Need Advice please, broke husband’s trust by hiding late utility bills

35 comments

1. What did you do with the money instead?

2. It feels to me like you’re not being honest with anyone – your “reasons” for being late on the bill don’t include a single thing that costs money.

   If your story is true and you simply didn’t pay some bills because your mother died – well, then you shouldn’t need a repayment plan, after all you didn’t *spend* the money you simply forgot due to being busy with funeral arrangements.

   Similarly, there’s some reason why you don’t have your bills on a direct debit – you either cancelled the direct debit or you pay them manually for the only reason anyone pays a bill manually: to have the option of not paying them.

   You also need to drop the behavior in which you attribute your own free choice (and that’s what it is) to mental health problems or your upbringing: your family are not raising you, and whilst bipolar disorder can make you experience a whole host of unpleasant mental symptoms, it can’t force assessments of merit such as “the reward of being honest does not offset the pain of needing to speak an uncomfortable truth to my husband” into your mind – that’s a conscious choice you make.

   You don’t need to tell us here on reddit these things, but consider being honest with your husband about why you didn’t pay bills. Why was that money not in your account after you’d dealt with your mothers death? I suspect whatever the answer to that question is, that is the real reason why you don’t have the money – you spend it on something, and you have not told your husband what that thing is.

3. You need a lot of therapy, kid, for the abuse and the depression you seem to slide into. Ask him for help.

4. First, do you have a budget that you follow? If not, work with him to develop one.

   Second, talk to him about setting a scheduled regular time that you two will sit down and go over your finances together. Could be weekly, could be monthly, could be whatever as long as it’s planned in advance and you stick to it. This way, both of you will regularly know what’s going on with your finances.

   For point of comparison, I’m the sole income earner and my wife handles the “day to day” bills. She goes over our finances every Monday and sometimes Monday afternoon or evening, she’ll update me on how things sit. I’m in charge of our “long term” stuff like emergency fund, retirement, and such so as soon as she’s done telling me about day to day, I’ll let her know if I’ve done or am planning to make any long term changes. This way, every week, we both know what’s going on with our finances.

   And for what it’s worth, to help you get more comfortable talking to him and sharing details, consider this – how hard would it be for him to take over handling the finances if you were to get sick or get into an accident and couldn’t handle the money for a few weeks or even months? To me, this is the number one reason why my wife and I talk about stuff like this. If anything were to happen to one of us, the “healthy” partner would have little difficulty picking up the slack.

5. Tell him that the first step you are going to take is to go to therapy to make yourself better and rebuild his trust in again. Tell him and show him you are sorry. That you will work on your communication with him. Tell him you will not lie to him again and work to be open and honest with him in every avenue.

6. So I clicked into your post because based on the title I was wondering if you had been in an abusive relationship and developed some weird issues about secrecy with finances, and it looks like I was right. (I have some experience in that area.)

   It sounds to me like you were emotionally triggered by a difficult situation and so you fell back into your old, unhealthy coping habits. Your mothers death and the abuse from your family put you back into that mindset, “I need to do x, y and z to survive” and so you did the old behavior (lying about finances) even though it was unnecessary and you know better. It happens. You need therapy.

   The thing that has helped me the most in general is learning to recognize the emotional state that means I’m in the beginning of a downward spiral into survival mode, and then trying to figure out what’s causing that and doing whatever I can to remove myself from that situation.

7. You and your husband seem to have set up a system so it doesn’t happen again, but you’ll have to regain his trust. Don’t use this as an excuse, but to lighten up on yourself: Everyone deserves a pass on bad/stupid behavior for 6 months after the death of a loved one.

   Don’t be so hard on yourself, you’ll be happier and also a better partner for him. Work hard in therapy and share some of the tactics you learn with him. Ir sounds like he loves you very much. Repay that by growing as a person. Good luck!

8. Best way to regain his trust is to work on changing the behaviour. I see that you scheduled an appointment for therapy – that’s great! So.. now you go and talk to your husband.

   You say to him..

   “I know that you’re angry and you have every right to be. I made a mistake and I fully take responsibility for that. I want you to know that I just booked an appointment on Monday for therapy to help me through this issue so that it doesn’t happen again. I love you, and I’m really sorry. I hope in time you can forgive me and gain trust in me again.”

   Take it from there.

