'My boyfriend thinks I’m only dating him because he’s rich. AITA for my reaction?' UPDATED 2X

"My boyfriend thinks I’m only dating him because he’s rich. AITA?"

I just need some advice. I (F29) have been dating my boyfriend (M35) for almost six months. We’ve known each other for about a year and a half. I’m a teacher and make around 50k a year and he is a lawyer and while his yearly earnings vary based on which clients and companies he works with, it’s always somewhere in the six figures.

Recently, we attended a family get together at my parents’ house. My parents (M&F 60’s) and older brother (M35) had already met him before this, but also invited some of our extended family and my SIL’s family as well. Everything was going fine until my sister (F32) walked in.

We are low contact (we’d be no contact if my parents didn’t want to have a relationship with her) and nobody told me she had been invited. When I asked my mom what was up, she said she invited her because she needed some encouragement. I was absolutely fuming, but decided to see how the night went and leave if my sister decided to stir anything up.

Thankfully, my sister seemed fine and I didn’t see her much. My boyfriend left early since he was tired and I thought that was that. Boy, was I wrong. A week passed with no messages from him which is really weird. We text each other everyday, just chatting about our days or making plans for dates.

Then all of a sudden, he texts me to meet up at a park and that he “wanted to talk about something important.” ???? I had no idea what was up. We meet, he doesn’t hug me (also out of the ordinary) and I ask him what’s wrong. First thing out of his mouth: are you dating me just because I’m rich? What the hell??? Uh no, I’m not and I tell him that.

He just asks me again, like he doesn’t believe me. I ask him where he’s getting this from. It’s so out of left field. Then he asks me if I’ve ever said all my problems would be solved if I married rich. I’m not gonna lie, I definitely have joked about that. But in the same way you say “Maybe I should quit my job and move to Iceland and herd sheep for the rest of my life.”

Anyways, I tell him that and ask him again, where the heck is this coming from? He said my sister told him. Apparently, she introduced herself and they chatted for a bit. When he told her he was a lawyer, she said that makes total sense because “OP always wanted to marry rich, looks like she’s living the dream.” Y’all. I could have SCREAMED. I can’t even describe the emotions I was feeling.

My sister spent YEARS bullying and abusing me and she has the absolute audacity to take a joke I said when I was a DEPRESSED TEENAGER with health issues out of context and misrepresent me to my boyfriend? Literally insane. I was shaking. I told my boyfriend that what she said was entirely out of context and he can’t trust her.

He just kept pressing and asking why she would say something like that so casually if it wasn’t the truth. I told him because she’s a narcissist who has spent years treating me like a punching bag and never taking accountability. He just couldn’t get it. So I left.

I told him that if he was going to take the word of one person who he just met over the word of all of my friends and family who will vouch for me that I’m not that kind of person, over all of the months he’s spent getting to know me as a person, then this wasn’t going to work. The tears were already started to come down, but I managed to hold it together alright until I got to my card and just sobbed.

I feel broken. I’m in love with my boyfriend. He is the first person I have ever felt comfortable being myself with. He truly is such an intelligent and mature person; the way he communicates in our relationship has been truly healing coming from the family dynamics I grew up with. But the biggest fear I’ve had with dating is that someone wouldn’t trust me.

That the person I love and trust the most would question me on who I am when I’ve already shown them. Which is why this whole situation is so confusing and painful. I don’t get it. It’s been a few days and I don’t know where we go from here.

I haven’t texted him because I need space and he hasn’t texted me either. Am I overreacting? I feel like he should have known better than to just take essentially a stranger’s word over mine. Where do we go from here?

The internet had a lot of thoughts.

VividAd6825 wrote:

Has to be way more to this. If you're paying for all your own stuff. There's zero reason to believe you're with him for money. Is he paying your bills? Do you ask him for money? Does he spend a lot of money on you?

