Readers of "Why Does He Do That?" - Lundy Bancroft

One day he came home with a money tin he'd bought from the dollar store. He'd had a fabulous idea to save our coins so we'd be able to go away on a great holiday somewhere together. It sounded like a good idea, something very sweet you do when you're in couplesville. He really sold the idea to me. Like the ring for my birthday he went on and on about it.

I should point out now - the tin was HUGE! I'm sure if we'd kept piling our money into it we'd have had an easy $5000.

He started making small comments each day about how he'd put all his gold coins in. He'd shake the tin enthusiastically - eyes open really wide - and say 'listen... it's filling up!'. He'd question me about whether i'd put my coins in and chastise me if I hadn't. Then he started looking through my purse - he'd say "baby, i noticed you have some gold coins in here... lets put them in the tin"... I started feeling like he was watching me at the store - when the cashier handed me my change he'd pounce "YES! more coins for the tin!" I'd go along with him and say "sure, sure put them in". 

Then he started raiding the glove box of my car "Would you look at all this change! why isn't it in the tin? we could be going on a holiday - I put all my change in the tin!" I'd argue I needed the change for parking meters but he'd be wounded because I wasn't supporting his great money tin idea. So I let him have the change.

Because he'd moved to my town to be with me he was unemployed and looking for work. So it 'made sense' that he had to watch his money more carefully. I suspect for every $2 he put in I probably put in $10 - but I felt bad for him being unemployed so didn't say anything - after all we were supposed to be a team and I didn't want to crush him. 

When we broke up - i asked him to split the money in the tin. He was outraged. Apparently he had contributed a lot more than me. I must've been imagining my contributions - maybe every time he raided my purse or car and put those coins in the tin he had a momentary brain lapse and thought they were his coins? 

In the end, I didn't get any money back from the tin. The tin went missing. He claimed there was only $60 in it... and i'd only put $10 in - wow... he had a distortion of ridiculous proportions. I'm not an idiot, I know there was more money than that but I was already starting to see through his charade and I wanted him out of my life more than I wanted the money. In his mind (and this is the scary part) he truly believed he contributed more and deserved it all. According to Lundy this is a typical minset which stems from the sense of entitlement.

Note to self: Don't help anyone fill up a money tin no matter how romantically the idea is sold.