My Wife's in Debt

peaceandfreedom

Prosaic wrote: »

Thanks, I appreciate that . I will tell her. I think sometimes she finds it tought talking to me because I do tend to get annoyed about it and criticise her. I'd just rather that money went on the family you know? We all make mistakes though I know that

Having been a similar situation to your OH, I have every sympathy for her. Myself and my OH had a similar arrangement. He paid the mortgage and a few other fixed bills, I paid everything else. This included all food, clothes, shoes for us and our 3 kids, school trips, christmas, birthdays, utility bills, phone bills, car costs, replacing anything that broke, piano lessons, etc etc. It was too much.

I remember one month going to him because I had paid out over £500 more than usual, explaining to him that I didn't have the money. His answer? "Where am I supposed to get it from?". That was it! No surprise then that I ended up in debt. Our finances are still not sorted out, and he still leaves all the sorting out to me and blithely drinks away loads of money every month while I decide that I can go yet another year without a new pair of shoes.

I can vividly recall the endless hours in front of the computer, moving money around, robbing Peter to pay Paul, that sinking feeling when I looked at the balance and the money that was due to come out, that feeling of dread and panic, the sleepless nights, the sick feeling in my stomach. It's not so bad now, but it's still not good.

I am probably speaking out of turn here but please don't get cross with your wife, she is no doubt already blaming herself and has shouldered this burden for a long time. Be kind to her and sort this problem out together.

Prosaic

Oh dear, hope I haven't mis-worded things, i seem to be coming across like some Victorian Husband!
It's not a case of me not paying any interest in any of the stuff she's responsible for. What we arranged years ago was that I'd take care of all the bills as the higher earner so that she didn't have to worry about it. She gave up a full time job because she wanted to be at home with the babies as much as possible. Ideally she'd have liked to never worked again but we couldn't afford that so she went back part-time, but I said I'd take on everything. We aranged that with her money she'd buy the weekly shop and little bits for the kids- any 'bigger' items like the £30+ school shoes I normally buy anyway when we're all out. I just wish that whent his 10k debt was say, 5k she'd spoken to me

Hope that makes it clear- I'm not off down the pub leaving her to it!

( I wish! )

peaceandfreedom

Prosaic wrote: »

Hope that makes it clear- I'm not off down the pub leaving her to it!

( I wish! )

Hi Prosaic

Didn't mean to imply that you were - let my own bitterness get the better of me there, sorry.

I just wanted you to understand maybe what your wife is feeling, she was probably always worried about telling you which is why she left it so long.