Not with Them for the Money

The direct opposite of the Gold Digger: the wife or lover of a wealthy man who is adamantly uninterested in their wealth. They turn the most luxurious offers down flat without hesitation.

She fallen in love with a wealthy male who would love to shower her with money and treasures. However, the one thing she will not compromise on is that she is absolutely uninterested in any of that.

She might be doing this on principle, or she is accustomed to a life where pinching her pennies was important, but will say something like "I'm flattered, but I don't want your money, I just want you." In fact, if the man persists, she might blow her top at her wishes being ignored and threaten to walk out, leaving him alarmed at this bizarre situation.

Her lover can react with frustration, considering he dearly wants to show his love beyond his simple company. This attitude can soften to charm once he realizes his ungreedy wife is quite serious.

Sometimes the trope turns up with genders reversed.

Examples of Not with Them for the Money include:

Anime and Manga

• Shuurei of Saiunkoku Monogatari is a bit of an odd example. Being somewhat of a Tsundere, she'll never admit to caring for Emperor Shi Ryuuki (who is completely heads-over-heels for her) - but if there's one thing she is absolutely clear about, it is that she doesn't want any valuable presents from him. An Impoverished Patrician who watched many people starve to death during a previous civil war, she hates waste and extravagance, and meets his early attempts to shower her with valuable gifts with an outright rant on the subject. She's willing to compromise a little only when the gift serves a practical purpose (such as a block of ice he sent her during the heat of summer, which she promptly shared with the neighborhood), but even then he has to be careful.
  • Shuurei's easygoing father Shouka, meanwhile, allowed his salary as palace archivist to be gradually reduced far below what he can live on, even though he's been a surrogate father figure to Ryuuki since long before Ryuuki took the throne and could easily have his full pay reinstated through Ryuuki's influence as Emperor, if he cared about money in the slightest.
• Hunter X Hunter has an example. The billionaire Battera had a much younger lover who won't accept expensive presents, but only those he makes himself. They were even intending to leave his fortune behind to start a new life together until fate intervened.
• Fujitaka Kinomoto liked an Uptown Girl named Nadeshiko. Her family thought he was a Gold Digger and disowned her when she insisted in marrying him. He turned out to be this trope, and they stayed Happily Married until she died of illness.

Comic Books

• In Richie Rich, Richie's girlfriend, Gloria Glad, is notorious at always turning down the luxurious gifts he has offered. In fact, she has blown her temper more than once at Richie's more outrageous stunts with his wealth to attempt to impress and he can't seem to remember how much they annoy her. In one story, when she all of a sudden starts accepting his gift greedily, it's sets off alarm bells with Richie who investigates and learns he is dealing with an impostor who has kidnapped the real Gloria in order to con him out of money.

Film

• In That Touch of Mink, Miss Timberlake (Doris Day) is this to the very rich and very charming Philip Shane (Cary Grant).
• Legally Blonde features Brooke Taylor Windam a widow on trial suspecting of her being a Gold Digger offing her hubby for the inheritance, which doesn't fit as she was already wealthy due to her work out videos. Brooke tells all concerned quite firmly that he had other assets of more interest, thank you. The actual culprit? Her step-daughter / his daughter who resents her and was actually trying to kill her, but was mistaken as to who was about to come through the door.

