I’m seeking the wisdom of the masses. My wife and I have been married for about 10 years and have two small kids. We both work, but we have separate bank accounts (partly because she is bad at managing money), though we do split bills, etc. My job pays a bit more. Recently, some bad financial stuff has come to light.
About 6 months ago, my wife revealed to me that she had racked up about $10,000 in credit card debt, and the interest was getting away from her. At the time she told me, it all suddenly made sense why she had been asking me for money at the end of the month for several months running—it was because she was struggling to pay off the debt. After a tough conversation, we got a low(er)-interest bank loan to pay off the credit cards, and we worked out a monthly payment plan to get it paid off within 3 years.
Now—after several more months of continuing to struggle financially despite a pretty good combined income—I started really digging into our financials, seeing where all our hard-earned money is going, and trying to create a strict monthly budget. During this period of increased scrutiny, I asked my wife about several reoccurring expenses on her account. After some evasiveness, she revealed that she had OTHER CREDIT CARDS that she hadn’t previously told me about—totaling another $20k or so in debt, with horrendous interest rates!! Needless to say, I was flabbergasted by the debt and her untruthful was about it. After another difficult conversation, we’ve figured out all the debt (I believe), and now we’re working to pay it off. Because my job pays more and I’m a penny-pincher, this largely means me paying the debts.
Now I’m not happy about the secret spending and untruthfulness, let alone being stuck with the bill. But what’s really getting me is how she’s acting resentful toward me because apparently I make her feel bad by paying her debts for her. She also has been super unmotivated to get these debts paid, and I feel like all forward progress has come via me nagging and nagging her. Example: I had to nag her for DAYS before she would do a phone call so I could pay off one of her cards. Then, afterward I made a comment about making progress in the right direction, and her response was basically that I’m doing this for my own satisfaction and am making her feel bad for not being able to pay her own debts. Not to mention she constantly complains about the forced austerity I’m advocating until the debts are paid.
I’m about at my wits end and feel like I’m in a one person team here in terms of finances. My specific question is: how do I regain trust in my wife regarding finances, and how do we avoid this problem happening again? Any thoughts welcome.
Tl;dr — wife secretly racked up $30k credit card debt and is unmotivated to help and resentful toward my efforts to pay it off.
29 comments
2 words: couple counseling.
also another 2 words: individual therapy.
>But what’s really getting me is how she’s acting resentful toward me because apparently I make her feel bad by paying her debts for her.
Ugh, of course. She’s embarrassed so she’s lashing out at you. You didn’t *make* her feel bad, she made her feel bad, you’re the one trying to help her fix her mess.
Since you’re life partners (with kids no less), these things affect you too. If she can’t be financially responsible then maybe she should be letting you handle the finances.
Have you thought about seeing a debt counselor or financial advisor? It may feel less hostile or “you against her” if a third neutral party is involved.
Sounds like there could be a retail therapy or shopping addiction in play. This could be deeper than just financial infedelity. Check in with her about her mental health.
Whatever is up, it’s more than financial. I strongly suggest marital counseling. Even if it’s just once or twice to get an idea of where you guys are at in a safe space.
You don’t piss away 30k because you’re doing awesome. The hostility on top of things…something is up. Need to figure out what’s causing her to need to.spend without being judgemental or angry.
Your wife needs help, the financials are the result of something.
She should get an allowance. All other money is handled by you until she can get a hold of her spending habits.
If another credit card appears….. divorce. Otherwise you will always just be paying for her shopping and you won’t get to enjoy any of the money you earn.
The rest of your life will be you trying to reduce your lifestyle so that she can live it up on her own.
What was she buying? Spending on another boyfriend?
D-I-V-O-R-C-E
Your wife has an addiction. It is much more common than you think. See if she is willing to get therapy. Individual and joint therapy. Figure out what she is spending money on. Is it furniture for the house? Is it stuff for the kids? Clothes for her? Gambling? Food? That is important. I promise you she is feeling like crap and most likely depressed.
Just to clarify, I turns out a lot of the spending was just groceries, gas, and such. There wasn’t anything crazy. But there was A LOT of little things that added up over time—e.g., clothes/stitch fix subscription, eating out, Starbucks, toys for the kiddos virtually anytime they went with her on errands.