9. framing this as “breaking his trust” and having to “earn it back” puts a lot of personal judgment into a pretty minor error during a time of great stress. i’ve done a similar thing – forgot to take care of an obligation, then got embarrassed about that fact, then hid it, then felt ashamed that i was hiding it and hoped no one would notice, etc.

   this wasn’t done on purpose and if auto-pay isn’t an option for those bulls then you and your husband can create a system to check over bills so this doesn’t happen again. i understand him feeling that momentary violation of the secrecy but being “furious with you” is out of line. you have already recognized the trauma response in yourself and i urge you not to self-blame. glad you’re going to talk it out in therapy.

10. You need therapy. These are not behaviors you can just will away. These are behaviors developed over a lifetime in response to abuse. You do them because they make you feel safe. You need lots of (good) therapy to help you work through your trauma. Now- the first step is to admit this with your husband and ask him to help you/help keep you accountable to go through with it. If you are in the US your husband’s job likely offers 10-12 visits free through your employee assistance program. If you don’t jive with the first therapist you talk to try another. You can do this. You deserve to do this. You deserve to feel safe without hiding from those who care about you!

11. You have a lot of issues – and your husband has nothing to do with it.

    Why don’t you have a job?

    Why is he paying 100 percent of the bills?

    Stop blaming your past on your current behavior.

    It’s time to grow up and get it together. We all have problems.

12. First off he should be way more understanding to your situation. That is A LOT of trauma to happen all at once and it isn’t uncommon for mistakes to happen to us HUMANS when we are going through situations like those. I get his job is making him the “well off” one with the financial income and that’s understandable. You were given a role in the relationship and there was a mistake involved and we are only human. In no way should he expect you to be fully transformed overnight. In terms of him not wanting to be in a relationship with you, that’s a bit extreme and I think he should have more compassion for your situation. You can suggest going to therapy to help you process how to handle guilt and communicating that guilt. that’s not an excuse for him to make you feel worse about an already problematic situation. Therapy therapy therapy is what I recommend you get into to help with your childhood traumas. And if he’s not down to support you through that or even stick around to see the light at the end of the tunnel for you then he’s not the one for you. You say you want to clarify he wasn’t “angry” but he could at least show some compassion especially since he was there to witness how your home life was like. Maybe I’m wrong but that’s how I see it from the outside looking in.

13. Dearest OP, I say this with the kindest, most warm-hearted intent…

    You need to NOT lie to your partner!!!!

    I understand you are dealing with grief, generational financial trauma, and bipolar. These are NOT easy things to deal with, especially if you are doing so alone. So my first suggestion is to get yourself a talk-therapist. You need somebody who is *impartial* to check in with periodically, and, if you do not have medication you might want to explore that option if that applies to you so that you can manage this stress better.

    I understand the compound stress of loss and the symptoms of bipolar can be debilitating and cause a person to succumb to withholding (you lied by not telling). I don’t have bipolar but I have really bad anxiety, and I’m neurodivergent so I can be selectively mute. It is very important to have any amount of stability in life, however, to make sure we don’t lie to people.

    I can’t give you a surefire way to get him to forgive this. I know sometimes people with mental illness have abandonment trauma and so they may sabotage their relationships as a way of acting out when things are hard. Ask yourself if the times you felt the sharp guilt of not telling him for yet another day, and another, and another, if any part of you realized that you are, in fact, sabotaging the trust between yourself and your partner—who sounds like one of the only people close to you right now.

    I know this because I also used to sabotage good things in my life in part because I wanted to destroy it before it could fall apart, or because I made a small mistake, I decided to punish myself before anyone else could. Don’t do this. It is arrogance. Let us not judge ourselves like that. Give yourself grace, and don’t hide your mistakes. That only makes them worse.

    Now I’m sure you *know* this already. You really might not wanna hear it. But you need to make yourself hear it. No one is coming to your rescue. You need to, at least, take the first step to help yourself. Do not feel any shame for not getting help sooner, because you are asking now… It’s hard to do it, but that’s why a friend will remind and encourage you. 🙂

    I do not know your husband. But I know a hardworking man. If you want to handle this appropriately, make those phone calls on Monday. Get a therapist lined up. Don’t do this alone. Take action right away. Even if he says he’s leaving… It’s not like everything changes tomorrow. Take action so that you can get help with these symptoms that make you withhold and not trust HIM..

