with my money.

I’m a selfish person. I admit it. I don’t see why I should share what I’ve earned or accumulated with anyone else who isn’t going to share in return. I should clarify, I mean all this in the context of a relationship. So, I finished college and got a decent job that allowed me to pay off the student loans, buy a house and cars, and save for retirement. Yes, I’ve been continuously in debt for the last 20 or more years, but I’m current on all my bills and making progress toward reducing my debt. This would be the same debt that increased by more than 25% during my relationship with the psychopath.

There were several times, when discussing my house, that I ended the discussion with “it’s MY house, I’m the one who gets do decide.” My psychopath’s mother told him a couple times, in my presence, that this was going to be a problem because I was being selfish and not thinking in terms of ‘us’, how we need to share and work together. As if he automatically had the right to half of everything that was mine because he bought me a ring. I also refused to consider selling my house so we could buy one together, because it amounted to him getting half of what I already had. If that’s selfish, that’s fine with me.

Regarding money, my psychopath made 2/3 of what I made. After child support he brought home about 40% of what I brought home. He had less than 1/4 of the debt I had, even after adding in his car loan. After his loan, insurance, and cell phone payments he had about $550 a month for gas, food, and sundries. He didn’t use any of the money for rent, utilities, or debt reduction, and he didn’t save any money. I spent my money on two sets of utilities, house and loan payments and credit card bills. I usually left myself $400-500 for gas, food, and sundries.

I consider myself bad with money. By that I mean I don’t save enough and I have a hard time sticking to my budget. Sometimes I’m late on bills or I’ll miss one. I’ll buy things I don’t need or spend more than I have to on what I do need. I charge things when I shouldn’t. Those are my poor decisions and I live with them, and pay for them every month. However, I’m not getting collections calls or judgement liens. Plenty of people who have fallen into unfortunate circumstances or were preyed upon by loan companies do. That doesn’t make them any worse with money than me. Most of the ones I know have done everything in their power to reverse the situation. They squeak by on next-to-nothing for months on end, trying to make double payments or pay late fees to save a home or a car. It’s tragic.

To say my psychopath was bad with money was an understatement. He couldn’t manage his $500 a month after paying bills so he always ran out of money before his weekly payday and needed help paying for something. Sometimes he would spend his money on me and then he’d be broke, so really I ended up paying for the things he bought me. What he didn’t do with his money was address his old debt or save. I pointed out ways to save money but he wasn’t interested in most of them. I even took him shopping and demonstrated how easy it was. I loaned him money so he could repair his fuel-efficient car and he still didn’t have enough money for gas. He didn’t want to ride to work with me to save on gas, but if I rode to work with him he expected me to give him gas money, even if I had bought a whole tank for him the week before.

After we were engaged about two years I had to cut back on spending and start reducing debt. Things got to the point that, though I had all my bills covered, I didn’t have enough money for my expenses and helping the psychopath, or rather helping at the same level. I was already buying things for him and his kids on a regular basis – shoes, clothes, snacks, drinks, personal care items, etc., as well as buying most of the holiday and birthday gifts for them, his parents, and his nieces and nephews. I was already paying for half of the psychopath’s food and half his kids’ food on the weekends, and he expected this to both continue and increase.

At this same point in time the  psychopath started doing less work on and around the house, while  he started living in it during the week. I am selfish enough to think that if a person can’t contribute financially, some other contribution should be made. No rent or utilities means someone’s going to cut the grass and sweep the floor and shovel the snow and move the heavy things and offer to help in any way, without complaining that doing more than half of anything it isn’t fair, because that’s not fair to me. I should mention also that by now the psychopath had been complaining about not making enough money while regularly turning down overtime at work for about two years. He was also upset that I said if he quit his job without having a new one lined up I was going to kick him out. He tried to convince me he’d have more money if he was unemployed. Of course I was selfish enough to decide I wasn’t going to dig my financial hole any deeper for him.

After year of cutting back I managed to reduce some of my credit card debt, and after another six months I was able to start reducing it more, having finished paying off a five-year loan for some property I bought before meeting the psychopath. The cutting back I had done didn’t affect the gift-buying or what I spent on food and necessary items. I still helped him with car repairs, and had even borrowed against my house to get his more-efficient car running again before my loan was paid off, because he promised to pay me back. Meanwhile, though, my psychopath’s work contribution dropped to almost nothing. He let the dogs out and fed them, swept the floors sometimes, and he shoveled snow a few times, pointing out that he shoveled once more than I did. There were a few other one-time things he did, but that was it.

The problem with paying off the loan was that my psychopath thought I should start spending more on him, instead of insisting he keep his promise to pay back the money I loaned him, and instead of continuing to reduce my debt. He wasn’t interested in my debt reduction at all, my debt mattered less to him than his own. In the last few months he started getting collections calls from his doctor’s office and student loan company. He took money out of his retirement without saying anything and he had his income tax return taken for non-payment of his student loan. He lied about using the retirement money to pay off his student loan and another loan he got without telling me. That was the end of us.

A couple weeks later I found him at my house waiting to sell the car he owed me $800 in repairs for to the guy who offered him $400 because it ‘needed a lot of work’. Three days later it was listed on Craigslist for $2000. He gave me none of the money. Almost a year later I had gotten another (the 4th) late-payment notice for his car loan because I was the co-signer (he still owes me the down-payment). The payment should have been the last, but he deferred payments to the point it would take another eight months of his regular payment to pay off the loan. The collection agency for his doctor’s office starting calling my house again and the student loan people started calling at work. It appears I’m not the only selfish person who wants to be repaid.