'AITA for giving my fiancé my ring back because he closed on a house without telling me?'
"AITA for giving my fiancé my ring back because he closed on a house without telling me?"
I (44F) have been with my fiance (46M) for 13 years, and we have been engaged for 4, and have 3 kids (10F, 8F, 3F) together. After a lot of obstacles and two periods ( before our engagement) where we decided to not officially break up, but take a break from each other, we had set a wedding date that was supposed to be for this June.
My fiance has a lot of baggage from his childhood and doesn't do well with frustration- he's a self proclaimed " avoidant introvert." I also have had childhood issues where my parents always made me feel guilty about how much I " cost" and never would give me any money to get new shoes, which got me excluded by my peers ( yes I have been in very therapy about this).
I work as a front desk agent at a hotel, and used to work as a member of the concierge staff at a condo. My fiance is the main breadwinner in our household and I never felt comfortable sharing my financial struggles because he was so perfect at everything.
My fiance talked throughout our relationship about buying a home and investing in a fixer uppers ( he works for a real estate investment firm). But long story short a year and a half ago I needed to file for bankruptcy. I was dealing with having creditors overdrafting my accounts and Discover suing me so I decided the responsible thing to do was file.
It caused a lot of tension, but he said he didn't want to back out of this wedding because he didn't want our daughters to think he gave up when things were hard. However, we hit another bad period after he found out a credit union denied my application for an account due to a Chexsystems report. He's told me that we will still own a house together someday, but that family home won't be for another 4-5 years.
Then three weeks ago he breaks it to me that he had been in the process of closing on a property. It's a duplex, but many people use half of a duplex as a family home, and own it with their spouse.
He admits that he would have wanted my name on it before the bankruptcy. I was furious, but instead of being sorry he said that if we wanted this to work, he needed me to verbally affirm that I understood and accept why he didn't involve me in this purchase.
I was speechless and walked away. It was a huge breach of trust and I don't think it's unreasonable to say I deserve a better man than someone who'd do that, and that if he really loved and trusted me like he said in therapy he wouldn't have done this. I ended up giving him the ring back out of anger.
I regret doing that now, but we got in another fight after he refused to even tell me what he did with the ring. I told him I deserved better than a man who'd just shut his partner out of finances and get so cold after a fight.
I told him to leave the house for a while, but he just moved back in. Yet he said he wants us to tell the girls the wedding is off and that he's here to ease the transition and offered pay the rent until the lease is up, but will find somewhere else for him to stay. AITA for my reaction?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
RNGinx3 said:
Let me see if I get this straight: You're 44 years old, still making "spending mistakes," don't pay half the bills, he pays most of them, you took out loans with high interest, lied about it, filed for bankrupt, which means you won't qualify for a home loan for at least ten years...and you're mad he bought a house and didn't put you on the deed because you're not paying for it?
You are financially irresponsible AND dishonest. "They were trying to rat me out to my employer/threatening to garnish my wages." Yeah for the money YOU borrowed and owe them. It's your own damn fault you didn't read the fine print (or even have him look it over to see if it was a good idea).
"He values money over the relationship we had and cares more about a mortgage broker thinking my history is "sordid" than building a future together. I feel I deserve a better man than somebody who would throw me under the bus for his own financial benefit because of "reputation" or feeling like others might judge me for my mistakes.
Somebody who'd understand that financial mistakes happen, and still want to buy a house for me and our kids regardless because love trumps finances." Grow up. You're too old to be making "financial mistakes." You're a leech and taking advantage of him financially. Please, do him a favor and leave. YTA.
SoThisIs4everHuh said:
At the end of the day, you tossed away more than a decade and a man who was willing to financially support you and marry you over a house you were in no positions to contribute towards due to your own mistakes. Unless you live in a state where premarital assets belong to who purchased them, this was a silly move on your part.
Excluding an irresponsible partner from a major financial purchase shouldn’t even be a thing. But acknowledging his avoidance of conflict, you should easily understand why this was done…you’re acting like he did something that jeopardized you or your family. Good luck finding anyone who will put up with your nonsense. YTA.
joe-lefty500 said:
YTA You created a financial mess and now you’re blaming him. Nope it’s you.
Nearby-Ad-6106 said:
YTA. Holy sh%t you need to wake up and smell the roses. You are 44 with 3 kids and just had to go through bankruptcy. Why are you trying to make your life harder?
jr_hosep said:
YTA. You sound like a terrible partner. Also irrational and immature.
ProfessionalSir3395 said:
YTA. The delulu is strong in you.