What should you do if you discover your partner has been lying about their finances? Photo / Elisa Ventur, Unsplash
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Hi Nic and Verity,
My partner and I have been in a relationship for three years and recently moved in together. We’d always been open about our finances (I thought) and decided to split our living expenses based on our incomes. As he’s always indicated he earns about 1.5 times what I make we decided I would pay one-third and he would pay two-thirds. Recently, however, he left his online banking open on his laptop in the kitchen and when I glanced over I inadvertently saw his true income. It was a complete shock because it turns out he’s earning five times what I do. I haven’t mentioned it to him as I don’t want it to seem like I’ve broken his trust by looking at his account but I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach because he’s been lying to me and letting me pay more than I believe is fair. What should I do? - Naomi
Hello Naomi,
Your distress is very understandable, and we commend your restraint in taking a considered and careful approach to raising the issue with your partner. Trust and respect are the bedrock of a long-term relationship, so it’s essential you find out what has been going on and, more importantly, why? Taking the right approach with your partner is crucial to getting the information you need.
As with any tricky situation staying steady enough to remain connected and talk with your partner (rather than “talking at him”) would be in your own best interest. Starting a conversation as calm and steady as you can and working to stay that way will allow you to keep yourself safe and increase the chances that he will be open with you. If you come in upset or accusatory you will not be in the best state to carefully and accurately calibrate his response. However, the reality is that, even if you raise it perfectly, he may not respond well. His response will be useful information about the meaning of his deception.
The first thing we think you should consider is if this is genuinely a one-off. That is, in every other interaction has your partner been up-front, honest, and dealt fairly with you? If the answer is “Yes” it may be wise to remain open to the idea that there may be a benign, if not misguided, reason behind him deceiving you about his income. For example, people sometimes fear that a large difference in their earnings may cause problems in their relationship. He may fear that you ‘want him for his money’ rather than who he is. Perhaps past partners expected him to pay for everything because he earned more than them and he is not comfortable with this and is trying to avoid it. Many complex reasons may underlie his misleading you about what he earns.
If he has understandable anxieties and was lying to avoid having an awkward and challenging conversation with you, that is concerning but well within the scope of the kind of thing that a healthy couple needs to sort out at the beginning of a relationship. Being avoidant to the point that you will lie and hide to avoid sorting a tricky issue is not a pattern you want to establish. It may point to your partner having either significant fears and insecurities and/or lacking the skills to deal with differences and disagreements. This is a common problem that can be worked on, not a deal-breaker.
If you are attracted to someone avoidant of challenging conversations, it’s possible you may also have limitations in this area. You might want to reflect on how easy you are for others to talk with about tricky things. How would you have reacted if he had said to you that he was worried that you knowing how much he earns may cause relationship problems? Would you have been good to talk to? Or are you prone to big reactions or appeasing, avoidant responses yourself? These are not comfortable things to talk about but you each must learn how to do this well to create a relationship that works for you both.
All strong relationships have two people who strive, as far as possible, to productively and robustly talk through to resolution any difference, disagreement, or tricky issue. This discovery may be a sign that you and your partner need to develop those skills so that neither of you avoids conflict by lying and hiding, keeping things to yourself, or being misleading. Also important are the skills that allow you to stay steady, listen, and engage, rather than just react. Unregulated reactivity puts others off from being open and direct with you.
However, if there have been other incidents where your partner has misled you, withheld information, made you doubt yourself, deflected, or denied reasonable questions, then you may be in a situation outside what is normal in a healthy relationship and need to proceed very carefully.
The cliche “Love is blind” points to how easily we overlook or minimise warning signs in our partner’s behaviour. During the earlier phases of a relationship, it is comparatively easy for someone to present their best self and hide their faults and limitations. It is often only when we live with someone that we get to see their true nature (ask anyone who has gone flatting with a friend only to have it turn into a disaster!). So have a good think about how your partner has behaved to date and whether, in retrospect, there are other instances of him shading the truth or avoiding engaging around issues of importance.
How he responds to your raising the issue of his deception about his income will be crucial. Be on the lookout for any defensiveness beyond an initial shock at being found out. An obvious example would be if he deflects away from your question about his deceit to focus on you having “broken his trust” by looking at his bank account details online. So, you may want to start by being very clear that you were not “snooping” but that he left his computer open and that yes you did glance at it and saw what he earned.
If he stays “hung up” on you breaking trust, it is not a good sign. You could try gently but firmly saying that if he needs to talk about you looking at his bank account, you’re willing to do so later. But, for now, you need him to address your very important concern regarding the fact that he appears to have misled you about what he earns. Watch for him using other classic defences: dismissing your question as unimportant or unfair, deflecting the issue back on to you, changing the subject to something worse he thinks you do, etc.
If you have caught your partner out in a clear lie, a lot of sustained defensiveness is a red flag. It suggests that, under stress, he is so caught up in his own feelings that he is incapable of showing you empathy. It also suggests he may want to keep things from you because he wants to keep control by not exposing himself or making himself vulnerable to you. If your partner wants to maintain control and refuses to be open and respond to your questions vulnerably and openly, then we suggest that you seriously consider if this relationship is safe for you.
• Verity & Nic are psychologists and family therapists who have specialised in relationship and sex therapy for more than 25 years. They have been working on their own relationship for more than 40 years and have two adult children.
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