Literature

• The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries: The Bellefleur family are well-off and have a famous, beautiful mansion. Andy Bellefleur's wife, Halleigh would rather they just lived in a small house together.
• In Twilight, Bella refuses to accept any of Edward's expensive gifts, to show how moral and role-model-perfect she is. For about two seconds. Then she turns up with them in the next scene.
• The Furry novel, The Fangs Of Kaath, has Sandrhi the bat street storyteller. When she manages to reunite with her love, Prince Raschid, after all that has happened, she is made part of the royal household staff. While after years of living in poverty, she appreciates the tailormade silken clothing she got in the process of finding Raschid again, then sharing his apartment in the Palace and having all the food she could want, that is as far it goes. Beyond that, she is adamant that Raschid, who would love to literally bury her in treasure to make her happy, should save his money for a possible future emergency when he might need all of it. As she says softly, but firmly, "I already haff my treasure. I didn't come to you because you v'ere rich."
• In the In Death novels, Eve's relationship with Roarke occurs in spite of his obscene wealth rather than because of it. She is horrified when he presents her with an enormous diamond as a souvenir from a trip to Australia, and after their marriage she not only refuses to think of his assets as hers, she gets mad at him when she realizes he's been putting funds into an account in her name and demands that he take it back.^[1]
• Sam Vimes in the Discworld novels is also less than interested in high finance, although he's made exceptions when it was something very important—like getting an emergency medical care for his wife who is giving birth. Usually he prefers looking like a grubby cop. Because Lady Sybil is old-fashioned, everything became his upon their marriage. He tries not to think about this if at all possible and, if he has to, views it as a technicality.
• Jane Eyre: When Jane agrees to marry Rochester the first time, he tries to lavish expensive gifts on her, which the independent Jane is decidedly uncomfortable with. (She never really gets over it, either—by the time they actually do marry, she's come into money and he's lost nearly everything, so it's a non-issue.)
• In the Sherlock Holmes novel The Sign of The Four, Watson falls madly in love with Holmes' latest client, Mary Morstan. She seems to like him, too, but there's a complication—she stands to gain a lot of money if the mystery is successfully solved. Watson is so determined not to be thought of as a Gold Digger that he heroically resolves not to woo her at all. In the end, the box with the treasure is found--but it is empty. Since this means that Watson can finally pour out his feelings to Mary, they both agree that they are happier without the money.
• PG Wodehouse often used this trope, occasionally poking fun at it. Chuffy is particularly adverse to being thought of as a fortune hunter when he woos the wealthy Pauline Stoker in Thank You, Jeeves, partly because he has experience of the trope from watching musical comedies. In the aptly-titled Uneasy Money the trope is the main source of romantic conflict for the couple involved and is zigzagged quite a bit before the necessary happy ending takes place—they even form a Love Triangle with a Gold Digger.
• Happens several times in Vorkosigan Saga. Usually downplayed (no one is so absurd as to claim to love their prospective Love Interest so much that they actually hate money or power). The series opens with Cordelia (a mundane scientist) falling in love with Aral before learning his credentials as one of the most powerful nobles on Barrayar. When she discovers this, she finds it more an inconvenience than anything. Along the way Ekaterin (an impoverished Vor-class widow) falls in love with Miles, perfectly aware of how rich and connected he is but not really considering that more than an interesting detail. Laisa is a merchant princess and doesn't need money and falls in love with the Emperor Gregor. But lots of women have wanted to marry the Emperor because he was Emperor and only Laisa wanted to marry Gregor. Tej thought Ivan an ordinary officer when she first met him and was rather shocked at his credentials.

Live Action Television

• Law and Order, of course, had a Ripped from the Headlines episode about an elderly millionaire dying suspiciously, and his young bride, who was

totally not Anna Nicole Smith, serving as prime suspect. She swears up and down she loved him for reasons other than his money. Her mother, on the other hand...

• • Cruelly played with in one case on Law and Order: Criminal Intent. The Asshole Victim blatantly cheated on his wife and constantly abused her by comparing her to her drug-addicted prostitute mother. Even worse, he hired a male model to seduce her so he could leave her with nothing when he divorced her thanks to a fidelity clause in their prenup. She stayed faithful, but still murdered her husband anyway, just days before the prenup would expire on their tenth anniversary. When the detectives ask her why she didn't just wait and then divorce the bastard and take his money, she bitterly reminds them that the money was never what she was after.
• Queer as Folk: A rare male example; Emmett genuinely falls in love with a wealthy older man who dies and leaves his fortune to Emmett, but includes the clause that he not be publicly outed as a gay man. Emmett struggles with the idea of being rich or being honest, and eventually decides it's more important to tell the world who George was and that they loved each other than to have money.
  • One then wonders how much Emmett loved the man to defy one of his last wishes.
• This is indicated to be the case with Angela and Hodgins on Bones. Although nothing's been verbalized, it's made fairly clear once they get past their hang-ups that she loves him for him and not the money.
• Martha of Castle refuses the money that her boyfriend left to her when he died because she had been thinking of breaking up with him. Pressured by his children, she eventually accepts the money and uses it to open her own acting school.
• In Blue Bloods it is not so much "not with them for the money" as "not with them for the power" as Jamie Reagan's family never has much money but his father is police chief. Edit Janko really does love Jamie for Jamie and not for the connections.

Music

• Love Don't Cost a Thing by Jennifer Lopez. (May or may have not been inspired by her breakup with Sean Combs aka Puffy.)

"Think you got to keep me iced, you don't. Think I'm gonna spend your cash, I won't. Even if you were broke, my love don't cost a thing..."

Real Life

• The late former Playboy Bunny Anna Nicole Smith always maintained that she didn't marry a 90-year-old billionaire for his money, despite what his family thought. Whether she was this trope or the other...

1. ↑ He doesn't, but he's a ninth-degree black belt in Politeness Judo, so he gets her to drop it.