    You see, for a lot of men when you are lying to them, they feel this is a sign that you do not trust them. When someone works overtime all week long and comes home to a wife who doesn’t trust them, it is incredibly disheartening. And if you don’t trust him, he wonders if he can trust you. I understand that with mental illness, it can feel hard to trust yourself, but in order to foster trust with someone else, you must.

    Finally, therapy isn’t just for your financial trauma or your bipolar. It is also for the loss of your mother. I believe you need some grief counseling as well. These are incredibly difficult things to face alone.

    Rather than trying to change how your husband feels, please take immediate action for your mental and emotional health. He will see this as a sign of self-awareness and maturity on your part. Accept full responsibility and tell him that you understand why he does not trust you right now, and that you are focusing on managing your grief and symptoms because this incident has shown you that you are not coping well and it is hurting your relationship and your well-being.

14. Listen, as someone who dealt with verbal and emotional abuse growing up I know what it’s like to be in your shoes. You’ve taken the therapy recommendation not just on board but actually made an appointment. Sit down with your husband and make sure to tell him this..

    1. I know I betrayed your trust and I am so sorry. There’s no excuse for it because I know you asked me not to keep things from you and I did.

    2. I thought I was doing a better job at handling everything plus my moms death and I never intended to lie to you and am not lying about anything else. Make sure he has access to all bills and finances or even have print outs to show him you’re being honest.

    Lastly 3, this issue has made me sink into depression even further. I made a simple situation worse and I can’t seem to get past this issue in my life. However, I love you and our family and I want you to trust me so in addition to showing you that everything is above board I’ve made a therapy appointment on Monday to help me work through these issues. I love you and don’t want to lose you but I need your help and I’ve been ashamed to ask.

15. This is why both people who share space need to be involved with the bills. It’s not up to you to tell him, he should have been involved. Instead, he put it on you, 100%. And now he’s mad because you didn’t report this to him? He has no right.

    Sorry, but it angers me that one part of the couple gives bill paying to the other person and goes through life with zero bill stress, then has the guts to get mad because now he has to stress too.

    Jeezus, your husband can take over paying the bills. Then he can see the stress it causes.

16. You “feel like everything is falling apart” – this is catastrophizing, and it’s totally understandable. With your history of BPD I would consider that this catastrophizing might lead to a bit of spiral. Also understandable. But, let’s pause for a second.

    Your husband is fully communicating with you. He is telling you exactly how he feels. This is a good start.

    Take some time. Take a day or two and gather the financial documents, spreadsheets, etc. Put them in a shared place you can both access. Then, soon, go over it with him. Go over everything, go over where all the money is going. Prepare a report or a slideshow if you like (I find that kind of fun and calming – creative time is good!)

    Show it to him. And tell him you want to go over this with him every month for a while. Then, take time to prep and actually bring the finances to him. Tell him everything. And by doing this you are not only telling him but showing him that you prioritize getting this right and that you value his trust.

    Good luck!

17. You act as though your husband is a authority figure, bills are constant and should be a shared worry, why not get him to pay the bills in future

18. Therapy.

    Also, he needs to be also in charge of bills if you have a tendency to hide things and feel guilty around money.

    If he doesn’t trust you, he should help with this part. It’s always good for both people in a household to be involved in the finances.

19. I think you both need to speak with a therapist to work this out. You are carrying too much guilt that you don’t deserve and a therapist could probably give you tips on how to handle these problems. Two things concern me. 1. You are totally financially dependent upon him and as a result you have fallen into a parent – child relationship. 2. While I’m sure he is a wonderful person, he is, also, not perfect. Cut yourself some slack. You, also, need to get space away from your father and sister since they do not have the right to abuse you. Your husband needs to stand up for you. Unfortunately, you have become stuck in old thought patterns, where you think you are to blame for everything and allow the abuse. 3. Unless you have small children in home and can’t afford child care, you need to get yourself some kind of employment, if only part time. You need to have things to focus on rather than just your perceived inadequacies. I have relayed this story many times on sites like this: the best advice my father ever gave me was to always be able to support myself, to not be financially dependent on others. Life changes, your husband could become disabled, God forbid, and you would need to take over as the breadwinner. I don’t need to list the other ways your financial situation can change. You have a lot to overcome, but, you can do it. Good Luck from one survivor to another.

