When this woman gets to the bottom of her husband's erratic spending, she asks Reddit:
My husband makes $140k/year. I was making $30k/year. We had NO credit card debt when I quit my job. Our mortgage and home equity load combined are $2000/month. Our car payments combined are $500/month.
I know Reddit thinks women asexually produce children and then force men to support them, but my husband enthusiastically wanted children as well and had an equal role in creating them.
My salary would not have justified the cost of daycare. We both did the numbers 100 different ways and it should have worked. It should still be working. I don’t know what the f he’s spending money on or if this even the extent of the issue but I didn’t just frivolously spend money like a fg idiot.
I bust my ass to keep our expenses low. The plan was that I would finish school and start working again by the time my middle was in kindergarten so we would have only one child in daycare. It was a good plan. It would have worked. I don’t know what happened and I’m terrified to find out.
The title is basically the story. I am also to blame for this. I realize that. We divided household responsibilities pretty evenly but we don’t split every responsibility down the middle, and finances were his job. He’s better at them. I thought he was better at them.
We are $50k in credit card debt (I did not know about this), $50k on a home equity loan (I did know about this), two months behind on our mortgage and severely behind on a car payment. So what did my husband spend $100K on behind my back?
I quit my job when we decided to have my middle child three years ago, then we had our youngest a year ago. I thought we were fine. We should have been fine.
I don’t understand what the f happened or why he waited so long to tell me. I trusted him completely. I would never have believed this. I love him so much. By all accounts, we had an ideal marriage. Or we did. I thought we did?
I have no idea how we ever come back from this. It will take years to pay this off. I am in school full time but will need to drop out because we can obviously no longer afford childcare while I’m in class. That just sets us back even more because my earning potential is lower.
The most fd up part is that my dad did this exact same thing to my mom. It was awful to live through as a teenager. It was a serious contributor in being resistant to commitment or ever relying on anyone for anything.
My husband obviously knew about this. It was my #1 reservation when I was quitting my job. I can’t believe I was so stupid. This is my worst fear coming true and I have no idea what to do.
I don’t know why everyone is making up that my kids are in daycare full time, but they are not. I pay a babysitter while I take one class on campus. Our oldest is in public school and our younger two and home with me.
I am going to community college and 75% of my classes are online, the rest are at night. There is no daycare bill. It’s literally a $300/month expense and it should have worked.
We are not living large here. I cook everything from scratch. We don’t get takeout. I cloth diaper. I buy the kid’s clothes second hand or get hand me downs. Our cars aren’t new. Our mortgage is very reasonable.
We cut all of the extras when I stopped working because my job would hardly have paid for daycare. There is no reason his income should not have been enough. I don’t know what he spent money on but it clearly wasn’t our bills.
dysfunctionkitten writes:
I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this. PLEASE SPEAK TO A DIVORCE ATTORNEY MONDAY AS WELL (who practices in your county and does nothing other than divorce related issues).
It’s important that before you make any financial decisions about bankruptcy that you have legal advice about what would and wouldn’t be impacted by divorce. Please cover your ass and see what’s possible before dealing with his mess as a team.
Also don’t be above using his guilt against him to try to get him to agree to separation of responsibility of this debt if you need to in order to rebuild your life. He made financial choices that shouldn’t be falling on the both of you, and if he cares about you at all, he owes you an out from this debt.
noanteater writes:
Ask him to show you what that $100,000 bought. Walk around the house and yard, letting him point out what that money paid for. Ask him his plan for paying it back.
Check the credit card statements. Is there any sign of a substance abuse or gambling problem? I've seen someone take cash advances on credit cards to pay for drugs before. I've seen someone abuse credit cards to the tune of $22,000 for drugs and hotel rooms for himself and his sidepiece.
Check the bank records regarding the home equity loan. That $50,000 went somewhere. Good luck. Worst case scenario, bankruptcy is an option.
magicmadge writes:
Hey, OP. I was in exactly your position once. SAHM and let my husband handle the money since he was 'better' at it and wanted to do it. I was really young (under 30) and didn't have much earning power. Essentially I wouldn't make any money after childcare and transportation costs.
He fd us financially and we had to file bankruptcy. It was humiliating at the time but we got over it. When we split and I had to learn to deal with finances on my own, it sucked. Made a lot of dumb mistakes.
Learned from them. Ended up thriving. He was always, always broke. Still pretty much is. Whatever secret BS he pours his money into remains his secret and his problem.
I did learn the very best lesson which was to never again comingle my money with anyone else. My 2nd marriage was great in that we both had our own money - income and assets - and neither of us was dependent on the other in that way.
