I dated someone for ~ 7 years who created and sold 3 different technologies/companies. 2 of the sales were enough to make him Kardashian-style wealthy. His pattern was to purchase the things he wanted, but to never get rid of them (or just give them away if he didn't want to be bothered with storage for the items). So each time he moved, he bought a new house and just left behind the old one, contents and all. He still owned them, and didn't walk away from payments on them. He just rarely used them anymore. I'm pretty sure he owned 6 or 7 homes in the US and the UK. Same with cars, except he bought cars like toys, so he had many more cars and with the majority of those being collector-status, he did pay to store them securely. Despite all of this, he wasn't irresponsible with his money - he invested very well and will likely never run out of money, and he appeared to live a modest (albeit very wealthy) lifestyle - this seems like an impossible dichotomy, but we lived across the street from an extremely wealthy rock star who did NOT live modestly by any means, so I guess I'm seeing it in relative terms. And I'm sure the rock star did not have as much money or as sound a financial portfolio as my BF.
He had a difficult time making (real) friends and socialized mostly with people who worked for him (lawyers, advisors, brokers, a few select employees, etc). He depended on me quite a bit to introduce new friends into his circle. The wealth difference was difficult to deal with because he always wanted to eat out at the best restaurants, and understanding that not everyone could afford it as much as he could, he always insisted on paying. This is where the problems started creeping in.
The problems I encountered:
1. At first, it was foreign to me and I'd try to convince him how ridiculous it was to buy cars that cost more than my house.
2. After a while, I became used to being the beneficiary of his generosity and started to accumulate possessions and a lifestyle that people with my income at that time had no business owning.
3. My friends weren't the type to accept handouts and eventually withdrew as the types of things we did became too expensive for ordinary income-earners. This led to isolation, etc.
3. Finally, it became obvious that I wasn't experiencing just a wealth disparity, but a power disparity. I started to disappear (metaphorically) and my opinions and thoughts gradually became less important than his. It became a very unhealthy situation for me. I noticed this with others in his social circle, and those with any kind of backbone eventually stopped socializing.
I found it difficult to extricate myself from the situation and ended up moving a few hundred miles away, leaving everything "of mine" that he had bought for me behind, and starting a different career. I never thought I would fall prey to that type of manipulation, control, power differential, whatever you call it. But I did and now feel so much more powerful for having done it AND started a new, successful career all on my own.
I can say this with certainty. It is immensely more satisfying when you earn it yourself. I'll never have that kind of money, and frankly, I don't want it.