I Told My Fiancé That We Live in a Rented Flat, But the Truth Is, We’re Actually in My Apartment.

Dear Diary,

I told Tom that we were living in a rented flat, even though the truth is that the flat is actually mine.

I grew up in a household that consisted only of my mother and my grandmother. I never had a father figure; my dad walked out on my mother and never looked back. Being raised by women, I learned early on to be strong and selfreliant. They taught me that.

By the time I was twentyseven, I had saved enough to buy my own flat in Manchester with my own earnings. That achievement brought a new dilemma: how should I handle relationships now that I owned property?

I dated a few lads, and the moment they heard I owned a flat, they stopped seeing me as a woman and started seeing me as a financial windfall, a way to solve their money problems. That never sat right with me. I wanted to be loved for who I am, not for what I own.

When I finally met Tom and we started seeing each other, he visited me at the flat. I told him I was renting, just to see how he would treat me, to test whether a relationship could work when neither of us had any security. Tom assured me that my lack of a permanent home wasnt an obstacle; he promised to work hard, save, and eventually buy a place where we could live together. I liked that honest, forwardlooking attitude. Over the next two years, while we lived together, Tom truly set aside money each month.

Now were planning to get married. After the wedding, Tom intends to buy a new home for us straight away, and Im haunted by guilt. All this time Ive been taking the rent money from my own flat, essentially deceiving him. Should I come clean now?

Grandma Martha and mother Helen both say theres no need for confession. They argue that its wise to keep my flat as a safety net, and that a mans duty is to provide a home for his wife. But how can I start married life built on a lie?