Support from friends

andrea1968_2 · 6 February 2011 at 5:10PM

I hid my debt for many years, at first because I thought it was manageable and then because I thought I couldn't start telling people ( ie mom and dad, ) because I'd had it for so long. I think they would have been devastated a) because of the debt and b) because I'd not been able to tell them about it. So I ended up feeling totally isolated.

I told 1 close friend at work and she was very symathetic, which helped enormously, it felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

So apart from that one person, the only other person that I had to tell was my then still new OH, which was the biggie, as I didn't know if it would send him running to the hills.

Luckily for me he was fantastic and even though it took me 4 years to clear the debt he encouraged me throughtout and spurred me on when I thought I would never reach the end.

So I had 2 people who knew me and countless numbers on here, who all give advice and more importantly never judge - because most of us are on here for one reason - we've all been in the same situation just in varying degrees.

On here you can give away as much or as little as you feel comfortable doing and people will try and point you in the right direction, so if you don't want to open up to your friends/family you don't need to.

Good luck

barbiedoll · 6 February 2011 at 5:22PM

People tend to get a little nervous when a friend suddenly confides in them about money worries. Mostly because they think that they're going to be asked to lend a few quid! :eek:

Don't worry about your friend's reaction. Any problem seems easy to fix when it's not your problem. How many of us can honestly say that we haven't had a friend pour their heart out over relationships/family/work problems and secretly thought to ourselves "what a lot of fuss over nothing and anyway it's probably their own fault" etc etc. It's very easy to judge a friend in need and if your mate has never had money worries, he/she will struggle to understand how you ended up in this situation.

You can always offload your worries on here, we're non-judgemental, many of us have been in the same situation and best of all, we don't know you and we can't gossip about you! :T (You can tell us anything!!)