# Caught Wife hiding credit card debt for over a year



## NewToHeartBreak (Jul 8, 2014)

While moving apartments I was throwing out mail and found a debt collectors notice. My wife had been hiding a credit card debt from me for over a year, not making the payment between interest and penalty fees the original amount has doubled. I find it really frustrating as the amount of interest and fees adds up to an amount that I'd have to work long hard hours to earn and we have nothing to show for it. 

The odd things is we actually had enough money to pay it off shortly after she accumulated the debt so could have payed it off long before the debt increased substantially. We have been on a tight budget for most of the last couple of years so she would have had to admit to the debt to pay it off as other wise I would have noticed. 

She has done this before but last time the amount was much lower and she was making the minimum payments. At that time I asked her to tell me next time she finds her self in this position so we can clear it up immediately. 

Before this we already had a lot to work through but I know that process will require me to trust her I'm not sure what it would take to trust her again after this. She hasn't exactly been overly apologetic I got a "sorry" but when I ask for an explanation I don't get more then a "I don't know what I was thinking" when I try to probe further she threatens divorce. For now I have given up talking to her about it, she actually seems really happy since I stopped bringing it up which makes me think the threats are just a way to end a discussion she doesn't want to have. 

Have been with my Wife along time and this along with a few other recent things has made me relies we have completely different attitudes to money and wealth. I'm also really angry that she hid this from me for so long. Apologies for the length of this post


----------



## murphy5 (May 1, 2014)

you do not mention WHAT the debt was for? was it for something she really wanted, like jimmy choo's? some sort of spa treatment? something the kids needed but you nixed due to the "strict budget"?

How about loosening the purse strings a little, but take over the credit card bills from now on. She probably needs some monitoring, but not is a smothering way. Encourage her to earn a little side money, and have fun with it.


----------



## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

If your wife has opened credit cards that you do not know about, one way that you can monitor this is to require that she allow you to pull her credit report whenever you want. That way you can see what credit cards she has.

I assume that this card is in your wife's name only. So maybe she should negotiate a settlement and pay much less. Have you checked out anything along that line?

By the way, if she has not been making payments on the card, she probably cannot get another one for some time. That might be some good news.


----------



## Rayloveshiswife (Sep 25, 2013)

I went through that with my wife a very long time ago. She was getting credit cards and having the bills sent to her parents to hide it from me. Found out the first time when I went to buy a motorcycle and they turned us down saying we had overdue bills. My wife turned red and so began our problems. When it happened again a few years later I combined our finances and told her I'd divorce her and take the kids if she did it again, saying that a judge would never give custody to a financially irresponsible person. 

It took me a very long time to trust her again with money. To me there is not much more important than our credit score. So that she would put that in jeopardy and risk our financial stability by running up bills and not paying them angered me to no end. 

Many years later that is all in the past. Even so, sometimes I still have trouble trusting her with money. Not sure that will ever change. 

Ray
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

This is a bigger issue than just money. This is sustained, deliberate deception of one's spouse. This is someone placing their own selfish desires above the financial welfare of the marriage. Even if she was the sexiest, sweetest woman on earth, if she lied to me again about money, I'd be kicking that butt to the curb. Losing a lying over-spender isn't much of a threat. Every time she swiped that card she was making a decision that whatever was in her shopping bag was worth more than having her husband home, it was worth more than marital stability and peace in the home. It was worth more than whatever plans this couple had made for the future. It was worth more than having a husband who could trust her.


----------



## DoF (Mar 27, 2014)

I've been thru this too with my wife.

1st time it was $200 or so......2nd time it was $1000.......never happened again. It was at the time when we were very young (mid 20s or so).

Each time, I tried to stay calm and cool and go over Credit /history /score and what it means this day and age.

First, I asked her to show me $200 worth of stuff she bought ($1000 second time)....she couldn't. I knew exactly where she went/what she bought...it was all petty BS stuff. I explained to her how $10 items (that are worthless and useless) can cost 40-50 bucks in the end if payments are missed......and when you talk THOUSANDS, $1000 can easily become $5000.......or even $20000. Then you enter into "Bank Slave" discussion. We all know banks are the new mafia, back in the day you would get shot up or beat up if you didn't pay debt, now days, banks have found LEGAL ways to basically charge you ANYTHING they want the second you don't make a payment.

2nd I got into discussion on how credit score effects our LIVES. As in:
- most employers check credit/scores
- most landlords do to
- impossible to buy a car or house with poor credit 
etc etc

3rd, I got into our life/future discussion and financial responsibility. How it slows us down from buying a house/car and puts us in bad financial situation. It's way better to be able to save and spend vs spend and chase.......pay interest. 

I'm sure I had to do this few times over the course of few weeks.

Anyways, my wife got it.....she apologized and has been very responsible (but not perfect of course). In general she has been the lowest maintenance wife I can think of. She doesn't have 30 pairs of shoes......or goes on shopping sprees etc......she knows where we stand financially and we live within our means.

I'm proud of her at this point, but it did take some work. I also stressed to her how much work and money FROM ME went into building her credit. Even then our scores were great, and continue to be (hers is higher than mine).

Keep your head up OP, be calm, approach it from "teachers" perspective and hope for the best. Be optimistic and positive. DO NOT let your anger/frustrations get the best of you, cause it WILL force her to ignore you/get angry herself > by default she won't learn anything.