You'll get through this and I hope the relationship part works out. It's brutal to have a partner expose you to financial ruin and lies.
altsignal writes:
Babe ignore these women hating redditors who have no appreciation for the direct economic value you bought to your family through your work as the primary parent and house keeper.
Your husband spent this money on SOMETHING. He's either: a. A drug addict b. A sex addict c. A gambling addict d. Is having an affair or has a second family e. An addict of something else f. Has gotten into some sort of scam investment ploy Or g. Some combination of the above h. One of the other horrible possibilities.
But, whatever the case he has caused a serious problem. First things first, breathe. Get yourself a diary and set aside 10 minutes every day where you will rage all the vengeful and horrid things you rightfully feel about him, the world, the circumstances leading up to this, everything else.
Then stop, fold the page over, close the book, and keep going. Then go and find a lawyer - It's going to be rocky whatever the end result. Next where do you have access to money? Start setting aside $25 each week in emergency cash - this is your the world has ended money.
Then you need to get sole control of the money - whatever the hell is going on needs to end asap. He has lost control of the family money privileges.
Once you have that review EXACTLY where the money is going and how much you now owe in loans - and what you are dually responsible for and what he alone is responsible for. Once this is done you can approach your lawyer and see what your options are.
Edit: OP PLEASE consult your own personal divorce lawyer FIRST - you may be able to distance yourself legally from the debt and leave him solely responsible.
Further depending on the law of wherever you are, you and your children are the likely the primary partner family due to your marriage. Please ensure you get access to as many resources as possible to help you rebuild your family unit and stability.
I’m going to post this here and I’ll come back and respond individually later on. Maybe tomorrow. When I posted this I had literally just learned about how bad it was.
I spent the day going through everything and talking to my husband. He’s cheating on me. The woman has two kids and I guess he’s been helping her with them. They could be his for all I know.
He’s currently vomiting and crying in the bathroom. So that’s fg great. I unfortunately have to stay married to him long enough to figure out the finances. I am talking to a bankruptcy lawyer on Monday.
Thank you everyone who made me feel a little less alone today.
47 days ago I posted about finding out my husband has been lying about our finances and that we are financially fd. That was just the tip of the iceberg as it turns out.
After I spoke to him trying to figure out how this was possible, he admitted to having a second family. He’s been cheating on me and has two kids with this lady. The best part? She’s his second cousin and they’ve been in love since high school. What even is my life?
The debt is worse than I initially thought. It’s $100k in credit card debt and there could be more. Who knows at this point? I guess his cousin had a good job but lost it over COVID and that’s when he started trying to pay bills for both households. I’ve hired a divorce lawyer who is going through everything so I can figure out a path forward.
He’s staying with his mistress cousin and his children (are they also his cousins?) and I guess finally living his dream. We’ve agreed it’s best that our children don’t stay there right now. All of the kids are having trouble adjusting but oldest is 8 so he has some understanding of what is going on. It’s just gutting me.
Luckily we have a shitload of equity in our house as we bought it cheap and did a lot of the labor of fixing it up ourselves. It’s going to hurt me to no end to sell this house, but it should be enough to let us pay off most of what we need to pay off and go our separate ways.
I started bartending again which isn’t exactly glamorous. It should get me and the kids through the next two years while I finish school. My ex husband has so far said he would prefer the kids live with me and he will pay me child support. I guess we’ll see how that goes. My lawyer is also going to handle a custody agreement.
If you had told me 48 days ago that this would be my future, I would have laughed. Some mornings I still wake up feeling like it’s not real.
I am assuming at some point I will get very sad about this, but right now it’s so ridiculous that I can’t feel anything but a sick sort of humor. From the outside, and even from the inside, we looked like a boring, happy couple. You never know what’s really happening behind closed doors I guess.
A lot of things finally make a lot of sense now. I thought he traveled for work one weekend a month. I’ve always thought it was weird but it’s always been that way, as long as I’ve known him. He doesn’t travel for work.
He spends that weekend with her. He gets a very generous amount of personal days and vacation, which he was always extremely reluctant to use. Except he wasn’t reluctant to use them.
He just used all of them to spend time with her and their children. The work phone and work computer? Nope. Personal devices that he used to hide what was going on. I have started to feel bad for her in a way because she must have lived such an incomplete life all of these years. And her children… I can’t imagine.
Anyway I just wanted to post an update. So many of you were so wonderful that day I posted, which was one of the worst days of my life. One day maybe I’ll write a book after I’ve sorted out all of the insane details. I’ll update again if the plot thickens before then lol.