Financial Problems in MarriageWhen financial times are tough, it adds to the stress we deal with on a daily basis. This section is for talking about how financial problems affect our relationships and ways to cope.
She has been taking care of the mail for quite some time now. Come to think about it, it's been years since I went to the mailbox to get our mail except the other day. I had the mailbox key in my hand and ready to run up to the mailbox. She screams for the key and says she will get the mail. I have to fight for the key.
She basicaly was using my credit cards and edited my account profile information without my authorization and made me a huge debt. I'm also afraid she's not telling me everything. I'm afraid I dont think of her like i used to.
for now that's all the time i have. i'll respond again later. plz any comments.
First, you have made a major error in not keeping control of your finances. The debt is in your name so you are liable unless you make a complaint to the bank about fraud. You also need to find out what she was doing with the credit cards. Is she buying things for herself or for the family and paying general household expenses? You both also need to see a financial counsellor who can help you with proper advice in this area.
Did you know that "financial infidelity" is responsible for at least as many marriage breakdowns as sexual infidelity?
I got both. Financial infidelity was the first step...then emotional and physical infidelity.
My STBXW was spending me blind for many years. It started with after we were married and progressed from there. She had bad credit when I met her (I was unaware). She used my good credit rating after we were married to open credit cards, small store cards at first. She then managed to get Visa/Mastercard/Discover cards in her name....all with out my knowledge.
I made the mistake of giving the bill paying/joint checking responsibility to her in order to get her more involved in our family finances... basically give her more responsibility. I trusted her at this point. She started hiding purchases and paying for them without my knowledge. She then opened up credit cards in My name without my knowledge and transferred balances on to them while she accumulated more on her cards. By the time I found out she had thousands in balances on the cards.
Keep in mind. She refused to work more then 18 hours a week and kept all of her income to herself. She never contributed to our joint account (which I alone funded) or helped pay any household bills.
I took the bill paying responsibility and all of the cards away that were in my name and promptly canceled them. I am still paying on one of them today. About once a week or so the phone rings and it is various bill collectors asking for her. She never pays any of her bills on time.
The next step for her was cheating. I found out that she was having an affair for 1 1/2 years...nice. Needless to say she is definitely not the woman I thought she was when I married her.
I have since filed for divorce and the real sad truth is she will be walking away with 1/2 of everything I worked so hard to build. If that isn't enough, I will be paying spousal support for 5 years as well as child support. Where do people like this come from?
i'm dealing with this too,not the first time either. we've had CCJ's(UK). the first lot i was at home sick after a heart op. the first i knew was a guy coming to the house to discuss repossessing our home!!!!! i got us help,we set up CCJ's had a budget ( for the first time).
I'm concerned the debt size is growing each time my husband does this. i'm disabled so i feel vulnerable even more so.He was drinking a lot,we had a row he lost it,hit me & knocked me over - i am un steady with my disability but he uses that as a excuse saying he only pushed me,he split my lip.about 2006/2007 he racked up credit card debts of £25k !
He bullied me - angry,shouting,pleading,sulking,tantrums etc until i signed for a secured loan of £50k - i cringe thinking about it,i kept asking him why it needed to be so much. He promised me he wouldn't have any more cards-EVER.
about 3 yrs later he'd ran debts up of over £50k on top of the secured loan. at the crisis point he swears faithfully NO more cards,that'll well stick to a budget TOGETHER but it creeeps up until he holds all the control. he had a overdraft on our joint bank account that he kept telling me i'd agreed too,it puzzled me - thought i must be loosing it as i couldn't recall signing anything. he now admits he set it up online himself. he had cards,another loan etc etc that i knew nothing about.
he is up beat right now,telling me how much we owe my parents(they lent us £ to pay a % of the debts off- IVA),the more he tells me the more frightened i feel of being debt free. we've been on the verge of BR twice now.
i've told him i'm angry. he never asks how i feel about getting a 5th,6th,7th,8th credit card - he decides in secret &hides them but he expects me to stand by him,go without & be cheerful about it. i don't understand him. i am so worried about what it's doing to us. i don't trust him- how do you trust someone who tried to make me think it was my state of mind that meant i'd "forgotton" about a overdraft for £2k??. he keeps getting angry because i don't trust him, what does he expect?? i look at him as he repeats all these empty promises,"never again", "NO MORE CARDS EVER I PROMISE"."I'm not going through this again", "I mean it this time" - i reply,"you said that last time",he replies,"not like this" - but he did,i've heard it all before. i'm at a loss with it all. he's been so sly.
i was feeling low,very tearful & he kept saying i was feeling worried about it all because i'm depressed! so i went to the DR. she was shocked when i poured it all out. on the surface he is so kind & loving,helps me physically so much but he is killing us. my Dr has said i'm not depressed - she said it's the circumstances. he's agreed to go & see her next week to set up therapy!!! his father was very odd with money & went BR - i'm not knocking folk for going BR,my hubby has got some very destructive stuff going on with money. BR isn't the answer,he needs to address the cause to get this sorted. i do feel better for telling my Dr,it's like i'm holding his secrets all the time. at one point we had no money for food - Dad sent me £. it is terrifying. i will never trust him now,i do wonder if he was gambling,it's a niggly feeling.
i've told him i'll got BR if he does it again& that i won't lend any more money from family to bail him out. i can't live like this. i'm so scared of how i'd manage day to day on my own. i've applied for a bank account in my own name so i can seperate myself from finances if he start it again.
talking about it is very difficult,he said last night," you're just trying to push my buttons,you want me to lose it & hurt you",scary! i am trying to save odd bits of money incase, i never want the gut wrenching feeling of no food money again & i intend to have BR fees together if he does it again. in effect he's stolen from me ,he's had several "2nd" chances. i am so very sad.
