Help! Misses has aquired massive debts

Ex-Big-Spender

From experience I know how annoying it is to have your other half wasting your hard-earned cash - but if you rant & rave at her she'll get defensive and not be able to listen to you properly.
You need to focus on getting out of the situation - coming up with an action plan will help you. Arguing and fighting about the problem won't get the £10k back !!
She obviously knew how upset you were going to be about this - that's why she sent you a text and didn't tell you face to face. Believe me, she will be more remorseful if you simply tell how how disappointed you are that she couldn't confide in you about this before.

Anyway - a couple of suggestions.
Cut up all interest acruing credit cards NOW.
Write down the debt and analyse where it is - credit cards / overdrafts etc.
Prioritise them into the highest interest order.
Get some 0% Balance transfer cards and swap the debt onto them.
STOP smoking / paying for DVD's / Takeaways.
Is there anything you can sell on Ebay ?
Can you do a car boot sale ?
Are there any subscriptions you can cancel - gym membership etc ?

Try to concentrate on working together to get out of this situation if you can.

JohalaReewi

Have just posted on the other duplicate thread in the CC forum.


It is not all as bad as it seems. 10K is not a huge debt these days (ask most graduates) and there is plenty of help out there but you need to get over the shock and take stock.

A good starting point is to read Martin's article about getting out of debt.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1103204730,72152,

There are links to debt counselling agencies in that article too which you might find useful.

What happens to all your stuff depends on who owns it. Your GF's debts are in her name so they are her debts not yours (unless they are in joint names) and only her assets can be seized to pay the debts off.

You might also be interested in a recent related thread...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=253985

Mirtos

To be honest, if I was your wife and you talked about me the way you have done on this forum, no matter what I'd done, I would leave YOU. Yes she has betrayed you, and her signing herself as your wife is worrying, but you clearly have very little respect or love for her anyway. If you want to resolve this, addressing her as a 'stupid cow' wont get you very far. Having said that, I DO understand why you are cross, but please bear in mind that she is doing a full time job (looking after your children) AS WELL as her evening job for cash. If you pay for everything, does she have any money of her own to spend ever? do you give her pocket money? I know from experience that being dependant on someone else for money, and not having any autonomy or control is soul destroying. Especially if she feels that she cannot work as she is expected to keep house/look after the kids (which no matter what anyone says is an exceptionally challenging and exhausting 24hour job). There are many reasons she could be in debt, and as far as I can see, there's no evidence YET that these are bad debts. She hasn't asked you for help, or said she expects you to take responsibility for the debts and as far as we know, she may be planning to deal with the situation herself. Really, you're making a lot of very negative assumptions about your gf on precisely no evidence. Why not calm down and then find out what the situation really is? I really hope this works out for both of you.xxx

lisa_75

dark_stranger wrote:

Its not like she has to pay any bills as I pay all them & buy all the food, etc so her money is hers or so I thought. If we didnt have kids, she would be out the door now! but its the fact that it effects all of us, not just the stupid cow.

I know you say you pay all the bills, but do you give her enough money for extras such as kids clothes, day trips, haircuts etc? This may be where the money has gone. She may not have been able to manage and did not know how to tell you.

I don't mean to be rude, but you sound quite controlling and bad tempered in your posts. My husband would never call me a "stupid cow" not in real life or on an internet forum.

missk_ensington

This might not be much consolation to the OP but I wish I had discovered my partner was in 10k of debt, unfortunately in a similar way to the OP I discovered 90k of debt! Needless to say, he isn't my partner anymore!

GreyPilgrim

Mirtos wrote:

She hasn't asked you for help, or said she expects you to take responsibility for the debts and as far as we know, she may be planning to deal with the situation herself. Really, you're making a lot of very negative assumptions about your gf on precisely no evidence.

Although she did use his name rather than her own...

Not making any accusations there...just throwing it in there for discussion like...

Anwen_2

lisa_75 wrote:

I know you say you pay all the bills, but do you give her enough money for extras such as kids clothes, day trips, haircuts etc? This may be where the money has gone. She may not have been able to manage and did not know how to tell you.

I don't mean to be rude, but you sound quite controlling and bad tempered in your posts. My husband would never call me a "stupid cow" not in real life or on an internet forum.

Quite. Frankly, I think his whole attitude is pretty awful, he's going to 'make her' do things and so on. Hardly sounds like a good model of a relationship for the kids, where Mum's spending G-d knows how much on credit, and Dad's treating her like a bad dog...

missk_ensington

Anwen wrote:

Quite. Frankly, I think his whole attitude is pretty awful, he's going to 'make her' do things and so on. Hardly sounds like a good model of a relationship for the kids, where Mum's spending G-d knows how much on credit, and Dad's treating her like a bad dog...

Errr what sort of attitude is someone supposed to have when they discover someone they throught they trusted has been hiding thousands of pounds worth of debt? 'Stupid cow' is quite tame compared to what my ex got when I found his debt, including my foot up his !!!! along with his bags.

Mirtos

GreyPilgrim wrote:

Although she did use his name rather than her own...

Not making any accusations there...just throwing it in there for discussion like...

NO, SHE SAID SHE WAS MRS XXX. She hasn't taken the debt in his name - and if he answered the phone, this could be a mistake from the operator? Of course it might not be, but the worst she's done is say they are married, which isn't that big a stretch if they are living together and have kids etc... All I'm saying is don't crucify the poor woman before he knows the truth- all he has are assumptions based on a phone call.

Mirtos

Anwen wrote:

Quite. Frankly, I think his whole attitude is pretty awful, he's going to 'make her' do things and so on.

I kinda have to agree. I'd be disgusted if anyone tried to behave like that to me. I can understand being cross, yes, disappointed? yes, feeling betrayed? yes, but that patronizing and disrespectful attitude and choice of language is hard to see past. On the other hand, just as I don't want to judge his girlfriend, I don't want to condemn the OP too much without knowing the full background IYSWIM.