Sometimes — coming from someone who grew up poor and married spoiled middle-class. My ex-husband grew up way more privileged than I. He grew up, the baby, never needing for anything. His parents paid for everything — cars, clothes, college, extracurricular activities when he was in school. Again, his whole life, he never needed or wanted for anything. Whereas I grew up in abject poverty and filth with abusively negligent parents who were financially irresponsible. So I had to work for every damn thing I had the moment I could manage to work outside of the home while also trying to keep my mother from doing what she could to manipulate me out of money. She was the type who would use her kids’ information to attain credit cards or steal checks written to us from the mailbox and cash them.
Anyway, I think spoiling your kids is almost as bad as neglecting them. As an adult, my ex-husband never understood the urgency or need to keep a job. When he didn’t like something — and I mean like, not being the boss or the one calling the shots or having to work for someone else…he’d quit. He didn’t get you had to work your way up from the bottom, even with daddy’s paid for bachelor’s degree. He always defaulted back to mommy and daddy, and for a time ME, making up the difference. Um, they were near retirement and I was working 2 jobs at one point. If he didn’t “feel” like working, he didn’t. Whereas, everyone else worked or added something of value to the household (cooking, cleaning, etc.). His contribution? Sponging off people for money, sitting on his a** all day, and expecting others to do everything. He was the golden boy later in life baby his parents had, and his much older siblings hated his guts. This was the kind of prick who would insist on having the newest phone on a shared plan, maxing out all of the bells and whistles, and leaving someone else (in this case, ME) to pay for it, while he mostly sat at home all day.
Ultimately, I left him. For a variety of reasons, including quitting yet another good job because he’d paid off his credit card and didn’t feel like continuing to work to, I don’t know, save money, contribute to bills and grocery costs. Nope. He just worked a couple of months to pay something off (I think it was computer parts) and told me he planned on quitting. This was going to be the rest of my life if I stayed — being his backup. He was never going to be an equal partner. He was just going to sponge off his parents until they died and then expect ME to do it all. F* that. I had my out. I was just waiting for one more sign telling me it was never going to get better. And in less than 24 hours I had it. When he announced that Friday was going to be his last day at yet another good job. “Um, why not stay and work and save.” He basically responded, telling me people who work for “the man” are suckers. ME=sucker, since I too, like so many others were working for “the man.” I was all too eager to dump him after that. He only saw me as a living wallet. Just like how he saw his parents. Pathetic. Per one of his family members, who I ran into last year, he hasn’t changed. His parents (who are in their 70s) have yet to cut him off and force him to grow up. He is now in his 40s for goodness sake. I’m so glad I got out when I did. Just because someone has money or comes from it does not mean they are financially smart or interested in being a quality partner to someone who may have come from a different background. I wanted him to work a job and be an equal. Instead, he wanted to be a lazy, entitled sponge.
I’d be concerned about someone with money and see how they’d operate if suddenly they didn’t have that safety net working for them anymore. Or like, for me, even now that I’m in a different place in life where I have resources, I still work. If his parents left him money, he should still show drive and ambition to work or DO SOMETHING of value with his time. Being well-off and not ‘needing to work’ is not an excuse. He needs to do something with his time, even if he’s not getting paid for it. Like, go work for as a volunteer (like a day job) somewhere, helping those in need.