I feel better knowing from the Dr i'm not depressed,being told my feelings,tearfulness etc is the situation & not my state of mind is huge weight off me. my husband dismisses my feelings as "you're not well",it's all part of him making what he's done ok with himself.
I've applied for a basic bank account too so that if he starts it up again i can change where my benifits go & seperate myself from him financially.
I have the patience of Job but I do have deal-breakers. Adultery is one and playing funny with the money is another. Racking up debt is like selling your partner into slavery.
Yes it is bad,it's a mill stone around my neck.
I've got my own bank account now,i've told him about it & that i will have my £ paid in there instead of our joint account if he starts it up again. he wasn't happy.
he told me last night he'd been drawing £ off cards for food for mths before i found out. no treat £ is 1 thing,no £ for food is terrifying,i can't live like that.
i will go BR if he does it again,i'm so tired of it. he is soooo up beat about paying it all off,we're 2 years in,it will take years to clear it all with the secured loan he bullied me in to. he know's i've got housing forms - shocked him.
i feel so scared & sad,if i have to let him go i will also be losing my carer as well as someone i love. my disability is enough to bear without all this on top. i need to be in a bungalow,every time he does this that is taken further & further away from me.
Hey. New here. I am going to say some things, not to defend hiding debt -- it is definitely not okay -- but so I can process this for myself and how I got to where I am now (headed for divorce from a beautiful partner whom I love, who is incapable of expressing affection towards me).
I am a wife who formerly did this. My situation is a little bit different as I did not want household/material things for myself, but I started a business in 2003 using credit cards and just thought it would work out. (I also had about $5K of CC debt going in to the relationship left from college/post-college that we never talked about before getting married.)
I was very inexperienced with finances and business plans but I was swept up in a wave of people approving my initial performance and didn't look at the details or communicate with my partner. We married when I was 26 and he 31 and I feel at least I, if not both of us, were coming off a lot of youthful "you can manifest anything you think of" crap that was going around our Austin, TX crowd at the time (late 90s). So I thought if I just put my mind to this business, and work a lot of hours, it will be great. Never mind running the numbers. (I know, I know!)
My husband was more experienced with this stuff and tried to communicate that I was on the wrong path. Unfortunately his method of communication did not sit well with me. He can be very blunt, and when he is emotionally overwhelmed he can completely shut off an affectionate and compassionate style. So instead of saying, "Wife, your business is really in trouble and I want to help you get back on track. This may mean shutting it down and declaring bankruptcy. I know this is scary for you but I promise I will be there for you" (what I needed to hear), he would say things like "You're a financial retard," "Your business is a failure," "Your business is already bankrupt" (these in a way are/were facts but I could not listen with an open mind when I was talked to like this, I became very defensive).
Anyway, that was the beginning of the end. He mentioned at one point he might "help" me with the debt. I misread this and thought he would just help me pay it down out of his own money, to this day I'm not sure what he meant or what his intentions were. He asked how much it was and I told him $10K (truthful). He had no idea it was that much and just freaked out and shut down, basically stopped talking to me. I continued to dig my hole, thinking if I just refinanced, moved things from there to here, etc. I could work it out. I actually grossed $50K one year but I couldn't pay my debts. Too many ops expenses and I was only making minimum payments on the debt which of course becomes slavery.
Of course, instead, the credit card debt grew to over $40K. During the period it was growing from $10 - $40K I just hid it from him and stopped telling him about it because I was so ashamed. And because his initial rx when I told him of the $10K was like I had killed someone. Also, externally, a very superficial part of my business looked successful to the outside world and I was afraid to admit publicly that it wasn't actually making any money. The lies we tell ourselves!
Finally, in 2008 he told me he wanted a divorce over this and some other issues related to parenting. I freaked out and got my s*** together to file for bankruptcy in early 2009. I was lucky that we did not wind up having to involve the house. I had no idea that my actions might have resulted in our losing the house. Now I am debt free and the business is in the black, but the damage had been done to our relationship.
Our marriage became affectionless and until recently, mostly sexless. His anger towards me over what happened in those years is still fresh. I hoped I would be forgiven, but we are not in that place. Our finances are now pretty good, but naturally any discussion of them makes me pretty anxious as I worry that it will just lead to more criticism of me. We have lived like this for years.
He has pretty much cut off all affectionate gestures towards me since then. We live in the same house and have 2 kids, but he rarely talks to me except over basic household issues. What's for dinner, the car needs a repair, etc. At the same time, he is a wonderful dad and a wonderful provider, has many outside interests, is athletic and handsome, kind and generous to many. To watch him interact kindly and happily with others, but never with me, has been painful and I feel this year I finally had enough. We've had several big midnight spats over the years, where talked about divorce but I didn't take it seriously as an option. Instead I would double down on my self-improvement efforts. Better finances/moneymaking. Better parenting. Better sex. But the coldness remained.
This year, I finally realized I was living with someone who doesn't like me at all and how much it was bringing me down. So now I am onboard with divorce as well, as much as it kills me. Even though on paper we look like a great compatible couple, the day to day reality is misery.
So that is where I am, and I am very contrite and full of regrets. I wish I had never seen a credit card and that I had been more educated about business and finances in college. I wish we had had better communication skills so when we hit this first huge speed bump it did not cause so much irreparable damage to our relationship.
wife hides credit debt 
