Woman faces losing her husband and everything they've built together after utility bill lie. UPDATED
"Need advice please! I broke husband's trust by hiding late utility bills."
Hi all, I messed up badly and need some advice. My husband and I have been married for 15 years and generally have a great relationship. I really admire him, he's a wonderful husband, kind, conscientious, and loving. He is a nurse and works hard to support our family. He is the sole breadwinner.I am in charge of paying bills in the family.
Three months ago, I got behind on our utility bill (we rent, and pay gas & electric to the landlord). I didn't tell my husband and planned to pay the back due over a few payments in order to get current. I SHOULD have told him.
For background, my family is awful and I was raised with a lot of guilt and secrecy around money, and I've had issues in the past with my husband where I wasn't honest in my communication with him about financial issues or have kept information from him.
I have bipolar disorder and he has been patient with the complications this has added. He's also dealt with a lot of BS from my family being intrusive and verbally abusive to us. He asked me to promise to never keep things from him again, and we moved forward. I thought I had been doing much better with these issues and we were really on track until November.
Then just after Thanksgiving my mom got sick and died about 7 weeks later from COVID (in January). During this time we were also dealing with major winter storms and our car was crushed by a falling tree.
My dad and my sister ramped up their abusive behaviors in the wake of my mom's death. I thought I was generally coping alright but I fell behind on paying our utility bills. I didn't inform my husband.
With all the chaotic events, I let myself fall back into old patterns of behavior (secrecy) and was afraid to tell him. I felt like a failure and I should have just told him. Now I am making payments and getting back on track. Things are fine with the landlord.
However this morning my husband got an email from the landlord's office with the statement of the past bills and he is understandably furious with me for not telling him. I don't think he wants a relationship with me anymore.
He thinks I'm hiding other stuff from him . There's really no excuse. I wasn't dealing with my mom's death and the family fallout as well as I thought. I didn't mean to keep this from him. I don't know what to do.
I feel like everything is falling apart. I don't know how I can regain his trust. He's a wonderful person; I love him so much and I feel terrible for keeping this from him after he asked me to please just be honest with him.
I am crushed that I broke his trust. Does anyone have any advice on what I can do? Thank you in advance for your help. I feel like my heart is being crushed out of my chest.
Edit - Sorry, I wasn't very clear - he's not angry that we were in a financial situation where we got behind. He told me he would have understood that. He's angry because I didn't tell him about this when he's repeatedly asked me to be fully transparent about financial issues.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
You need a lot of therapy, kid, for the abuse and the depression you seem to slide into. Ask him for help.
Limp_Dot8648 (OP)
You're right. I need to do that. I feel like I want to disappear.
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.
Three days later, the OP returned with an update.
Well I'd written the last post Friday and my husband slept in the spare room that night. When I got up on Saturday, he told me he'd actually found the reddit post when he couldn't sleep and read everyone's comments.
That gave us a lot to talk about and again I really appreciate everyone's input and good ideas. We had a really great talk about everything that's been going on. I told him again how sorry I was that I'd broken his trust and that I completely understand why he's upset.
My husband said that some of the comments reframed the situation a little bit for him, and we were able to have a long talk about all the fear and shame and issues with communication we both have around money.
He said he realized he should have been more involved with the finances but he's also had some anxiety about money in the past, so he was basically leaving me to it so he didn't have to think about it, and he was sorry for that. We are going to be doing things differently in the future.
As several people suggested, going forward my husband and I will be having weekly check in meetings to review all the financial stuff, what bills are paid that week, etc. I never want to go down this path again so we are feeling really good about this plan and sticking to it.
I had my first therapy appointment this morning via zoom (yay!). My husbamd is super excited for me and really happy in general that I finally took the step of seeing a professional. The therapist seems like a good fit so far, and I'll be going weekly.
Seeing so many comments telling me I needed to get in with a therapist was a wake up call. All the comments reminding me of the toll my actions were taking on my marriage were a wake up call.
My husband is a great guy and I am so thankful we are working to move forward on this. I'm looking forward to working with the therapist - it's a little scary but definitely for the best. My husband is really excited for me to feel better so that is helping me feel more positive about it too.
So all in all, things are looking much better and we have an action plan for going forward. I was really blown away by all the sincere and wonderful advice and support I got from the kind folks of reddit. I really don't know how well I would have handled this situation without you all. Again, thank you so much to everyone! 🤍
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Having both partners involved in finances is really important. I handle some bills and my wife handles others. This way we’re aware of what’s going on and there aren’t any surprises.
Always love the ones where people actively work on the situation and themselves.
I sometimes worry about what will happen when a spouse stumbles upon a cry for help because it can go so many different ways. I'm very happy that, in your case, it really helped you two find your way towards each other faster.
I'm also really happy that you've decided to start discussing finances with each other regularly. As I mentioned, that's something my wife and I do. What I didn't mention was that my brother just went through a divorce and one of the points of contention was that neither had a clue what the others finances looked like.
It led to a lot of resentment that contributed to the end of their marriage. To me, a big part of marriage is trusting your spouse enough to be vulnerable with them, including your feelings and fears when it comes to money. It sounds like you two are on the right track though. Keep up the good work!
Congratulations to you, and I wish you the best of luck 💖