Sounds like he's been taken advantage of before. Or he's flying to high in the sky. That kind of comment of "marrying rich" would make any man making good money feel uncomfortable. But if there's no reason to believe that then it should be no issue.

OP responded:

He doesn’t pay my bills and I definitely don’t ask him for money. I was raised with a “we don’t have money for stuff like that” dad so I find asking for money hard even if I’m owed it. He definitely is generous with how he spends money on me. On our first date he showed up with flowers and I was stunned because no one ever did that for me before.

After I told him, he’s bought flowers for every single date consistently. When I told him I was gonna wait a few months to take my car into the shop because then I’d have a bit more money saved (it was making a weird squeaking noise) he literally drove me and the car to the shop that day and told me not to worry about it, my safety was more important.

VividAd6825 wrote:

Then he's confused. He's letting a stupid comment get to his head from an unreliable source with 0 context. That's a tough position for you to be in now and even harder in the future. Everything will be under a microscope. Anything he pays for the "marry a rich man" comment will pop up in his head and make him question if he's being used. There's so many stories of men being used for their money.

Your sister planted a poisonous seed. That's fucked up. You shouldn't have to explain yourself. He knows the truth. You don't benefit from him in a way he could feel used. If you explain yourself it's like your begging him to understand what he already knows.

Give it time and see if he comes to his senses. You need to talk to your sister about this. Not to get into your relationships with bulls#$t comments trying to paint you as some gold digger or in any negative way.

Ok-Scale-7508 wrote:

He’s not that good at communicating actually because you ARE correct, he shouldn’t have taken a stranger’s word over yours, let alone your narcissistic sister’s. Did he not know to be wary of her ahead of time? You haven’t shared y’all’s relationship with him yet?

OP responded:

Yes and no. I remember us talking about family on one of the first few dates. He’s no contact with his family (for various reasons) and I brought up being low contact with my sister. He asked me why and I remember telling him that she bullied me a lot growing up and that she had a tendency to make everything about her.

I know I didn’t go into all the specifics because our relationship was still fresh and I figured I could go into the more serious stuff later, because it’s a lot for a new relationship.

But I guess the rest just never came up. My sister lives in a different city and I didn’t see her at all since my relationship started, so out of sight out of mind I guess. I know I should have been more up front with the info but it’s very hard for me to open up about all of it.

Ok-Scale-7508 responded:

I think just from that alone, he should have known to take what she said with a grain of salt.

After receiving feedback, OP shared a small update.

EDIT: Thank you for your comments guys, I’ve been trying to read them all this morning. The commenter who talked about relationships being a two-way street really stuck in my head. I don’t think I’ve handled this properly. That, and the commenter talking about me essentially being “the dumper” and that if I don’t want this relationship to end, I’M the one who needs to make that clear.

All in all, I don’t think I handled this situation well. I’m gonna text my boyfriend and see if we can actually just hash everything out. I’m not sure where things are gonna end up, but I know that neither of us can make a decision about anything if we don’t talk about it. We’ll see how it goes.

Then three days later, OP shared another update.

Hi all. I just want to make an update since a lot has happened over the weekend. Hopefully this isn’t too long of a read for you. Some commenters helped me realize that simply walking away from the conversation was not the right thing to do.

I decided to text my boyfriend on Friday and sent him this message: “Hey boyfriend, I want to apologize for leaving things the way I did. I was really upset and hurt so I left before my emotions got worse, which obviously didn’t help the situation. Can we meet up this weekend and talk? I want to see if we can get on the same page and evaluate our relationship.”

He texted me back almost immediately and agreed to meet up at my place yesterday. I was pretty nervous, I’m not gonna lie. Some people thought that I should just break up with him and others thought that maybe there was something deeper going on that he wasn’t telling me. Either way, I wanted to get all the facts.

When I opened the door, he was holding a bouquet of flowers and had a look on his face I have never seen before. It was a mixture of sad and concerned, which was kind of overwhelming because he’s not really the type to be so expressive or emotional. He gave me the flowers, we sat down and the first words out of his mouth were “I’m so sorry, OP. I know I f*cked up.”

