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?

The thing about some very rich people is that they can actually believe they are poor. It's sad - they are wealthy but can't enjoy it. Imagine packing a Ribena to take to a show rather than buying a drink at the bar (and supporting the venue who partly rely on drink sales to put on shows at all.)

Can you somehow call his bluff? Along the lines of, I'm going out with another friend for a nice meal, plan a holiday etc.

He's kind of controlled you into living at his level of spending which is really unfair and deceitful and also just stingy and mean. He can't take any of his wealth with him so why is he pinching every penny?

I don't know if you can come back from that. I'd give him one shot to come clean and then back away or at least dial the relationship right down. He's weird.

Id be furious and say I was putting up with this cheap lifestyle for him so he didn't feel awkward or shamed

But MY preference is to go out for nice dinners, buy reasonable gifts and go out to the theatre

If he wanted to do that with me (and go halves) then I would want that or he could get lost

You do seem rather obsessed with the fact that he chooses to buy his clothes from charity shops OP. Why on earth does it bother you so much that he buys secondhand t-shirts for 50p? Good for the environment and good for his bank balance.

He's a liar and you've snooped. Neither of you have covered yourself in glory.

The thing is, even if you knew about the money, that wouldn't change his behaviour. Someone who is frugal is going to be frugal no matter how much money they have sitting in their bank account.

It sounds like you're not actually as happy as you claim to be, and this is an easy thing to focus on because it's an obvious deception, whereas the other behaviour is just something that he's always done and you've gone along with up until now.

URGH, poor you OP. What a horrible situation.

I'm sorry to say it, but I would 100% confront him. Even if that meant the end of the relationship for snooping, because the lying could be the end of the relationship anyway.

There's a big difference between being broke but lovely (as you thought he was) and being a stingy miser (which you now know he is).

Hopefully it's not the end of your relationship since you love him and he makes you happy, but I'd need some uncomfortable conversations to happen to see if there's a way forwards.

No way. A woman saying 'I've got loads of money in the bank, but I don't want to go on days out' wouldn't get much support.

But the very fact that they are not married or living together means the OP can walk away at anytime. It doesn't sound as if his financial arrangements suit the OP so there is no problem. She can walk away.
I suspect that she doesn't want to leave him and therein lies the rub.
Go with your gut, OP

Because she thought it was temporary but it turns out the temporary was based on a lie. So she's now rightly concerned that it isn't going to be temporary after all.

I’d be upset that my partner didn’t trust me enough to say they had money tied up.

I’d be worried that they were either so deluded or conditioned to not spend money they genuinely thought they were skint. or that they were deliberately lying to me and didn’t see that as a problem.

Frugality I’m fine with (we buy second hand clothes, decorate ourselves etc) miserliness I draw a line at.

The only thing I would differ from you from is that charity shops should only be for poor people. There are environmental reasons to shop there and if they were deemed only for the poor there would be so much stigma that no one would want to shop there.

I agree with this comment

It’s one thing not wanting to splash his cash around and being careful. It’s quite another to actively lie and use that lie as an excuse to short change you, as he has obviously done with the Christmas present.

Has he given you a timescale for his renovations to be completed?

I’d be pushing to find out when (whether) he has a date planned for an end to the stinginess to try to get a feel of what this is. If it’s some kind of gold digger test, you must have passed with flying colours and there ought to be an end in sight.

If it’s simply a long term excuse for stinginess (which seems likely after so long) then you are never going to have the relationship you want and might as well end it.

I can’t imagine the latter is what you want to do, but you’ve discovered he is lying in order to control an aspect of your relationship in a way that would be stifling it, had he been honest. If he’d said “I don’t like spending money on expensive things” you would have had the chance to address whether you wanted that relationship.

Instead, he’s implied it’s temporary, so you are two years in and netted by feelings of love. But they are not founded in who he actually is, but in some false idea of who he is.

Easy from here to say you should draw away from him, but you undoubtedly need to try to establish what is true and what is not, and potentially why he has done this, if the fact that he has comprehensively lied is not an immediate deal breaker.

I would assume he means he has no disposable income. That's not the same as not having assets. I would be more wary of a man of that age, approaching retirement, who had zero assets or investments.

Presumably, if you were going to be merging households at some point, you would have a discussion about finances, but until that point I wouldn't expect disclosure.

He's probably been burned before and is cautious about sharing his financial status. Judging by your snooping and behaviour, he's right to be wary.

She's not upset by the principle of him not openly declaring and sharing his wealth. She is upset because he has lied to her. It isn't that he isn't generous, it's that he has pretended to be totally skint. When he bought her something from a charity shop for £2 for Christmas, she bought him a winter coat (which he accepted). He is a deceitful miser and she would be better off without him.

OP is financially comfortable herself so your accusation that she just wants a rich partner is unfair and untrue.

Yes Imposted about this earlier and sent a link to an article where the maximum sum after investment over the years would probably be £900k.

Because she thought he was genuinely poor!

You might fall in love with a man with a disability and previously have loved active things etc but choose to make those things a smaller part of your life because your partner can't do them. If you then find out that he is faking the disability and going on solo scuba diving and hiking holidays alone - this new information would change things.