20. What was the money for the bills going to? Are you spending it?

21. Hey OP, I just want to say I’m bipolar as well and was raised to have a weird relationship with money. I always feel like it’s so taboo to let people know when you’re struggling with bills because, for me, it’s something I feel I should be ashamed of. I totally feel myself in this post, and know that feeling of your body panicking because you’re getting behind and not telling your husband and you know that’s something you promised not to do and you should tell him but no it’s fine because I’ll get it under control and he won’t even know so I’ll pay it tomorrow- then you don’t. And you have this whole mini spiral again because your brain is just shutting down and not letting you *do* those things. Those infuriatingly simple things everyone else can do for some reason. I feel it in my soul for you.

    It’s so easy to fall back into habits you break when stressful things happen. I tell my therapist being bipolar is like a car accident. Sometimes, you see the crash coming and can correct things in time before there’s too much damage. Then other times you don’t realize what happened until the airbag is deflating from your face. You had so much going on that it seems like that’s what happened here. I’m sure things will be fine for you OP. I know your husband is angry about the lack of communication but you’re also going through a lot right now. He might also be stressed too since it seems like your family doesn’t try to keep him out of the toxicity. I hope you feel better soon 💕

22. Just tell him that you were trying to process other personal things going on and got behind.

23. When money was getting tight did you have an consideration for getting a job?

24. I think you are going to struggle with this until you learn that you’re safe with being honest about money.

    Here are some possible ideas for that. I’m not sure if this is right for you or not, but I think some therapy would be great.

    1.I feel like your therapist could work something out, but maybe you can do couples therapy where you have some time to talk with the therapist privately before your couples therapy visits. If something is coming up, maybe you can disclose it to the therapist first, and they can give you the pep talk to disclose it during that could therapy session. If you have an avenue to make it easier to tell him, that might help. If you have the therapist to reassure you you will be okay and you do it in session, that might help. Maybe knowing that every time you guys are going into session, he’s anticipating having something disclosed so you don’t feel the added pressure that you’re totally catching him off guard.

    2. Maybe you two can have a set time each week that you sit down and discuss finances. He knows if anything comes up, he’ll hear about it at this weekly meetings and you have an easy open to start the conversation since that’s your set time for things like this.

    3. If you need to tell him, but you’re struggling to tell him, write it out and ask him to read it in the other room. He should know ahead of time that if he gets a piece of paper and you ask him to read it in the other room, that is your way of disclosing information while feeling safe.

    You just need to brainstorm ways that help you feel safe disclosing financial information without triggering your trauma. Sit down with him and get your game plan together. You are partners. Use this as an opportunity to work together as a team in tackling this issue. If you want to earn his trust back, you need to go above and beyond to set up safeguards to prevent this from happening again in the future.

25. Has your husband been giving you enough to make sure everything paid? If he has and nothing serious has come up in the home that would require extra money, you all didn’t have, then there is no reason for the bills to be behind. As for your family, if they’re being abusive, then block and cut them out of your life. As your mental health and happiness with yourself and your husband, it kind of depends on it.

26. What you did was very serious. You could have gotten your family evicted or gotten the utilities turned off.

    Since you need accountability, I think you should have one day a month where you and your husband go to dinner and discuss the state of the finances. Since you handle that, I think it’s a good practice to give him a monthly update on how things are going. A dinner atmosphere will allow the exchange of information to be easy going. You can discuss concerns, savings, things paid, things outstanding, investments…and anything else financial. You two as a team can set new financial goals and get things in order.

    Also, stop blaming others for your condition (blaming family abuse). Find coping mechanisms and get healed so you can feel empowered.

27. I don’t really have any advice but I am so sorry for all that has happened to you and sending prayers your way ❤️

28. What are you doing to manage issues that cause you do this stuff? Are you in therapy, on medication, are you working on yourself? At this point, it seems all you can do is talk and be honest, focus the conversation on your understanding that you fucked up and that he must feel terrible, it’s not about how hurt you are by this, I noticed you did that in the post, he was wronged here, so focus should be on his feelings and wishes if he chooses to repair this. Talk, be honest, explain you know you fucked up, think of actual things you can do to take action and prevent this from happening again, talk about those options…

29. I don’t have much to add here as you have plenty of good advice already in this thread. I did want to question why you treat paying these bills as your sole responsibility rather than a partnership.

    >I got behind on our utility bill

    You are both responsible for the utility bills rather than just yourself, and think the reason you hid the bills may partly stem from this mindset that it’s your sole responsibility.