I’ve also come to realize she just doesn’t think about financial efficiency like I do. I’ll buy in bulk if possible; she buys small quantities more frequently. I wait for the dishwasher to be packed full; she’ll run it half full. I take short showers; she’ll take bathes. I eat everything I buy; she’ll buy a dozen croissant and half go moldy and are thrown out. I turn off lights when I’m not in the room; she leaves lights on all over the house. And on and on. All these little inefficiencies have really added up I guess is part of the problem.
If you want to stay with her you’re going to have to sit down and have a series of uncomfortable conversations.
First. She needs to start talking to both a debt counselor and an individual therapist. And couples counseling would help to.
If she cannot control her spending then she doesn’t get a credit card. She gets a debit with a set amount on it.
She needs to take her misplaced resentment and guilt and shove it. You’re married. Her debt is your debt. She’s being incredible selfish and is in denial of the real problem, which is her own behavior. The spending, the secrecy, the lying.
The other option is divorce. If she cannot take responsibility for her actions and work together to get you guys out of this, this it’s obvious she doesn’t deserve your trust or commitment.
These are her options.
It’s going to be uncomfortable and hard. But it already is, right? So might as well be for the right reasons
You are the one person team. She’s like a toddler with her hand in the cookie jar. My ex was the same way. I think all the money spending gives some people a dopamine hit and they keep chasing the high. My ex refused financial counseling, hopefully your wife won’t. She needs it bad.
People who know the value of money and understand budgeting are not compatible with people who do not. It doesn’t matter how strong you believe you love is. Money issues and debt win that battle. Every. Time.
The only chance of saving the marriage is if your wife **wants** to learn. Otherwise, you’re doomed and you should save yourself and let her ship sink.
The good news? It appears this has not been going on super long. That may mean the relationship and debt are workable.
“she’s acting resentful toward me because apparently I make her feel bad by paying her debts for her.”
She’s supposed to feel bad. She really messed up her finances. However, you’re not the one making her feel bad. She’s making herself feel bad because she knows she messed up. She needs to remember this feeling so she doesn’t repeat her mistakes. You both need to see a financial counselor to address spending habits.
You can fix the 30k.
She has to get help to avoid digging another 30k (or larger) hole in the future.
Address the underlying issue (her approach to money management) in addition to the symptom (current debt).
You won’t be able to trust her, she has a spending habit that is out of control and she hid it, instead of dealing with it.
One way to handle the problem would be a cash out refinance of your home, if the credit cards are in both your names and you have some equity. If the credit cards are in your wife’s name only, or you don’t have enough home equity and you haven’t got investments, savings or a big house, you might need to talk to a lawyer to see if a Chapter 7 or 13 bankruptcy might be an option.
figure out what it was she was buying that put your family in so much debt would be my number 1 priority. then i would ask her to sell off whatever she bought with those credit cards immediately. this is one of those vice that could sink your entire family. it is as bad as gambling (heck, the debt might be because of gambling).
there is a root of the problem here that i do not think you know. this seem like some type of addiction. financial topics are important, but this seem like a mental health problem
Financial infidelity sucks.
This will require a lot of work.
She ain’t gonna want to live within her means. This issue will soon doom marriage.
Good luck
>unmotivated to help and resentful
THIS is why you need to lawyer up and get yourself free of this financial ball and chain.
I say this as a wife who racked up an embarrassing amount of debt and had to come clean to her husband…your wife is deeply embarrassed. There is so much shame in admitting that you’ve gone that far out of control. Try to convince her to get into therapy, otherwise the root cause of the spending problem (is online gambling? Is it a shopping addiction? Etc) is going to continue to eat away and soon enough she’ll be doing it again.
I have been there. It is horrible. And it tends to spiral because you think “well I’m already in debt, what’s another purchase going to hurt?” Over and over.
She’s either a blithering idiot or
she’s incredibly inconsiderate and doesn’t care about your wants and needs.
No cards no accounts. She should only have a weekly allowance to manage kids stuff/house stuff
I worked with a guy whose wife did this but it was even more than the amount here. She took no responsibility, never apologized and accepted nothing but her “right” to manage their finances. He tried like OP to fix it. Tried the debt and marital counseling. He gave it a good try but she ended up having spent even more at the end of the first year after discovery! Negative progress.
