He Put His Engagement On Hold After His Fiancée Revealed She’s Spent Years Lying About Her Finances
Two years ago, this 27-year-old man got engaged, and he’s been with his 26-year-old fiancée for six years in total now.
He and his fiancée are quite independent, and they discussed keeping their finances separate while splitting all their expenses equally.
Since they make their own money, they are responsible for each paying their own bills. They do own a home, so they have one joint account that they put money into to pay for any bills related to their home as well as their mortgage. Aside from that, nothing they do money-wise is shared.
“I have always been extremely careful with money and am very particular about living below my means – I save nearly 40% of my income every month and maintain a (probably excessive) emergency fund,” he explained.
“All of my debts (except the mortgage) are completely paid off. She shares the same ideals (or at least I thought she did), which made me believe we were very compatible with each other.”
“We bought our house 3 years ago, and she put herself through school and graduated with a Master’s Degree almost 2 years ago.”
But then, when his fiancée graduated, she ended up losing her job. She spent months trying to find a new role with the same pay, but she had no luck.
So, she returned to the job she had at a pottery studio before she was working on her Master’s. She makes minimum wage if that.
She adores pottery, and this was literally the only job she could find. In time, his fiancée was able to become the Assistant Manager of the studio, which came along with an annual salary of approximately $35,000.
chokniti – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
“Not a fair wage by any means – especially for someone with a Master’s Degree,” he said. “But, she had convinced me this was what she wanted to do, so I agreed to support her as best as I could.”
“At that time, I was making more than $150k/yr, and we decided it would be fair for me to take on paying the entire mortgage and all of our bills, so she would only need to worry about groceries and her car. A few months go by, and some major expenses come up – her car breaks down, she ends up paying back tuition reimbursement to her old company, and she adopts a new puppy.”
“All of which (except the puppy) she was very stressed about. I offered to help pay for each incident, but she insisted it wasn’t my place and even refused to tell me how much everything was costing her. Despite having to repay some tuition reimbursement, she also assured me she was able to graduate without any student loans.”
This brings us to now. The owner of the pottery studio where his fiancée works is going to retire and sell the place.
His fiancée and her manager work wonderfully together and love what they do, so they figured they could purchase the studio.
They ironed out their plan, but the problem is his fiancée doesn’t have enough money to pay for her half of the expenses.
His fiancée approached him, asking how she can get approved to take out a loan for the money. She said she needs $15,000 for the upfront costs, and then she and her manager are going to get a business loan for the rest.
He figured it was a good idea to invest in his fiancée, so he said he would give her the $15,000. His fiancée was thrilled, and she stated they could turn the studio into some kind of a family business.
“A few days ago, she broke down out of nowhere,” he added. “She told me in tears that she hasn’t been honest with me and that she has been struggling to keep up with her expenses.”
“She has over $11,000 in credit card debt and has a zero balance in all of her accounts. She says she’s been feeling guilty about taking my money for the studio and had withdrawn herself from buying it.”
“After she told me this, I just felt numb. I couldn’t believe she would hide something like this from me. I don’t feel like marrying her and taking on her debt is fair to me, especially after how hard I’ve worked to be debt-free. So I told her our engagement was on hold until this was sorted out.”
His next move was to insist that she had to be transparent about her finances. His fiancée agreed to be truthful, so he crafted a spreadsheet detailing their expenses and incomes.
He was able to come up with a way to pay off all of her debt in the next nine months. But in order to do this, he needs to be responsible for all of their bills.
His fiancée will have to pay for her car, which is $180 a month, and her gas while also paying down her debt.
He showed his plan to his fiancée, and she was shocked to find out she can be debt-free in less than a year. She also is so grateful that he is not going to end their engagement over this.
“Another few days go by, and she again breaks down and tells me that she wasn’t honest with me,” he continued.
“She tells me she has over $10,000 in student loans that also needs to be paid. From the moment she graduated, she had told me multiple times her student loans were 100% covered by herself and her company tuition reimbursement plan. Even after she had to repay some of the reimbursement she assured me it was all taken care of.”
“First and foremost, I don’t care about the money. It’s a (relatively) small amount that can be paid off in a few years with good habits. But I can’t decide how I actually feel. I know I definitely feel hurt, deceived, and am struggling to look at her the same. I’m also struggling to believe anything she tells me. But part of me also feels guilty about why she hid this so long. Was her shame (and her fear of my reaction) really so bad that it justified keeping this concealed for so long?”
He’s left wondering how he can manage to go about rebuilding the trust in his relationship. He’s also doubting that they can salvage this relationship at all, considering the fact that he can no longer trust what she tells him.
What advice do you have for him?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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