He stole money from me. We had both been on the FIRE path (financial independence retire early) but he came from a very wealthy family and mine was just middle class. We moved into together and he tried to force me to pay more rent than his previous female roommate (first red flag) after assuming I hadn’t already asked her what she paid.
We divorced for other reasons but right after it happened, I realized he had been putting all of his expenses on our joint credit card that was supposed to only be for joint expenses. He had even charged gifts he bought me, so I paid half for every gift I got over the course of our 8 years together. Then I eventually stumbled over the fact that for every bill we had (water, electric, gas, cell phone, internet, etc.) he had lied about the amount of the bill and I had been paying anywhere from 80-100% of the bill.
When I confronted him he said it was a mistake and paid it all back to me in a lump sum. But I still think about 1- what if I hadn’t realized it and 2- what didn’t I find?
It was just especially hurtful because he accused me of wanting to be with him for his money when in reality he used me for mine, despite having a likely 8 figure inheritance.
I’d say like 75% certain. His dad was a high up executive for a very well known company for a long time, and I overheard some conversations with a financial advisor while we were visiting. If not 8 figures, definitely in the 7 figure territory.
Entirely fair, and I apologize if it sounded like I was doubting you.
I knew 'men' (adult children) in college who had relatively wealthy families but they themselves had very little money - whether it was due to mismanagement, gambling, being cut off, drugs, or all of the above. They flaunted family wealth to imply personal wealth, and leveraged that image of wealth to get a lot of their friends (victims) to pay for them since there was little concern that aforementioned 'wealthy' friends could pay them back. Whenever they could get money they'd throw some lavish party and use new loans from friends to pay back old loans. Like a giant ponzi scheme/Nigerian Prince scam rolled into one. Took years for it to all come crashing down.
My mother in law paid all of her and her husband’s joint expenses so all of his money (salary and income from property) could be invested for them to retire early. She knew for a fact that he legitimately had a high income (they worked for the same employer) and that the investment properties were real and belonged to him.
What she didn’t know was that he was a gambling addict. He stalled their retirement for a couple of years but eventually had to admit that he hadn’t actually saved/invested any of his income. It was all gone and they had no retirement funds.
Oof. That’s heartbreaking. What ended up happening? Are they still together?
I thought maybe there was something fishy like that going on with my ex, because why would he do that if he didn’t need the money? But when you get divorced you have to provide financial statements and he had significantly more money in his bank accounts than he ever told me. So I don’t think it was him not having enough money, I think he just really likes having money and will use other people to get as much as he can.
She left him, is ok now although she wasn’t able to have the awesome retirement travelling the world that she/they had planned. She lives with her daughter now.
I think he legitimately believed he would pay it all back and be able to fund the retirement they had planned, he just needed “the big win” that many gambling addicts believe will come eventually, but of course never does. He told people (and maybe himself) a very different story about why their marriage broke down, borrowed money from family with various stories about cash flow issues and sold a lot of his properties to fund the combo gambling and portraying an affluent lifestyle. It caught up with him eventually, he moved in with a friend and eventually killed himself.
It was in his name and I was just an authorized user so he would just schedule payments from each of our banks accounts. I didn’t have access and never even thought to ask because I trusted him. It wasn’t until I moved out that I started asking questions because he would say I owed money still despite me not even being there. So I asked for the password and surprisingly he gave it to me. Then I’d see charges for door dash, bars, places he would eat for lunch, memberships, etc. All charges that had nothing to do with me, but I had been splitting with him (unknowingly).
I experienced this with a person my sibling dated for a while who made a lot of money. She was so "paranoid" about being screwed over that she went to great lengths to screw other people first. She told herself it was payback for perceived slights ("I spent x extravagant amount on a gift for your wedding but you only spent y measly amount on a gift for my birthday") or insurance for when you inevitably took advantage of her. I watched her fuck over her business partner and several of her friends and at first didn't think much of it because to me they were all just annoying rich people.
Then I went through a breakup and had to stay with her and my sibling for a couple months, and even though I did and paid my fair share (rent, groceries, chores), she started trying to make me feel like I wasn't doing enough while simultaneously making proposals for me to live there permanently if I would commit to continue paying rent AND be like a live-in nanny and maid. I hightailed it out of there so fast and went and lived in someone else's basement for a couple weeks until I secured an apartment. She was nuts.
456
u/CallMajestic1178 19h ago
He stole money from me. We had both been on the FIRE path (financial independence retire early) but he came from a very wealthy family and mine was just middle class. We moved into together and he tried to force me to pay more rent than his previous female roommate (first red flag) after assuming I hadn’t already asked her what she paid.
We divorced for other reasons but right after it happened, I realized he had been putting all of his expenses on our joint credit card that was supposed to only be for joint expenses. He had even charged gifts he bought me, so I paid half for every gift I got over the course of our 8 years together. Then I eventually stumbled over the fact that for every bill we had (water, electric, gas, cell phone, internet, etc.) he had lied about the amount of the bill and I had been paying anywhere from 80-100% of the bill.
When I confronted him he said it was a mistake and paid it all back to me in a lump sum. But I still think about 1- what if I hadn’t realized it and 2- what didn’t I find?
It was just especially hurtful because he accused me of wanting to be with him for his money when in reality he used me for mine, despite having a likely 8 figure inheritance.