In a similar way, OP chose not to do things she loved because she thought her partner couldn't do them, not because he wouldn't. Huge difference. She wasn't given the opportunity to make an informed choice due to his lies.

its over whatever you do, you know his is liar about his finances and by saying that, he will find out about your unacceptable behaviour re looking at this finances

Rich people lying about being poor is gross and extremely disrespectful to anyone who has actually been skint.

In a nation of Food Banks, of children going to school hungry and tired - the fact that the majority of posters here are defending this man’s deceit is honestly astounding.

Being poor is not some game. It’s not an identity that wealthy people can assume and play around with until they feel like retiring into luxury and being honest with the world, and partners.

An honest poor man is worth 1000x a lying rich one.

I didn't say anything about days out

I said that if a woman didn't want to tell her boyfriend about her financial status, she would get nothing but support on here. The days out are a totally separate issue imo.

My DH earns significantly - and has inherited
substantial wealth. He is pretty open about the fact that one of the reasons he feels so safe with me + our marriage set up is that we met and scrabbled through life together on entry level salaries together before his income increased or he inherited. He knows that we’re a solid established unit and that, even if we lost everything, we’d figure it out.

I think it’s really hard when you first meet someone if you’re already relatively ‘made’ to feel comfortable letting them into your financial world. If you feel like 1.5mil in stocks and shares is vast wealth - then you probably come from a different financial perspective to him.

1.5 million in stocks + shares isn’t necessarily liquid at all. If he’s in his 50s and doesn’t have children this possibly represents life time savings security for him

250k in a recent flat sale might have been something he’s been anxiously trying to sell for a while to cover renovations on the new property.

House renovations are always more expensive and time consuming that one imagines.

I would have a direct conversation with him. Something like…

“Hey - I like you a lot - I imagine a life with slightly more grown up fun in it - I know you have been financially wrapped up in your house and working part time. Do you see a future in which you are interested in working and spending a bit more on holidays and dining?

I ask this because these things are important to me, and I’m more than happy to pay my way - but it would be nice if you would join me.”

You’re not married + you don’t Hvw a right to all his financial details - but you do have a right to lay out expectations for a lifestyle which you’re offering to put your half in for. It’s ok for him to want to save aggressively and only work part time. But if that’s the case - maybe he’s not the one for you.

Can you not have a 'long term plan' discussion - that you want more from life and are able to finance it. How long will it be until he will be in a better financial position, and be able to enjoy doing (and paying for himself) to do nice things? Life is passing you both by - you need to be doing things now while you're fit and able, as no-one knows what's around the corner.

I suppose you then need to make a decision that if he is just stingy, are you prepared to work with that, as you enjoy each other's company so much? Do what you want with friends (or on your own), but still enjoy time with him with no commitment.

Is there an element of him having spent his childhood with limited money so having learnt to watch every penny? I grew up with a DM who struggled to support us. Though I luckily don’t need to having ok finances I still catch myself scrimping and trying to save where I really shouldn’t be.

Could you start a conversation about future and ask direct questions about timeline for renovations/ money saving. A rationale could be voicing your wish for a short break together and suggest starting long term planning for when possible. It may be interesting to see how he responds.

What’s wrong with Lidl? I prefer the shopping experience in Lidl when compared with a vast Tesco or Sainsbury, and I can’t convince myself that paying more for the same food is worthwhile. Lidl veg is generally fresher. This comment doesn’t show you in a good light. It’s picky and critical over nothing.

I can understand him wanting to stash money for his retirement which he doesn't touch, and living within his means. But refusing to pay for your Maltesers in the theatre and bringing his own Ribena is just stingy - as a previous poster said, pathological miserliness. It's unlikely much will change when (if) he returns to work full time.

We've had this conversation about 100 times already.

He says he cannot predict how long the house renovation will take because he won't employ any help so everything from gardening to plumbing to plastering to kitchen fitting is all down to him and he is learning as he goes from Youtube videos. Every time he pulls a muscle, sprains an ankle or gets a cold he stops work until he's better. Plus he has to work 4 hrs a day with an hour's commute each way and often by the time he's done some shopping and other errands and made his evening meal its already 6pm and hes too knackered to do any building work. He's been doing the house up for 3 years now and parts of it still looks like a building site. I keep urging him to employ a labourer but he cannot afford it. I even found him a late-teenage boy willing to take £10 an hour but he said no, cannot afford that!

He also says he cannot make plans that depend on a future income because he does not know if his company will want to take him back full time now they have found out they can manage with him only working part time and he says that, at his age he cannot guarantee being able to land another similar job at a similar company on a similar pay scale as he will might be nearly 60 or even older by the time he is ready to work full time again. But yes if things go well we will have lots of holidays and days out and meals out and trips to the future.

I'm not sure I buy that it's a huge difference, tbh. The end result is the same - OP can't do what she wants to do in a relationship because of her partner.

Even if she knew about the money, what difference would it make, really? He'd still be a miser who brings cartons of ribena to the theatre and refuses to pay £3 for some Maltesers.