When a person of modest means is involved with someone who has had money their whole life, cultural and financial clashes are inevitable. Some have recounted their experiences with extremely wealthy partners, and all have come to the same conclusion: they live in a different world.
"They don't realize how rich they are"
“My ex-boyfriend was EXTREMELY rich, but he had a complex about being very poor. His whole society was equally rich and because some of them had more, he considered himself ‘at the bottom of the scale’. He had no reference to what it meant to be truly poor. I lived on a food budget of £50 a month and he couldn’t understand how it was possible to spend so little on food.”
"The network of the rich is inaccessible to others"
“It’s like a parallel reality. They can get a great job just because someone knows them. I remember my ex-boyfriend invited me to a concert where the tickets were $180, but we didn’t pay at all. Or, when our dishwasher broke, we didn’t pay a penny for the repair — the property belonged to a friend’s parents, so it was fixed for free.”
"They don't value anything"
“I dated a guy who lived off a trust fund. He could afford anything - but for that very reason, nothing had value to him. He would buy a $400 blender, break it within a week, and just buy another one. Nothing made sense to him, because everything could be replaced.”
“He gave me $300 for ‘some basic things’”
“My ex-boyfriend had no concept of saving or the value of money. His money came from investments, so he didn't feel the need to do any math. One day I told him I was going to the store to buy some things for dinner and he gave me $300 as if it was a minimum amount for 'some basics.'”
"They have a security that we don't have"
"I always felt like my family was one step away from financial disaster. I had to take care of everything because I wouldn't be able to replace it. Whereas the women I dated who came from wealthy families didn't have that fear. If something broke, they just replaced it. For them, everything was fixable - you just had to throw money at the problem."
"They don't know how to do anything themselves"
"They don't have basic skills like unclogging a clogged drain, hanging a picture, or changing a filter. They'll spend $100 to call a handyman when they could have fixed it themselves with $15 and a little effort."
"Their Christmas was a world of its own"
"My ex-wife had a multi-millionaire grandfather. During Christmas, everyone would try to be close to him and flatter him. While I would just sit on the floor and play with my kids. After the second Christmas, she called me and asked what she could do for my family. I told her I didn't need his money, but I wanted my kids to know their grandfather."
Sources: Buzzfeed
