, I would find this bloody condescending. Who the hell is he to test you, when you have investments of your own!! I would start dropping hints and making statements about how sad it is that as a couple you don’t do much together and you don’t want your relationship to become stale because he can’t afford to do anything. I’d want to put the frighteners up him, let him know you’re a successful, independent woman and dating a pauper is becoming draining. The Ribena incident is bloody mortifying. I would have gone mad at him and told him to order a fucking drink. If he does that again, I’d say ‘look, I’m not sure I can spend the next 40 years living like this. I want holidays, nights out, a Waitrose steak once in a while, a John Lewis coat. Whilst I’m touched £2 from Barnardos is all you can afford, I want more. I’m not skint and I feel the most frugal I have ever been in my life, when these should be our golden years. We have no dependents to worry about, I want to grab life and enjoy it and I can’t do that with a 50 year old bloke that takes cartons of Ribena out with him, rather than spend £5.20 on a pint.

Then see what he says, if he protests and keeps up the act he’s skint, then maybe blurt it all out. Say you’ve seen the spreadsheet, seen the bank statements.

He is an actor. You are not seeing the real person in any way, because he is acting out a part of being skint. He is thinking up storylines as to why he is so skint he has to do a b and c and actually acting them out. That takes considerable thought and considerable effort and there's something deeply disturbing about that -

It's one thing to protect yourself from a new dating partner who might have an eye towards how wealthy you are.
It's another thing to lie so completely about your finances
Its another thing again to be so absolutely miserly to maintain that fiction -

To keep it going consistently in every interaction with you for two years - it's hard to believe that he's not getting considerable satisfaction out of hoodwinking you - that overrides any arguments about it being OK to be cautious in sharing personal financial information with a person you met online.
You could never trust him again after this daily play acting.

Was it wrong to snoop? Maybe but the laptop was right in front of you and by the same argument, you are allowed to be cautious about the financial aims of someone you've met online, for all you knew he could have been in massive debt due to gambling or something... so I think its fair game for you to seek out red flags.
And given the size of the red flag you've found - thank goodness you did.

I would advise you to inform him about your actions and be prepared for the relationship to end. Additionally, I find your behaviour and expectations regarding his financial management to be unacceptable.

Would you buy your romantic partner of 2 years a £2 gift for Christmas from a charity shop, saying how sad you are that you have to do this, but things will change once your house is renovated? Knowing you could buy her something for £50 with no impact on your finances, @ExtraVotes ?

Agree about threate tickets

I spent £55 on 1 ticket to see a podcast show live on stage. I could have paid £200 for front row but for what? To see the podcasters more clearly? Would I enjoy it 4 times more -compared to seeing 3 other shows in the future.

I have got back row for a dance show baes on a beloved kids book at national theatre next t year (they don't do seats behind pillars) and sure my £25 seat will be fine for me for a nostalgic watch.

With a tribute band one surely doesn't want to be too close to ruin the illusion. Like with a comedian it's about the atmosphere in the theatre, rather than how good a view you have.

Exactly. The fact it is about finances is a red herring.
He is profoundly and consistently deceitful.

This is so weird. I'd be really cross in your position. Constant lies and being stingy with you too.

I actually have a friend who is similar. Often pleads poverty. Always the last to buy a round. He actually left some paperwork out when I was feeding his cat, it was a spreadsheet listing his assets, and he is absolutely loaded. He has no idea I've seen it. But why lie? I just can't get my head round it.

If I had £1.5 mil in the bank and I was single/dating then I think I would do pretty similar to this man. I would absolutely not mention it to anyone I was dating for less than a year. Otherwise how would you ever know if the person truly loved you as a person, or if they were after your money. I think he’s acted sensibly and it shows he cares about finding actual love.

However I do agree that he’s taken it far too far. The £2 Christmas present makes me wonder if he’s just really miserly and too tight with money. I mean I’ve been skint before but I would prioritise finding money to get a half decent present for a loved one at Christmas and birthday. I would go without myself in order to treat my loved ones. This part is the red flag for me.

I just can't get past the bringing out a carton of Ribena at the theatre. Even if you didn't know at the time about the amount of money he has, this is so unattractive. Did he have a carton of Ribena for you as well?! Or did you buy your own drink? I once dated someone extraordinarily stingy and it made me feel awful about myself in a way that I find hard to explain. We once stayed in a hotel and had agreed to go halves on it. It cost about £150. I paid in advance, and he said he would pay me his half back. He ended up giving me £20 out of his wallet. I could see loads of other notes in there as he opened his wallet up in front of me. I think it's something to do with a lack of respect for the other person. Why not just say you can't afford to go to the theatre in the first place rather than booking rubbish seats and not buying a drink for your girlfriend? You sound like a very nice person and I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide to do.

Yeah they should totes only be sharing bodies 🙄

I wouldn’t tell someone I was only dating that I was wealthy. I wouldn’t spend just £2 on a present either. To be honest I wouldn’t even be talking about my finances at all in the dating stage.

It seems strange to me that he discusses his finances when I’d just say on a date by date basis what my budget was (if I had one).

The £2 on a present would have riled me though and I’m not at all
materialistic. I wouldn’t mind a £2 present if I got other things too, nothing fancy but then just a total sum of £2, even my kids could manage better than that.

he chose the cheapest possible tickets (ie the worst seats) and I had to pay for my own because he "could not afford" to pay for us both.
It's the lying for me, the way he constantly mentions he's skint, can't afford this or that.
What a sad way to live, a late relative was like this, not wealthy to this extent, but dressed in ancient clothes , house was rundown and died and left shy of £100k, never went on a holiday, never bought a nice treat, what good did his hoarding £ get him? none!

