Wife Not Sticking To The Plan!

roryking

I need some help/advice. Here's the situation.

My wife and I both have our own bank accounts, plus a house account.

I've got a wage coming in from a shop job, it's enough to keep going month to month. Previously, we were both working full-time, and putting £500/month each into the house account for rent, bills, food, etc.

I'm debt free, and as of this time last year, she owed about £3000 on credit cards. (The long-term effect of getting a card at age 18 - 9 years ago - going on spending sprees with her friends, only making minimum payments, and letting the debt spiral from there by classing the card repayments as "another bill that gets paid each month").

Then, this time last year, she fell into depression, and had to go on long-term sick. She started getting ESA at about £60 a week.

Her contribution to the house account fell to £250 a month, leaving me to raise my input to £750 (the majority of my take-home pay).

Now, her credit cards have risen to about £5000, even with the majority of it on 0% deals, she's paying about £100 a month in minimum payments.

The problem lies herein:

1) She's now working 16 hours a week, but a lump of that goes towards the credit card. She's not getting ESA any more, and the rest of the money is going towards her petrol to get to work. (She applied for jobs nearer to home that were 25 hours, but cancelled the applications the day before the interviews because she "didn't feel it would work out")

2) She keeps saying she'll get an extra 8 hours a week or so of temp work to substitute the stopped ESA, but never actually does. It's always "next week", or "next month".

3) She keeps buying stuff "for the house" that we don't actually need - sometimes from the house account, and sometimes from her own account. These things include a new bathmat and shower curtain because "we've had the old one for a while" (not a value one, a £20 set), a Sky subscription (which she has offered to pay for but has set up the DD from the house account), some new bath sheets "because the old ones were losing their colour", and so on.

I've tried to help her as much as possible by getting her mobile onto a cheap SIM only deal, juggling her credit card debt onto 0% deals, and that kind of thing, but I just feel that she's not "getting with the programme", so to speak.

She is about £300 worse off overall today than she was this time last month, and getting deeper into debt every day.

The problem is that she won't listen. Well, she will listen, but she'll "agree" some actions to appease me, and then not actually follow them through. And at the same time, she says we should be aiming for a house deposit and want to have kids (both of which I'm all for).

What to do? I'm losing sleep over it (as you can tell, it's nearly 1am as I write this)

ska_lover

Hi there.

Fellow insomniac here.

Well it seems like you have already spoken to her about this, but have you asked her why she isn't following her promises through?

It does sound to me like she may still be depressed. Buying a few little nick nacks for the house rings alarm bells of this, maybe she's doing it to try and cheer herself up.

I do it myself, if im feeling low, I might treat myself to a pretty necklace or something - and as a female, it does actually work - for a short while....but I do keep spends to a minimum as we too are aiming for a house deposit, in fact in our house, I would say I am far better with money than hubby.

Try and be gentle and patient with her if you can. I mean only you can really know what goes on behind closed doors.You do need to speak to her, only she can tell you what is REALLY going on in her head. You need to tell her how it is effecting you, use sentances that start with ''I feel...'' Us females respond to that kinda stuff.

amyloofoo

Hi OP,

Sorry to hear about your situation, it must be really upsetting and I can see why you're losing sleep. I have been in the position of your OH with this. After getting credit cards young and later being diagnosed with bipolar (and all the manic spending that goes along with that) I was left with a lot of debt. When I was well I would try to get it in order and set up repayment plans which then fell to pieces when I became unwell and was forced to leave work or reduce my hours.

Even when I thought I was getting things in hand, I was spending stupid amounts on lots of little 'bargains' which I was certain we 'needed', i.e. buying lots of tat from ebay when I should have been selling etc. I got married to my OH in April last year and he comes from a very different financial background, wealthy parents so he's always been careful with money, definitely a saver rather than a spender etc. It sounds like your OH has found herself in a similar position.

The trigger for my 'lightbulb' moment regarding money was realising that now we were married, everything I did impacted on OH's credit rating, spending power, etc. I realised that all the things I wanted in the future, our own house, children, finally having enough savings to be able to learn to drive, etc were being jeopardised by my failure to tackle my spending issues. I sought treatment (cognitive behavioural therapy) and have since come up with a realistic plan which I am sticking to in order to reduce debts. I was absolutely mortified to think that my husband may miss out on having his own home and car, etc because of my reckless actions.

Is there something that you think could help your OH to have her LBM? You say you both want children and are you in a position where you'd be looking to get a mortgage soon, it may help to remind her how much more difficult these things will be if she doesn't formulate a sensible plan and stick to it. Are you certain that you know all of her debts? I know from personal experience that the embarrassment of being seen as the 'unreliable' partner can lead you to hide situations and let them get progressively worse.

It also sounds like your OH could need to seek help with her depression. Is she under the care of a psychiatrist or is she just seeing her GP? Are they aware of the full situation as debt and mental health issues can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, each worsening the other. Organisations such as Mind could be able to offer help and access to specialist services such as counselling or talking therapies. Also, are you getting your full benefit entitlements? You may be entitled to working tax credits, her depression may mean she's entitled to DLA (and therefore a higher tax threshold), if she's only working 16 hours then she may still be entitled to income support, etc. There are sites that can help you to discover if you're entitled to any more help.

Wishing you both the best of luck with your situation. Maybe you could encourage her to sign up on here for support, it could also help her to get people's opinions on where to save / cut down on her SOA.