What do you think of this time/money 'investment' vs scenario?

It seems to me that an old coot is trying to fix up a property that is not his to impress his younger girlfriend. In terms of money, it is a waste. In terms of time, it may not be a waste if it does work to impress the girl.
He should’ve worked that hard on the house he owned to get the maximum amount of money in investment return.

Nope. There’s no sense in doing work on the rental unless one gets a break on the rent or some other compensation. It makes as much sense as renting a car at the airport and going to put on a new set of wheels on it.

Divorce sucks – what can you do?

@janbb This isn’t the divorce. This is the state of mind of the man, regardless. This is what he is doing instead of spending time with his kids. He took money that my son’s grandmother gave him for presents and spent it on the house. How do I even get my kid to understand this on that level?

I’m not the guy. I can’t speak for all guys, much less a specific guy.

I personally would not make the choices he made – I happen to love my family and enjoy spending time with them.

I’m unwilling to condemn the guy without knowing a whole lot more.

Maybe the wife (in example one) is was a holy bitch. I have no idea.

Maybe the guy was having a midlife crisis. Maybe the guy found religion. Maybe the guy stopped drinking.

There are far too many unknowns to make any sort of a judgment on him.

(wife was not a holy bitch, she maintained the grounds herself the best she could and redid the deck to help with the resale value of the house, she also did all the moving and cleaning) (man did not find religion) (man did absolutely not stop drinking, in fact the area he moved to is well known for their drinking and recreational drug use so, think, commune, hippy, bohemian, squatting situation.)

Again @cazzie – you know this stuff, no one else does.

My answer remains. You wrote one side of the story. There has to be another side. Without it, I will not condemn the guy.

I wouldn’t think investing time and/or money in a rental is worth it, unless there’s some other deal on the table (rent reduction, etc.). It’s also hard to be objective with only knowing one side of the story. There are three sides to every story – the two sides and the truth.

I guess you are all confirming what I thought.

Me and my son were a mistake and regretted before he came to the realisation we were happening. He never wanted us and never wanted the ties that came with us. Garbage. We are nothing more than what he wanted to get rid of for years, I guess. We were mistakes so we should remedy that. I should fix it so he has no regrets.

:(

I’m with @janbb divorce sucks. It also sucks that he never seemed to be very interested in being married or having children, but he did those things anyway. It’s similar to when a gay man gets married to a woman in my mind. Their heart and mind was never in it in a way that is fair to the spouse. They may very well love her, but just can’t be committed, or in love, in the way that the woman deserves. It’s truly not fair. It’s downright dishonest I would say. It sucks.

There usually is some culpability all the way around when a relationship breaks up, but when one of the people was basically dishonest, both with himself, and his spouse, regarding what he wanted in life, that person holds most of the responsibility for the dissolution of the relationship, even if the other spouse did the final leaving and break up. That’s my opinion. The person purposely lived a lie and dragged someone else along with him. Sometimes people change, and this all happens years into the relationship, this can happen to any of us, but when it’s from the start? I think it’s just completely impossible.

All this work on the rental might be the new girlfriend wanting all of those things. Most men care a lot about their ego, so if the new girl makes him feel great he’ll do a bunch of bullshit to please her. Also, if this was a sticking point with the wife who left him, or even if he left her, fixing things around the house, whether rented or not, is his way to prove his ex-wife was wrong. He wasn’t lazy, he is helpful, he does do house fixing, he is not what she accused him of. It doesn’t really prove anything, because anyone who knows the truth knows that previously he wasn’t doing any of that stuff.

That’s my guess, but really, no one here can know, because the only people whoever really know the whole situation are those living in it. No one can ever really assume they know what it’s like to be in someone else’s life; or, as they say, really know what happens besides closed doors.