He’s a manipulative liar , you can’t trust him and you should run a mile.

He’s not just lying about something relatively small - like saying he has no siblings but it turns out he has a brother who lives in Australia who he’s not seen in 40 years.

He's lying to manipulate your feelings and expectations, the big drama and the fake sadness about the £2 charity shop gift is shocking.

The stories about how emergency bills have wiped out his savings are just a pack of lies - how can you even think of staying with him after this? He’s constructed a whole persona and lifestory that isn’t even real!

It’s one thing to have money but chose to life frugally - that’s a personal choice. It’s a whole other thing to have money but fake being poor, to con your girlfriend of two years !

It’s NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with protecting his assets from gold diggers. I have a single female friend who has similar savings to the Ops partner and but lives in a modest house, doesn’t have a fancy car etc and NEVER reveals her net worth to men she’s dating. She just acts like a normal person and pays her share / her own way and rarely talks about money.

@AmIbeingUn Do you even know if he has a job at all? Have you met anyone from his work ? It’s very handy that it’s two hours away from where you live.

Also I know lots of tradesmen who are doing up their house / holiday house, but they all do it at evenings and weekends . None of them are well off enough to go part time at the age of 50, that’s when most people are working hard to build up their pension. You need money for tools and materials, and many jobs you need someone who is qualified to do at least some of it. This part of his story also sounds dodgy to me.

Either way , you need to run a mile Op, this man is bad news. personally I’d not confront him, there’s no point , I’d just say it’s not working for you anymore and you wish him well. Don’t try to “ stay friends “, whatever you do.

This is also a valid explanation. I can knock up a quick spreadsheet that says I earn 14 million with 3 billion in stocks and shares.

Same with a letter.

Keep an eye out for official letters that come through the post. Maybe have a chat with his Mum and sound her out.

EXACTLY

He's probably just pathologically tight, my FIL is like this, left hundreds of thousands in a will, house paid off, but will save money anywhere he can. It's like a disease.

This. I don’t really see issue with it. Yes he has money in stocks and shares ISAs but he’s obviously funding his renovations from income for whatever reasons he has chosen.

Hes never taken any money from you. I think he just sounds like a saver tbh.

You don’t have shared finances and don’t live together.

People have different attitudes to money. He doesn’t regard his savings or the recent money for his property sale to be money which is at his disposal. Based on the money which he considers is at his disposal, he thinks he’s skint. I am married to a man like that. He is a very high London wage earner (7 figures in a good year.) He spends no money on himself. He also does all the DIY work around the house too after working a 70 hour week. He drives a car which is 16 years old and worth £1.5k. He says he can’t afford to buy a new one. I don’t get a Christmas present and my birthday is in January so I don’t get one for that either as it comes along too quickly after Christmas - ie the Christmas where I didn’t get a present. It’s just a completely different way of thinking about money. I don’t care that much as I work full time and so will spend my money on myself if I want to (which I do and which he complains about). I do find the lack of generosity unattractive though but I think a spendthrift would appeal even less. It’s also not so dissimilar to the household in which I grew up.

There is no way around it OP you need to tell him what you saw and just ask him about why he has lied to you. Explain like you have here about how it's not been about the money but that fact he has lied that's upset you.
Him living like this comes from several possible aspects, it's a lifestyle choice he likes( to skrimp and save etc and not be wasteful) this can be handed down through his upbringing so what are his parents like. If they're the same money but always saving on things or seeing charity shop as the go to even if they could afford me it explain why he too sees this as normal. If he was poor or not rich growing up ,- again explains why money has never been a given to him and why he wants to save it all its a mindset you can't get out of easily.

I’m actually wondering if he left it open on purpose too.

What page/app was it that managed to detail all of his savings accounts, including multiple different ISAs, the sale price of his previous house and where the money from that house was deposited? Surely that takes at least a few clicks, and that’s assuming all of the above is done through one single bank? Or has he genuinely created a spreadsheet that says “sold X house in 2023 for Y amount of money, money went to account Z”? In which case that’s extremely bizarre and to be honest, giving me alarm bells

The thing about being stingy is it spills over in other parts of a person’s personality, it’s not just money they’ll be stingy with. I don’t think many people are ecstatically happy with their life when they have a stingy partner.

I think you need to tell him you know. I find that he has lied to this extent quite unbelievable! He could’ve pretended to earn an average amount but the constant pretending to be that skint is mind boggling. It’s a shame that he doesn’t get to enjoy more things in life. I don’t understand saving to this extend especially since he doesn’t have children. He misses out of having fun in life: theatre, restaurants and holidays and for what. No one life’s forever! I think he forgot that he’s getting older and that when he’s on his deathbed he’ll only have the memories of loved ones and he take the money with him. Some people get stuck in a challenge of saving as much as possible while forgetting to see the bigger picture. You get one life on earth. Either enjoy the money to make lovely memories or give a chunk to help charities and other people in need. Having a massive amount in your account and then dying unexpectedly will not help anyone and is such a waste..

The OP isn't in the dating stage because they don't go out on many dates! They go round each others houses and cook food and hang out. Nice and cosy, but cheap.

After 18 months/2 years, this is make or break time for me. I'd be wanting it to be a forever type of relationship. You've gone past the heady early days and into what would be the rest of your life. You are saying daily you love each other, you know each other's families, I'd just want to go all in or not at all at this stage, which is why lying would matter to me hugely, whereas in the first few dates I would consider it protective. I can't build a life with a liar and that's that.