IF she learns from it/and apologizes, for a year or 2 check her credit score/history and make sure all is well.

Good luck


----------



## Hicks (Jan 14, 2011)

If your wife threatens divorce when you are discussing a serious marital issue, you should do as follows.

Say, Yes I think that is a good idea. Let's start packing your things up now so you can get out.


----------



## richardsharpe (Jul 8, 2014)

Good evening
why does she think she needs to hide the debt?


----------



## NewToHeartBreak (Jul 8, 2014)

Murphy "tight budget" as a bad description. We had just moved to new country and were both working jobs less senior then what we left. We were already going back wards and I was already letting the purse strings be loser then they should have been. Between out two incomes at the time we should have been able to financially tread water but she spent too much, I was working really long hours so wasn't spending much at all. She has nothing to show for the money she spent.


----------



## NewToHeartBreak (Jul 8, 2014)

I have know idea why she thought it was ok to hide the debt. I caught her out rather, I don't know what would have happened if I didn't. I asked her what the "end game" was regarding the debt and she can't tell me.


----------



## NewToHeartBreak (Jul 8, 2014)

Yes wife works. Company I worked for lost a contract so I recently got laid off so am looking for work, expect to find some thing soon though and we don't have kids I was the main bread winner before losing job. 

Thanks for every ones feed back.


----------



## alphaomega (Nov 7, 2010)

It was guaranteed that every January when I got my bonus pay, 10 k of that would go to pay off my exes credit card bill. 

10 years of that ****! Stupid me. I would just shake my head and pay it. 

You know what kind of kick azz motorcycle 100k could probably buy? Holy crap. 

I'm glad I don't have to worry about that anymore. And maybe I will learn to teach the next mrs about fiscal responsibility.


----------



## alphaomega (Nov 7, 2010)

Or hopefully I don't.


----------



## Thor (Oct 31, 2011)

NewToHeartBreak said:


> My wife had been hiding a credit card debt from me for over a year, not making the payment between interest and penalty fees the original amount has doubled.
> 
> She has done this before but last time the amount was much lower and she was making the minimum payments. At that time I asked her to tell me next time she finds her self in this position so we can clear it up immediately.


Her behavior could be some form of mental illness. Spendaholics are a real phenomenon. Your wife seems to understand cognitively the ideas of money and debt, yet she is unable to restrain herself from getting in well over her head. As you say, she has nothing to show for what she bought, not that she bought some fancy car which really wasn't affordable.

I had an office mate whose 2nd wife ran them into bankruptcy. He thought he was on the cusp of retirement from a decent career in high tech, only to discover she had spent it all. He actually committed suicide because of it.

Your wife sounds like she is nowhere near as extreme as that guy's wife was, but I wrote about it to make the point that compulsive spending is an illness which needs therapy. It does no good for you to request your wife to inform you if she runs up a bit of credit card debt. It does no good for you to explain the budget. She may need therapy. And you need to put some kind of clamp on her spending. One tactic might be to put a credit hold in place if you can do it where you live. In the USA we can tell the credit agencies to put a note in the computer not to approve any new credit accounts. The idea is to prevent identity theft, but it could be used to prevent someone like your wife from opening new accounts.


----------



## JustAMan2 (Oct 28, 2011)

Wearing this T-shirt right now--wife started a company and ended up $300K in debt and hid it from me. I had us debt free at age 42 (personally debt free I mean) and I THOUGHT we were on the same page with finances. NOT!!!

Have you considered taking "Financial Peace", the Dave Ramsey course on finance? Most people that take it report that it really helped their marriage.

Just a thought.


----------



## DoF (Mar 27, 2014)

JustAMan2 said:


> Wearing this T-shirt right now--wife started a company and ended up $300K in debt and hid it from me. I had us debt free at age 42 (personally debt free I mean) and I THOUGHT we were on the same page with finances. NOT!!!


And you are still married to this woman?

:scratchhead:

I'm pretty sure you should talk to a lawyer. This debt can possibly be ALL on her shoulders.

By staying/accepting.....it will be on your shoulders as well (not smart).


----------



## NewToHeartBreak (Jul 8, 2014)

:iagree:




Have you considered taking "Financial Peace" said:


> No will look into it though. I know I need to do something to get us thinking the same way on finances though the dishonesty aspect of it is probably a bigger issue. Part of me thinks that in order to make the marriage work I may have to accept that my long term financial goals are simply not achievable.
> 
> Sorry to hear about your wife hiding all that debt. Makes me think I got my "my wife hid debt from me" T-shirt on sale.


----------



## exhaustedmarriage (Nov 3, 2014)

NewToHeartBreak said:


> While moving apartments I was throwing out mail and found a debt collectors notice. My wife had been hiding a credit card debt from me for over a year, not making the payment between interest and penalty fees the original amount has doubled. I find it really frustrating as the amount of interest and fees adds up to an amount that I'd have to work long hard hours to earn and we have nothing to show for it.
> 
> The odd things is we actually had enough money to pay it off shortly after she accumulated the debt so could have payed it off long before the debt increased substantially. We have been on a tight budget for most of the last couple of years so she would have had to admit to the debt to pay it off as other wise I would have noticed.
> 
> ...




Financial infidelity.


----------

