When someone lies to their partner about their debts who are they protecting...?

Primarni · 4 November 2009 at 10:59PM

If they're hiding it then they know they're in the wrong. Like others have said they lie because don't want anything to change or to have to start tackling the problem. The person who is doing the hiding and the lying is the person in the wrong even if the other person in the relationship got some of the benefit of the overspending. You can't blame someone for not changing their behaviour if they didn't know there was a problem because you were doing everything in your power to prevent them from finding out!

bigmommamuppet · 4 November 2009 at 11:10PM

Why did I lie and keep in from DH for so long??? Honestly deep down I don't know the reason. I kept it hidden for a long time not sure the timescale could have been 10 years or so. I can't even remember how it started either. We spent the money together on the usual stuff i.e holidays, cars and general day to day living. I think part of me was fooling myself that we had more money than we actually did therefore by keeping it a secret I didn't have anyone questioning how we could afford things. DH grew suspious when our credit ran out and I was struggling to keep my dirty secret. When he asked what was going on I let it all out and my god did he hit the roof, the betrayal etc must have been overwhelming. I'm not proud of my actions and we're now working together and with the CCCS to get rid of our debt once and for all.

CatValou · 5 November 2009 at 8:46PM

This poll is probably a little too close to home for many people.

Lottebear · 5 November 2009 at 8:54PM

Mine lies to protect himslef, he can't understand often whay he is in the situation therefore lies to get out of it so he doesn't look stupid.

boredofbeingathome · 5 November 2009 at 9:11PM

This is interesting as i am constantly grappling with the reasons why Mr.B did this.I accept my part in past debts but once cleared up i thought that would be the end of it. I think the main reason for him, would be keeping up a pretense to family and friends whilst at the same time undermining us as a family.
I feel sad that i no longer trust his judgement ( or mine come to think of it) and now it is become a massive bone of contention as we struggle to fight against this. I took on some extra debt at 0% to try and help him out,but in retrospect that was the wrong thing to do- he kept spending and wouldn't stick to a budget. Now his credit is stopping though as i put a block on hand outs.
We both pay half of household expenses ( which he found he struggled with) and any extra goes on clearing debts. His payments are now affordable and i am hoping he will begin on the MSE journey...i have been on it for a long time and found that i am now finally getting somewhere.
The saddest bit of all of this is that a lot of it was avoidable and his avoidance to talk about his debts and hiding stuff was hard for both of us to face up to.
So i went from thinking we were secure with savings to being skint with debts..it can easily happen if you take your eye off the ball and don't have an honest or open dialogue between a couple.
One good thing to come out of this is that my son went into his bank to get a new ATM card, they signed him up for a credit card and he tore it up as soon as it came..So hopefully they will never go through what we have and our children will learn from our mistakes.
Edit to say, i feel exactly the same as your initial thread post..i honestly do not know how i will feel in the future when the debt has gone, but i don't think it will be much differently. We have also been married for a long time-24 years, i discovered the extent of it about two years ago- it got a bit worse and we are now making headroads into it.

Bunnyinthelights · 5 November 2009 at 9:15PM

Wow......:o

angeldiva · 6 November 2009 at 11:52AM

When I first met my boyfriend two years ago, there was no way I was going to tell him I was in such a huge debt, I felt embarresed and ashamed to the fact that I couldn’t handle the money. In keeping up with my peers I had wasted all my cash and had NOTHING (well my house and car) but NOTHING else to show for it. I didn’t want him to be put off from being with me so I was protecting myself.

Then as things got serious it became harder to lie. Now we are talking about buying a house and getting married I just had to tell him that I was currently paying off a debt. By the time I told him though I was under halfway so it wasn’t as bad and my attitude had changed so all in all it was a good outcome. He was understanding and has been nothing but supportive.

I would urge anyone that is reading who is currently hiding something from the one person that trusts and loves them to just tell them. Its never as bad as you think its going to be.

Jacks_xxx · 6 November 2009 at 5:46PM

I went on all the holidays, drank all the wine, rode all the rollercoasters, accepted all the presents, and waved my arms in the air at all the gigs we went to....safe in the knowledge that everything was fine because my husband, whom I loved and trusted, said so.

With my husband it was all tied up with being the man of the house and being the provider who takes care of this kind of thing for his family. He wanted to be able to give us a great life, Because - like me - he'd grown up never asking his parents for anything, because he knew they didn't have any money. He thought it was his job to shoulder all the stress and worry, and that it should never be allowed to touch us.

If I ever asked him if we were in trouble he would always say No we weren't at all, but we'd had a bit of a cashflow problem because of his expenses being delayed, or something similar - and temporary.

He told me exactly that about two weeks before I found out we owed £97,600.00 and were at the point where debt repayments were almost half of our monthly take home and we were getting deeper in debt every month.

He was feeling pretty desperate, the wheels were definitely coming off - and bless him - even after having been in debt for 18 years and having added up that huge figure he still kept telling me that it was a temporary blip and things would be better "next month".

I trusted my husband, and thought I didn't understand finances so when he told me everything was fine I believed him and trusted him to manage things and he insisted he wanted to.

As it turns out I can understand finances - better than my hubby in fact - plus I didn't mind depriving my family of luxuries for two years so that we could get secure financially whereas he found that very difficult (not for himself, but for all the times we had to say No, to our kids, to our friends and family etc)

I think in my husband's case he was mostly trying to protect me and the kids from worry, but there was a definite element of protecting himself from the failure, from the bad decisions he'd made, and from what we'd think of him, and from the consequences of us all finding out.

And when you've been lying for so long...how do you stop?

Imagine what a mess we'd be in now if I'd just continued to believe him?

I honestly believe he would have killed himself with the worry of trying to manage debt repayments of £1200 a month plus a £800 mortgage on Jobseekers allowance!

So I guess my message is: If you've got a job - tackle your debts now. It will be a million times worse if you get made redundant or your company goes bust. Unemployment is happening to 50,000 people every month - most of them thought it would never happen to them as well.

When someone lies to their partner about their debts who are they protecting...?

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