    You said that you are in charge of paying bills in the family. That’s fine. Responsible for paying them, but you aren’t responsible for making sure there is enough money in the accounts to pay the bills, that’s a joint responsibility that you both need to be aware of.

30. Is he mad you didn’t pay the bills or mad because you used the money for something else?

31. I would 100 percent recommend therapy and a LOT of open communication.

    Me and my partner had issues with communication, he had a very abusive mother and he also has autism so there were HUUUGE misunderstandings and frustrations.

    One of the big ones was he had booked a holiday with a coworker, he told me about it but forgot to tell me it was a female Co worker.

    So obviously my trust was seriously broken, I genuinely thought he cheated and it was tough.

    Bur we talked it out and heard each others sides and it turns out he didn’t understand why taking a trip with the opposite gender was a big thing. Which to be fair its normally not in our relationship 😅 so after explaining and setting boundaries we were okay.

    I think you guys need to do just that Sit down and talk about it. Why you did it. Why you’re not dealing with things. And definitely do therapy.

    I will say your partner is allowed to feel upset and hurt and angry and your going to have to work HARD for that trust. And he might bring it back up occasionally because he’s still hurt and that’s okay. And be open with how your feeling.

32. This is going to be some tough love so if you don’t want that you need to completely skip,

    Honestly… I personally see a lot of deflecting here. Every time you mention the lie you follow up with the abuse or the death. I am very sorry and my sympathies go out to you. However; several families have abuse, several people have dealt with deaths. That doesn’t make them lie to their spouse by omission and keep things from them.

    It’s not like “oh I’m being verbally abused again , now I’m gunna start lieing and keeping things from people” that’s not it . . Again I feel sorry and my sympathies go out to you but it sounds like your husband is doing everything he can to support his family , and even after past issues still all he wants is the truth and open communication , and time and time again you have chosen not to give that to him. Not only that but you’re deflecting the blame onto a mental state , where that may have something to do with it , those things don’t outright cause people to lie, people go through that and can still communicate.

    This guy has stayed with you and gave you chances to stop doing these things and just communicate like a normal married couple and you can’t. You need to be proactive and if therapy would help you , you need to get into that because with all your husband is doing , he deserves a wife that he can trust to atleast communicate honestly with him expecially when it comes to things that affect him and his life.

    I’d strongly advise you to get some kind of help. This man doesn’t deserve what you’re doing to him. Nothing you said there should be a reason or justifies why you lied to him. If you’re unwilling to be proactive and get out and find a therapist or someone to figure out why you choose to lie to the person who you have been with for so long and clearly has your back then you need to do him a favor and if he’s really this upset with how you’re treating him you need to leave him, he deserves someone who won’t lie to him everyone does.

    How is this man supposed to feel… honestly…. He’s been with you for 15 years, you’re supposed to be the person that supports him if his world crashes beneath him, the one person he can count on for anything … and how can he trust you feel the same way if you lie to him expecially about something as small as a late bill. He’s right to wonder what else could she be hiding if she’s willing to lie and keep even a late bill from me….

    If you love this man you NEED to not let this go, you need to get out there and get help to find out why you choose to lie to him, I guarantee it’s ALOT deeper then what you’re saying on here those are just deflecting statements.

33. I see a lot of excuse-making in your note. You need to fix those things you’re blaming as the reasoning for why the bill was late, or why you didn’t tell him about it.

    You mention “patterns of secrecy” and that your husband is concerned you’re hiding other things … since this was a pretty major big ass thing, I think he’s got a right to think that way. Trust is broken at this point, it will take a long time (years) to rebuild it.

    How you go about fixing it is making sure it never happens again, ask for forgiveness, and get some therapy.

34. Lack of trust is a huge deal in a relationship. You’re hiding things from him and he feels he can’t trust you. You’re hiding things from him and feel you can’t trust him.

    Biggest advice is to go to therapy. Yourself alone as well as go to couples therapy. You need to get some help for your issues and you need to get help as a couple.

    It is normal in a relationship for one partner to be financially responsible for the bills. It is not normal to not communicate about issues. What did you spend the money on? Do you have kids and that is why you are not working? You said you have bipolar disorder, is your medication working?

35. I would honestly be so happy if my man responded like this.. it’s pretty clear you feel guilt and regret and are willing to break a pattern. Mine has no remorse about breaking my trust each and every time he gets us in debt..