Am I in the wrong to feel that he has lied and is being used?

cherryade

Long time poster hoping for some advice (or re-assurance that I'm not being a horrible person)...

Bit of background - met my fiance when we were both still in high school, started out as friends and things progressed from there. We are best friends as well as soon to be husband and wife. We don't live together yet as we hope to make this transition to the next stage of our relationship when we get married. I have some savings put away (about enough for a deposit on a house), but he is not very good with money and has pretty much nothing put away.

He is too generous with money when it comes to other people. I don't begrudge him helping others, in fact I really do respect him for it because it shows what a giving and caring person he is. But I can't help but feel that he gets taken advantage of.

He has a credit card debt. I knew about this but didn't know where he actually spent this money - until last night. He had asked me to help him pay off this card recently and I said I would do (can't do yet as my money is tied up elsewhere, should be able to help him pay it off in a few months time). Now around £600 of the debt on the credit was his own - he has now paid this off. There is a remaining balance of around £2,300 to be paid. I don't know exact figures as he refused to tell me anything else about it.

Now the issue is where this £2,300 has been spent. His cousin recently purchased a house and asked for my fiance to lend him money. My fiance took money out on a 0% credit card to lend to his cousin. He claims that this was about a year ago and he also claims that he told me about it at the time. Now I am not that forgetful that I would have forgotten about this, I know for definite that I would have been against it and I also know that had I known about it I would have been on at my fiance about paying the card off. His cousin has not paid him back and my fiance continues to pay it off himself with the wages from his part time job. Why should I then lend money to my fiance to substitute his cousin who has a full-time job and a house, wife and 3 children? My fiance tells me that his cousin cannot afford to pay the money back due to circumstances. This is the same cousin who asked my fiance to take his wife and 3 kids to London while he stayed at home himself. My fiance took a day out of his own time and footed the bill for around £60 petrol. He claims he can't ask for this money back as his cousin is 'broke.'

I feel cheated if I'm honest. How could he not ask me before taking out the loan? Should he have asked me or am I prying in to his finances unjustifiably? We are soon to be married and I really want to start saving up so that when we get married we can buy our own place and afford to support ourselves. He insists that he told me about it at the time but he didn't. I feel like he is making a mockery out of me by suggesting that I have been told but simply didn't listen or have forgotten.

Please can somebody offer some words of advice as I'm feeling really upset. I tell him everything and thought he did the same. I couldn't bear to speak to him last night as he refused to answer any questions about the loan and just kept saying if you want to talk properly then talk but not about the loan. We've been together for 10 years, how can he think it's OK to do something like this behind my back especially when he knows that he can't afford to do it anyway and that his cousin won't be paying him back.

ska_lover

HI hun

You aren't prying into his finances, you have a right to know, as you are soon to be married and have been together ten years so you have every right to know it all.

I would feel cheated as well - and I can only tell you what i would do - I would refuse to pay back his cousins loan. point blank refuse. You have worked hard for your own savings to secure a future for yourself, - his cousin is not your responsibility.

You say he is refusing to talk about the loan, but expects you to help pay it back? Sounds dodgy to me.

Sorry if its not what you wanted to hear.

BitterAndTwisted

Until you are married his own finances are pretty much his business and not yours. He sounds like a bloody fool and I'd be thinking twice about getting married and sharing a home with him until he's solvent and can prove it. If you've already offered to clear that debt then I think that you're in a pretty weak position to argue about how that debt was acquired. If you strongly disagree then don't pay it. Quite frankly you sound like his Mum rather than a life-partner. This could set the tone for your entire married life if you're not careful.

richardw

Sounds like cousin may have taken unfair advantage of your fiancee's good nature, shame on the cousin.

It might just be that he fully intended to tell you about the loan, but he never got round to it.

cherryade

Thank you for the quick responses.

Ska lover - the loan is definitely not dodgy, he is a very trustworthy person. He has never done anything for me to doubt him and that is why this is such a big shocker for me. He says that he can't afford to help me put savings away, but the fact that he can take a loan out for someone else to give them money that he doesn't even have is what baffles me.

BitterandTwisted - unfortunately he isn't very good with money, if he has £100 in his pocket and someone needs to borrow he will always give it away. He is such a kind person I often wonder how he ended up with someone like me lol. I did offer to help him clear the debt when he asked but that was because I thought he had incurred it himself, I found out last night that most of the loan is his cousins and I will now refuse to pay out of my hard earnt savings for his cousin.

As nice as he is, I'm fed up of his niceness. He gets taken advantage of but won't see it, people ring him up asking for him to help them fix their cars, fix their computers, even help them with bloomin' D.I.Y! When I have a go at him he just responds with 'well it's not my fault that you don't like helping people.'

cherryade

richard w - he has had plenty of time to tell me about it. He just buries his head in the sand when it comes to things like this. He is always being taken advantage of because he will never say no!

richardw

Is he just a 'bury head in the sand' kind of guy?

cherryade

When he knows he has done something wrong he will bury his head in the sand and ignore me. He will then after a day or so call me up/ask to meet up and act as if nothing has happened. His apologies will always end with him still trying to justify his own actions a few minutes later. I love him so much but I can't explain how frustrating his behavior is sometimes.

Sambucus_Nigra

Conundrum: do you count among the people he will help out at his own expense? If so then why is he asking you to pay the debt off? If not then why not? If you have a family, will the kids go without in order that other people get things they want? It is something you really need to work out before you tie the knot with him.

cherryade

Yes Sambucus Nigra, I do. He has always been there for me when I've needed him, financially, emotionally. We've been through a lot together (deaths of close friends on both sides) and have supported each other through some really tough times. He has never scrimped on anything he has done or bought for me. The money issue and our own family in the future is what plays on my mind, he always says that when we get married he won't do so much for others or be out late helping someone fix a computer or change their headlights etc, but there's also the saying that 'old habits die hard'

Sambucus_Nigra

cherryade wrote: »

Yes Sambucus Nigra, I do. He has always been there for me when I've needed him, financially, emotionally. We've been through a lot together (deaths of close friends on both sides) and have supported each other through some really tough times. He has never scrimped on anything he has done or bought for me. The money issue and our own family in the future is what plays on my mind, he always says that when we get married he won't do so much for others or be out late helping someone fix a computer or change their headlights etc, but there's also the saying that 'old habits die hard'

Aye, so how is it that he is happy to put the debt onto you rather than get his cousin to pay it?