Complete shock! Please help/ advise!

Anonymousa

Sarsie wrote: »

What I mean is what's your priority?

Your lifestyle or your partner?

No judgement Ok, but if your priority is your lifestyle I'm gonna say X If it's your partner I'm gonna say Y.

But I don't understand why I have to have those as competing priorities; my priority is not me or her but us (and I don't mean this in a corny/cheesy way, and hence shielding us from her debts is a part of the solution, I hope, to protect our lives. Clearly if a debt company think that I will pay all of her debt, they're not going to let her get away with paying a bit of it. And so on. Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Moneytroubles_2

Nargleblast, thats exactly what I do with my OH xxx

Anonymousa

Nargleblast wrote: »

Hello Anonymousa and welcome. If you have been lurking round this site for some time then you will know that most people on here will not judge you, but will try and help. Does your OH visit this site? If not, then you could arrange to be on it when she is around and draw her attention to some of the useful hints and tips on some of the forums. You could show her any funny bits you found, and steer her into a discussion about how you both could save money, especially with a new arrival imminent. If she began to read some of the posts, she would see lots of desperate people in financial troubles, and maybe it would help her to have her lightbulb moment. Just an idea to be going on with.

She knows I'm on this site; not under this name and never been on this section. We've laughed at a thread or two, but I don't think this will work. The discussions regarding debt that we have had have been positive (about saving/ ensuring we have enough for emergencies) and she's allowed me to control finances. She has no credit cards. I've no doubt this is old old debt.

So I don't think the above would work. I need to tell her "I know you're in a lot of debt" and then tell her how I know.

But I wanted some advice first.

Anonymousa

Sarsie wrote: »

EDIT:
And I want you to know I and probably everyone here will be trying to keep you your lifestyle and your partner in so far as is possible!

I know this. Thanks.

never-in-doubt

Anonymousa wrote: »

I am also in a position to help her to pay/ sort out debt, but feel deceived that she hasn't told me. I also know, from reading others' stories, that she will have felt unable to tell me. But I can't give her time, can I? Because the debt will be getting worse by the day??

Advice please? And thanks in advance.

Hi

Going on from all the above, you sound a fair lad and respect to you for that. You're like me by the sounds of it, usually i'm the first to sit there and take the fight to the banks etc but to be honest a few things you mentioned made me think along a different tact, I think the answer to all this is she is ashamed to admit her debts and past.

Hey, nothing wrong with that - try and reverse it and see if you'd find it easy to tell someone you love that you're a failure (she isn''t by the way) - point is, just speak to her and don't mention the trust issue, just say you knew things weren't right - ask if you can help her through things, as the debts are with DCA's then you are in a good position to offer as little as 20% of the value and they will start to accept such offers, if done right.

Instead of thinking you've broken her trust - think more that you're doing it to help her and tell her as such, say you opened it cos you knew she was in trouble and you wanted to see to "what extent"

you clearly love her, so well done for being grown up and not being judgemental to her. :T

best of luck.

Nargleblast

How old is the debt? If the debt in question is more than six years old it may be statute barred. If it is just coming up to six years old then probably the DCA are having a final desperate push to try and squeeze some money out of her. It could even be unenforceable - for that you need to ask the advice of our friend Never in Doubt, he has his own Unenforceability thread on this forum.

If your house is in your name, and just your name is on the mortgage, then your home is secure. If you have no joint accounts of any sort with your OH then you are ok financially, and nobody will be after you to pay her debts. You therefore have a simple choice - 1) stay quiet, let her tell you in her own good time, or wait until debt collectors and court letters appear. 2) Confront her, quietly and gently, apologising for opening her letter but expressing your concern and your wish to help. Whichever you choose, it will be difficult, but what will be will be, and hopefully things will turn out ok in the end, for you, her and the little one.

Nargleblast

See, talk of the devil and he appears! Listen to the NID man, he knows his stuff!

Anonymousa

Nargleblast wrote: »

How old is the debt? If the debt in question is more than six years old it may be statute barred. If it is just coming up to six years old then probably the DCA are having a final desperate push to try and squeeze some money out of her. It could even be unenforceable - for that you need to ask the advice of our friend Never in Doubt, he has his own Unenforceability thread on this forum.