He divorced her. He ended up declaring bankruptcy to get any semblance of a new start. I lost track of what happened to her. Finances are the number one marriage ending problem I am told. Sure sounds like it.
$30,000 is a lot! Overwhelmingly a lot, and I bet your wife was anxious everyday about the debt and how to deal with it and pay it down. She obviously is in the wrong for keeping you in the dark, you all need to have a real conversation about finances going forward so you both are on the same page.
I’m guessing you had to nag about calling because she had anxiety about this. I’m only guessing this because Ive been in her shoes. The awful feeling in your gut daily about creditors calling and trying to make payments you don’t have money for. Calling the company can feel like a rock sitting in your gut.
I can bet she feels bad about the way you talk about the debt in terms of “ME paying off YOUR debt”. You said in comments, the debt was mostly gas, groceries, food out, toys for the kids, and little things that quickly add up, it doesn’t sound like it was just for her. If you started phrasing it ways like you’re a team and “WE” are paying down the debt together might help.
My husband has our finances planned out for all of our fixed bills, and he checks everything frequently. We know how much extra we’ll have month to month so we don’t go over. You two would probably benefit from a financial accountant laying everything out for you so she really understands the debts she’s accrued and how to change her spending habits.
Find out what she spent the money on. For all you know it could be drugs, gambling, or on a new lover. She needs to give you complete control over all the family finances and go to therapy. Also cut all her cards, freeze her credit so she can’t get another one and sign her up for credit karma to track her progress. If she refuses then divorce her.
Divorce her. She will do it again.
My thoughts are get the debt settled and divorce her. I COULDN’T trust a person that not only lied to me about racking up 10 thousand dollars in debt they were using me to pay off but after doing so for months reveal later to have another $20,000 from more cards. Not 20, not 200
Twenty THOUSAND
Where the hell did that even come from? What was she spending it on? Clearly she never told you about it. And this wasn’t a gradual balance that was compounding interest before you met, you’ve been together 10 years that wouldn’t make sense. She’s been maxing out cards behind your back and using them for god knows what purchases.
And after showing she can’t be trusted with money, TWICE (the second time literally twice as much as the first), has the audacity to try and place any fault on you while being entirely unhelpful herself. YOU HAVE CHILDREN AND SHE IS PUTTING THEIR FUTURES AT RISK AS WELL AS YOURS.
I couldn’t stay with a person who did that, I could never trust a person who did that again. $30,000 in debt from frivolous purchases isn’t bad at managing money, it’s a problem.
I don’t know man…but I’ll tell you this…what ever the problem is..you are only addressing the symptoms and this will happen again.
Maybe cut your losses. My ex-wife did similar stuff to what you described. I’m not saying she is my ex for this only reason but it was a major contribution.
Not for nothing but you should leave her
OP, you are trying to play the good parent to your wife. This never works.
So what is the Good Parent? Well it’s the one who never gets mad, who cleans us the mess with a minimum of fuss and who never, ever tells the child that they did wrong. They tut tut at the child, tell them that it will all be better and you let them go about there business, until the next disaster or incident of reckless abandon and back you go into Good Parent mode again.
Do this to you kids and it’s not so much that they never learn to not reek havoc or create disasters, it’s more they learn that there are **NO** consequences for doing this shit. So they do it again and again. And why wouldn’t they!
Essentially she is creating a huge mess and you are riding in to clean it up. And she is getting mad at you for cleaning up her mess! So how is that working for you?
Not well I gather.
So what you need to do is stop being the good parent. It’s her debt, she cleans it up. If that means she has to go bankrupt to do it then so be it. And how do you then stop her financial predicament from affecting you? By legally separating.
Unless she is faced with the consequences of her own actions, nothing will change. So why bother persisting?
All you are doing right now is setting yourself on fire in an attempt to keep her warm. And all she is doing is continually pissing on the flames and complaining of the cold.
To your specific question: You don’t. You have to keep tabs on her finances for the rest of your life, or get a divorce so you can seperate finances.
You have kids, instead of $30000 debt, you should have $30000 tucked away in a saving / investment account for college funds.
Your wife should let you handle all finances, she can get a card on a shared account, so you still have full access to check periodically there are no more new debts. It sucks for her, but it is what it is. If she doesn’t want to hand over her financial independence, you should divorce.