I have been working since I was 13 years old. I worked my way through college and graduate school. I always saved money but was never frugal. I helped friends and family members and even used to treat myself to something special every now and then.
I've worked hard all my life, so in 2005, a year after I got married, I had the good fortune of selling a piece of property that I'd purchased for very little years ago. I sold it for several hundred thousand dollars. I also had several hundred thousand in my pension fund, and my husband had a great job making 6 figures. I always thought he was responsible about money. I'd always seen him paying his bills on time and he never went on any spending sprees.
In 2004 he was keen to buy a home. I was reluctant because I wanted to change careers but he said we would buy something that his salary alone would more than cover. I agreed to buy based solely on that contingency. Well not one year after we purchased the home he wanted to quit his job and enter the new field I was in. I was against it and made it clear, but he refused time and again and said if he couldn't cut it, he'd just find another job in his original field. At the same time, my mother was diagnosed with mid-stage dimentia and I had to become her primary caregiver. So while I was taking care of my mother all day, my husband was busy blowing thousands of dollars daily in the stock market, then spending hours in the evening playing World of Warcraft.
He blew the money I'd made on my property sale plus all of our joint savings and then started transfering my IRA funds into our checking account and was spending that in record amounts. Were it not for my mother's severe illness, I believe this never would have happened. I was shocked that he never told me he was getting into trouble, ruining our finances or destroying the fruits of my labor.
He is now employed again but there is no way he can make up the amount of money he went through in a year and a half and now the economy is so bad that I've yet to find additional work to help replace my financial loss. I feel like my years of work and sacrifice meant nothing to him. That he does not value me. I don't even think he loves me. Sometimes I think he did this on purpose to destroy me. All I know is that I haven't been the same. My health is suffering, my heart aches. I just don't understand how he could have done something like this when we had absolutely no debt, except for our mortgage after we purchased our modest home. He even opened credit card accounts and ran up $30,000 in additional debt. The question is why? He says he loves me, that he made huge mistakes, but the blowback in all of this is that I'm not the person I used to be. I see myself falling apart and I wonder if I will ever be able to put myself back togther again. I feel as though something inside of me is dying, as though I am dying. If anyone has any advice, please reach out!
What my husband did feels like it is killing me!
Re: What my husband did feels like it is killing me!