If your house is in your name, and just your name is on the mortgage, then your home is secure. If you have no joint accounts of any sort with your OH then you are ok financially, and nobody will be after you to pay her debts. You therefore have a simple choice - 1) stay quiet, let her tell you in her own good time, or wait until debt collectors and court letters appear. 2) Confront her, quietly and gently, apologising for opening her letter but expressing your concern and your wish to help. Whichever you choose, it will be difficult, but what will be will be, and hopefully things will turn out ok in the end, for you, her and the little one.

I've no idea how old it is! Because she won't be working (just started mat leave, unlikely to go back), and incidentally will be changing her name back from her married name, which the debt is in (she got divorced years ago), she will have very little they can take, so to speak.
Incidentally, one of the things that made me realise that everything might not be so rosey, was that she wouldn't join the electoral register here - in fact she stayed on it at the flat she rented, so not even at her parents (where the letters are going to).
Is it possible they won't trace her?

We have no joint accounts and it's only my name on the mortgage.

Also, someone please tell me if I've given out too many details. I've left it deliberately vague so far!

Anonymousa

never-in-doubt wrote: »

Hi

Going on from all the above, you sound a fair lad and respect to you for that. You're like me by the sounds of it, usually i'm the first to sit there and take the fight to the banks etc but to be honest a few things you mentioned made me think along a different tact, I think the answer to all this is she is ashamed to admit her debts and past.

Hey, nothing wrong with that - try and reverse it and see if you'd find it easy to tell someone you love that you're a failure (she isn''t by the way) - point is, just speak to her and don't mention the trust issue, just say you knew things weren't right - ask if you can help her through things, as the debts are with DCA's then you are in a good position to offer as little as 20% of the value and they will start to accept such offers, if done right.

Instead of thinking you've broken her trust - think more that you're doing it to help her and tell her as such, say you opened it cos you knew she was in trouble and you wanted to see to "what extent"

you clearly love her, so well done for being grown up and not being judgemental to her. :T

best of luck.

Thanks. I think the hardest step is going to be confronting her. I don't mean in a harsh way, but I think it will be a harsh thing to do.

Sarsie

No you're not, but you've got the question answered anyway, even if you never understood it!

So your priority is US not ME. Right so on with where I was going with that...

If your priority is US and what's best for you both as a unit then wfirst thing I'm gonna say is break with convention (for her certainly) and throw it all out there in the open. You're gonna need to sleep, but when you wake up in the morning I suggest the very first thing you do is come clean. Tell her what you did and what you now know.

She'll hit the roof, and no pregnant isn't a good time for it, but there's never a good time for it and you're gonna have a lot more on your plate when the baby is born. Listen to yourself, this has really got to you, waking up in the morning and pretending everything is Ok and the debt isn't happening is what got her to the point she's at. Being scared to lose you because you were valuable to her probably had a huge part in it too.

So I'm saying tomorrow, you need to fix both of those problems first off. The part where all the letters get opened as a couple and the truth starts to be peiced together one bit at a time happens later. The immediate first step is tell her and get that silent secrecy off her, second thing is make sure she understands you love her and aren't leaving her. Being angry at her wont help, but even though many would I don't hear anger in your writing, I hear fear. That's two scared people, the only way out is honesty.

The fact that she's due to have a baby only makes it more urgent, you will not have a braincell to yourself in 4 weeks time- not for weeks, for months even years with some kids. Babies teach you a whole new level of exhaustion. Exhaustion frays nerves and tempers and if this secret doesn't out itself now, in a good healthy way, it'll likely come out in a dreadful way, like halfway through a fight that started about who didn't put the bins out or somesuch. This is a problem caused by leaving things alone, the only answer is to deal with them. You've got to talk to her in the morning, you really have Honey.

I know Westcot well, (b*stards), there will likely be other debts too, in different stages of decay. We can't tell you what's gonna happen next till we know what the whole situation is, and no one's gonna know that till she's able to sit there and do a list of every every debt she has. That's not gonna happen till after that talk I am advising you to have, so I can't answer the questions yet Honey. That stage will come.

Anything they can do, they can't do tonight, they're not gonna do it tomorrow either, and even if they found out where she lives and with whom this very second taking your house or wealth away from you would take them months yet and can be stopped in its tracks. So, get some sleep and tomorrow start talking. Come clean, say you're not running from her you will help her and you love her, then when they crying and the shouting and the inevitable fight is through you can start on finding out what is actually IN those letters.

One bit at a time- first bit- no more secrets.