That apology just really calmed me down, because I was so afraid this was going to be a back and forth of us trying to defend ourselves for what happened. He said he was just about to text me to meet up and talk when I texted him. I thanked him for the apology, apologized for my reaction too and asked him how did we get here?

Can you just explain everything from the beginning so I can understand? I was not prepared for what he told me. For some context, my boyfriend was not the person he used to be. He used to be a serial womanizer, workaholic type of guy (I was aware of all of this before we started dating). His dad (who is also a lawyer) was his idol; he wanted to be just like him.

However, his dad had been married to his mom for many years so that was where my boyfriend drew a line. He was fine hooking up with women while he was “single” but as soon as he got married, that would be the end and he would be a faithful partner like his dad. Unfortunately for him, things kind of all came crashing down when he found out his mom had been cheating on his dad for years.

When my boyfriend told his dad about it, his dad told him to keep it to himself because his dad HAD ALSO BEEN CHEATING FOR YEARS. I think they both knew about the other’s affair partners and just decided they cared more about their image and reputation so they never got a divorce. My boyfriend was floored.

The idealized image of his dad was shattered and he got really depressed. He started drinking and going to bars more after work and that’s where he met our mutual friend, Matt (fake name). Matt was working as a bartender and got to know him a bit. Matt’s a wonderful person, the type who really takes an interest in everyone. Matt helped him get a better handle on his life and they became friends.

My boyfriend completely changed his lifestyle: he stopped over-drinking, cut his hours down from the 80-90 hour work weeks he used to do, and stopped objectifying women just to sleep with them. Matt later moved into my city for work and I was introduced to him because he started dating one of my friends, Becca. My boyfriend and I actually met at Matt and Becca’s wedding.

Anyways, my boyfriend moved out here a few years ago to get away from his parents after his lifestyle change to essentially restart his life for good. So that brings us to last week, after I left the park. My boyfriend took what I said to heart (that the word of my family and friends should be enough for him to trust me) and went straight to Matt after to get his thoughts.

My boyfriend said Matt was really kind letting him explain what happened without interrupting, but then afterward Matt really laid into him. Matt asked him “Do you really think OP would still be living in a crappy 1 bedroom apartment if she was dating you just for your money? Has she ever given you any reason to question her before all of this?”

My boyfriend admitted that I have never given him any reason to question my motives. That he knows I’m generous and not materialistic, but my sister’s words got into his head. He said “it was like listening to a child. They have no reason to lie you, so I believed it immediately.” I actually don’t blame him for that part.

Every single person who has met my sister describes her as innocent and bubbly and has a very difficult time seeing her as anything but that. Even my parents still view her like this despite them knowing how many people she’s cheated on, how much of their money she’s wasted and never given back and how many times she’s joked about killing/harming them or myself.

I didn’t know this next part, but my boyfriend opened up to Matt when they were first getting to know each other about how many women used him for his money. I knew that his last relationship ended badly while he still lived out east, but apparently this was the first major relationship after his lifestyle change and he really loved her. He bought basically everything for her all of the time and she still cheated on him.

All of that led him to become really insecure about people’s motives when it came to dating. He explained that even some of the nicest women just lit up and acted completely different when he told them he was a lawyer and it completely killed any desire he had to get to know them better. He told Matt he didn’t want to date anyone unless he knew someone who could vouch for them personally.

Matt was the one who encouraged him to ask me out, because he already noticed we liked each other and told my boyfriend that I was a good person. Back to their recent conversation, Matt suggested that if my boyfriend needed more outside confirmation, he should listen to me and go talk to people in my life to get a better perspective on what kind of person I am.

My boyfriend has actually spent the last week doing exactly that. He even went to my parents and told them what happened. Apparently, my mom was horrified. She really likes my boyfriend, so when she found out that inviting my sister had essentially caused a rift in our relationship, my mom got really upset.

