Wedding Woes

He's not a 'good guy'...he's guilted and gas-lighted you.

Dear Prudence,
I’ve been with a man I love very much for 15 years, and I feel trapped. He is terrible with money and has lied to me a number of times to hide his shame at getting into yet another situation where bills got away from him. It seems that no matter how many times I tell him that it’s the lying that upsets me, not the money, nothing changes. I have more money than he does, so I can help him, but I think he feels inadequate because he’s not a “provider” even though he knows I don’t care about that. For obvious reasons, we have never commingled our finances. Between these money issues and some health issues, I feel that if we ever separated, he would be unable to make it on his own. And I don’t wantto separate! But feeling like I can’t leave is a millstone around my neck.

Several years ago we did separate briefly, and he stayed with friends and never made progress toward living independently. We have what looks like an adult relationship; he does his share of the housework without being asked and is generally a good guy. But in the back of my mind I feel like I can never escape.

Is that crazy? If I don’t want to break up, why should the hypothetical consequences concern me? We’ve tried therapy, and while I thought at the time that it had helped us communicate, nothing has really changed, and neither he nor the therapist really ever understood why I feel so trapped. Am I not explaining it well, or am I looking at the situation the wrong way?
—Trapped

Re: He's not a 'good guy'...he's guilted and gas-lighted you.

  • They should concern you because separate finances or no you might be on the hook for alimony. 
  • All of this should be concerning.   But it sounds like the LW is her husband's parent.  Tough love is needed here.   
  • She doesn't say they're married and depending where they are located, they may not be common law.  SO she may have dodged a bullet on that one if they didn't tangle finances.  I mean, breaking up will be complicated...but not as much if they were married. 
  • This letter is like a cloaked cry for help. It's like she wants Prudie/people to tell her she should leave him so that it's not her idea or fault. 

    Just own it. You do not like being with a man-child who has been chronically untrustworthy and is insecure, financially unstable, and totally dependent. Who would?! So beat it. After 15 years of having a sugar mama and not putting together some semblance of a nest egg or handle bills like a grown man, his dependency on other people is not your problem.
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  • She needs to find her inner biatch.  She seems to have this attitude that she couldn't break up with him, if she wanted to, because he is financially dependent on her.

    F**k that noise, girl!  Providing for grown adults is not your responsibility.  She needs to change her own attitude about that and, viola, her angst is done.  At least on that issue.  But, really, there is obviously more going on.

    I'm wondering if he would allow her to manage his finances for him.  They could still keep them separate (and should!), but maybe things would improve if she can guide him and see exactly what he is doing.  It would also put an end to her irritation about his lying.

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  • VarunaTTVarunaTT member
    First Anniversary First Comment 5 Love Its First Answer
    edited December 2017
    Man, I can feel this LW's anxiety.

    It is not their job to make sure "someone who can't make it on his own" can make it.  I did the same thing; I kept thinking, "I just need [ex]DH to get a job so he can stand on his own two feet and then I can leave".  He never did got a job.  He never stood on his own feet.  I always had conditions set for him to achieve b/c I felt so much guilt, like I had made him rely on me and now I had to stay.  And, I had.  I had enabled him to the moon and back, thinking I was being a good supportive partner.  

    LW's partner is taking advantage, either knowingly or not, of LW and of their friends.  LW is enabling their partner to continue bad habits, that quite frankly, are affecting their partnership.  It seems like LW has tried to fix that, so either LW is going to accept the situation as it is, or is going to leave.

    A bitter side note: Ex-DH took to social media to lambast me for leaving him, and asking people what was he supposed to do now, and how I had stolen thing, and he had no money.  He had people who pitied him...he also had about people tell him to get an job and start taking care of himself, and at least one person who told him that "it's obvious now that Varuna really was taking care of everything, just like she said, and she left because of it, just like she said." I admit to a bit of schadenfreude.
  • Using the word 'escape' from a relationship is telling. Get out now, he's an adult and will have to learn how to be one. 


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