Wife’s secret spending leaves couple facing $96K debt crisis; she finally decides to tell him. AITA? + UPDATE
"In five days I’m coming clean - and it will probably end my marriage."
I’ve been married to my husband for nearly 17 years, together for 20. I knew that prior to our relationship he struggled with money issues, and it is a huge trigger for him. So what did I manage to do?
Take over the bills a couple years ago and Completely ruined everything. Credit card, debt, juggling zero interest cards, all that jazz. My credit has been on a slow and steady decline. I’ve been trying to keep things out of his name so his credit is ok.
I have so much guilt and shame. I was so stupid to let it happen. I used shopping, expensive hobbies, and poor poor financial habits as a way to cover up my anxiety and depression.
I lost my mom, we’ve had a lot of medical debt, travel for my mom and medical reasons, etc. None of those things are excuses for lying to him though. I am so overwhelmed and Guilty. He has no idea.
On Friday we are going to sit down to review finances while our kids are at school and I am going to come clean. I have no idea how he is going to react. It might be bad (hi divorce), but even best case scenario he is never going to trust me again.
And I don’t deserve his trust. He didn’t deserve any of this. I have totally betrayed his trust and it keeps me up at night. Part of me is ready to come clean and be honest. The other, cowardly part of me wants to keep up the charade. I’m finally going to be brave and be honest. I feel sick.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
How much debt we talking?
The slow crawl into crippling debt is easier to do then some people realize. Corporations restructure and file bankruptcy all the time, there's no shame in it, just learn from it. You can file bankruptcy just for yourself, and if the majority if not all the debt is in your name, it won't effect your spouse.
I'd suggest coming clean after speaking with a bankruptcy attorney, there's a way out of this and only you have the pay the price, not your spouse. Be honest, be strong, do what the attorney says to protect any assets you do not wish to liquidate, and the next thing you know it'll be a bad memory. Most importantly, do NOT do it again.
Coming clean will be a huge weight lifted. And maybe now the two of you can communicate better and work through this together. Or he may never trust you again, but you owe him the truth.
Eight days later, the OP returned with an update.
First, thank you to everyone that replied and messaged. I read every single one. I appreciated the hopeful comments and identified with the harsh ones. I’m no angel in this story.
So some extra info - my husband has a very high intensity job, and travels frequently. I took over the bills so nothing would get lost in the shuffle when he was away from home and he could focus on what he needed to focus on. (Insert joke here, right).
I was a complete wreck last week. I barely slept, was physically anxious, and was both absolutely dreading Friday but also couldn’t wait for it to just get here already. Fortunately my husband was on a work trip and my kids were busy with basketball, friends, theatre, etc and were barely home. I barely ate and lost like 3 lbs that I’ve been stuck on. Not recommended for a diet plan.
Friday we planned to each work a half day then have some lunch and look at our budget for the year. Tax returns were pretty decent and my husband got a good annual bonus, so it made sense to see what was what. He was already talking about throwing some in a CD or investment and I just felt ill.
Friday comes and he comes home with In’n’Out and a chocolate shake for me and I just … lost it. Full on sobbing. It freaked the hell out of him, and took me like ten minutes to get myself under control. Then I spilled it all. I started with “I love you and I’m sorry” and just let fly. That wasn’t my plan, I had a whole thing written down to make sure I didn’t miss anything and it didn’t matter at all.
To his incredible credit he just sat there in shock and listened. Then he definitely under-reacted and went directly to “we’ll fix it together” mode. He wanted some time to absorb what I’d said and then wanted to work through our accounts one by one to see what was actually up, and he wanted to do this alone, then we’d come up with a plan.
I let him be and just did some cleaning and laundry. After maybe 45 minutes I heard him leave the house with a door slam. I wasn’t about to chase him down after he asked for space to process. I did look at the computer and it was a list of all our outstanding balances.
To everyone guessing figures, here you go:
I assumed it would be 60k based on my rough math, but I had forgotten a couple I had on autopay. $96,000 in debt that he had no idea about.
He messaged me a while later that he was going to stay by his mom for the night and would be back to pack a bag, and that he would rather not talk yet. I respected that and made myself scarce.
He came home the next day and we manufactured some time alone to talk by sending the kids out to run errands. The oldest can drive and loves any excuse. The heart to heart was basically this - I screwed up royally here, but he shouldn’t have checked out completely and let it get to this point. He is going to take over our finances.
We’re going to do a HELOC or second mortgage for all the recurring stuff and buckle down HARD. We will review everything together at least twice a month. We will do marriage counseling together.
I agreed to absolutely every term and condition. I honestly thought he wasn’t going to come back. Things are chilly at best right now, and I am so desperately sorry and sick over the hurt I caused.
At the same time there is a deep sense of relief that, whatever happens, I’m no longer lying about it and everything is out in the open. Maybe he’ll still decide that he can’t move on, but I’m going to own whatever happens.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
The best solution to solving this together is full transparency and showing that you are committed is to actively attacking this debt, so if you don't currently work, get a job. Also, don't know if you can do it in your country but in mine I can link banking apps to send notifications whenever there is a transaction.
You can set it up to go to you both, so you both can monitor each other. This is a joint situation, and will build back trust. But 96k, wow, do you even have anything to show for that? How did you manage to keep getting credit. That's insane.
I don’t think I could try to spend 100k in a few years on shopping.
OP you also probably should look into therapy or a shopping addiction group. Almost 100 grand in debt is like gambling addiction levels of having a problem. Good luck though hope you two work it out and find a way forward. You might consider picking up some additional income to work down the debt.