Her whole aspiration has always been to see all her children married and since my sister has had nothing but failed relationships and I’ve otherwise been chronically single, knowing she did anything to mess up my relationship was probably pretty upsetting to her. He said that she was crying and very apologetic. He also asked her to give me space until he had had a chance to apologize to me himself.

Which in hindsight makes a lot of sense, because my mom usually calls and texts me everyday and has been MIA this whole week. All in all, my boyfriend said that my friends and family had nothing but good things to say about me, that I was absolutely not a gold-digger and anyone who even suggests that is just plain wrong. I was crying pretty hard by this point hearing everything.

My boyfriend kept apologizing and saying he’d do anything to earn my trust back. But he also said that if our relationship was going to work, if my sister might pop up again unexpectedly, he needed to know everything. He wanted to be prepared for exactly what kind of person she is so that this kind of thing never happens again. So I told him.

Not absolutely everything, because there’s so much to cover, but once I started mentioning things I just kept going. I’m not going to get into the gritty details on Reddit because my sister might see it and also a lot of it is really painful. But the long and short of it is she has untreated mental illnesses that she refuses to get help for, the times we have gotten her specific help (therapy, inpatient, medications, etc).

She has been uncooperative or stopped treatment against medical professionals’ advisement, and she has a pattern of ab#sive behavior/lovebombing in all of her relationships - both familial and romantic - that she never takes accountability for. This is why I’m low contact with her.

By now you’re probably wondering if I’m in therapy. I haven’t been for some time because I’ve been working contracts and didn’t have insurance coverage through work, but I will come September. Something my boyfriend both agreed to in this conversation is for both of us to get individual therapy.

Him to deal with his unresolved insecurities and trauma around his parents and past relationships, and me because my sister did a number on me and I’ve never really opened up about it in therapy. We’re also going to set scheduled, weekly times where we’re not necessarily going to go on dates but have uninterrupted time to talk openly, especially on any insights we’ve had in therapy.

By this point of the conversation, things were getting a little less heavy and I joked about how we both have the same trauma reaction of going silent when things get too intense. We both agreed that we didn’t handle this well and in the future, any and all concerns we have will be communicated properly and immediately.

We’re not going to run away from each other and if we don’t understand something, we’re going to ask questions until we do. Since we talked for hours, we ended up just making dinner at my place and talking some more. I’m really hopeful for what comes next. That’s a feeling I haven’t felt for a while. Again, apologies for the long read. Typing everything out feels like a therapy in itself, LOL.

The internet continued to share their thoughts.

nolaz wrote:

No one told the OP that boyfriend came around asking about her? Odd.

OP responded:

After my boyfriend’s convos with Matt and then my parents, he basically “had what he needed” in his words to reassure himself of my intentions. Just to round things out, he casually reached out to a few more of my friends and my brother with a “Hey, just curious how you would describe OP as a person and what her values are” text.

Only one of my friends kind of questioned him about it and he told her that he was in his head a bit and needed some outside reminders to reassure him of what he already knew. I’m not surprised none of my friends said anything to me. We usually update each other about stuff in person, so I imagine when I meet up with them they’ll bring it up then.

[deleted] wrote:

Your BF is lucky to have a friend like Matt. He’s the real MVP of this story

oldcousingreg wrote:

I’m sorry but your boyfriend is still an idiot and your entire family sucks. Your bf was so quick to believe your c**ty sister after just meeting her. And then in order to make up he told you to tell HIM everything about your sister “in order to make the relationship work?"

Hell no, he should have asked when you warned him about your sister in the first place. Your mother should have been giving YOU that blubbering bulls#$t apology first. How did she think your sister turned out that way?

Guilty_Explanation29 wrote:

They're working it out. This is a good update compared to others on here/ He didn't TELL her she had to tell him. Op says she told him everything. Needing to know is not the same as saying someone has to tell you and it's good OP told him.