Partner recently discovered my hidden debts

Mojisola

illegally_blonde wrote: »

he has now asked to see my bank statements to see where the money has went

Make sure he understands all the expenditures and that he starts paying a larger share of them in the future.

yan101_2

my partner has never known how bad its been, she should have to worry about it as its my bad debt. i am the only earner so i took care of it. my worry was my dad, when i eventually told him what i owed he said i should have gone to him years ago when he could have helped, sometimes hiding it get you deeper in the brown stuff

evie451

i have read throught the thread and wanted to post support as well illegally blonde. I went through this with my now ex many years ago. He earned double what I did and expected me to pay half the bills because that was fair apparently.....He wanted a family and wouldnt agree to me going to university (I was younger than him) as he didnt want to wait to have kids. This made it hard for me to get a better paid job so while I was having to buy work clothes from charity shops to pay my half he was swanning about in designer suits.

He hated having to think about budgetting or anything and liked to spend money as he pleased. Basically when he found out we were in debt he didnt speak to me for around 18mths. You need to change your fiances attitudes now not later, get it all out in the open and keep it a subject you can both discuss whenever you need to......:D

KeepFighting_2

illegally_blonde wrote: »

Just wondering for the people who were in the same situation as me- how long did it take for your partner to start talking to you again & getting back to some sort of normality? I know things won't heal overnight but he's still barely speaking 2 words and looks constantly miserable.

We were supposed to sit down and discuss finances and how much I could pay to the dmp etc. he hasn't mentioned any of this which leads me to believe he isn't interested in trying to fix this broken relationship. He is terribly hurt by all of this and it kills me seeing what I've done to him.. But there is worse things and the sooner we can try and mend it, the sooner we can see if we have a future together, ie if he can trust me again.

I was in a a similar but identical situation. Nothing is ever completely the same. I hid form my wife £102,000 of debt and we had been married for over 20 years. Why did I do it I do not really no apart from fear of admitting that we did not have teh moeny to pay for our lifestyle (my wife is not extravagant but I never liekd to dissapoint her).
It was not my first time that I had run into trouble finacially but it is definitley the last.
Two themes come out
1) Trust - my wife does not trust me now but in time she has begun to a little bit. However she has bad days and good days you have to accept it.
2) Anger - My wife was very angry for at least a year she could not understand why I did not stop it, talk about it , allow it to happen.
It took my wife at least two years to come to terms with it she did however help sort it out and provide support but she did not contirbute any of her savings it was my fault not hers I had to sort it out. We are still together but it will never be the same. however maybe that is for the better as we do noe talk about money on a regular basis I do not feel bad if we cannot afford things.
The best advice I can give is
1) Time - it will take time and patience for your OH to calm down. do not pressure them it is raw at the moment. But they do have to face up to it.

2) Do you want to stay together if so fight for it. Take the lead.
If I can offer anymore advice let me know. I could be typing all day otherwise.

Mojisola

KeepFighting wrote: »

Why did I do it I do not really no apart from fear of admitting that we did not have teh moeny to pay for our lifestyle (my wife is not extravagant but I never liekd to dissapoint her).

It took my wife at least two years to come to terms with it she did however help sort it out and provide support but she did not contirbute any of her savings it was my fault not hers I had to sort it out.

So you ran up debts spending money on your wife and she refused to help with her personal savings when she realised you were in debt?

What's yours was hers and what's hers stays hers? Dreadful!

KeepFighting_2

Mojisola wrote: »

So you ran up debts spending money on your wife and she refused to help with her personal savings when she realised you were in debt?

What's yours was hers and what's hers stays hers? Dreadful!

Sorry should have explained. We have four children she was very scared. As we could have lost everything even if she had contributed her savings then it seemed like throwing good money after bad. At the end of the day if I had failed to change she would have been left with nothing and so would our children. Can only say that I understood her position and was always adamant that this should not affect her. She never asked me to spend the money and I deceived her for 8 years.

KeepFighting_2

What news have you made any progress?

illegally_blonde

Hi Keepfighting- we have made some progress.. He spoke to me properly last night (the first in nearly 10 days!) and basically said that he is still very angry and p**sed off about the whole situation, but that he loves me too much to walk away. He also said that when we move house he wants to be the only one on the mortgage as he doesn't trust me not to run up huge debts against. I probably wouldn't even have a choice to be on it anyway since I'm entering a DMP.

It's a step in the right direction but it's going to be a very long road to recovery and it's going to take a good while until all my debts are paid. He had hoped that we would be booking our wedding next month but all those plans are up in flames because of my own stupidity.

A harsh lesson I have learned. Now just to concentrate on paying off everything I owe and learning to stick to a budget, and more importantly communicating and discussing our finances on a regular basis.

There will be no more 2nd/3rd chances after this so I am determined to try and fix things and never make the same mistake again!

The advice & support on here has been great, and it's good to hear things from other peoples point of view as I wasn't 100% to blame for the financial mess I got into.. (just 99.9%!)

jayII

illegally_blonde wrote: »

Hi everyone,
....

We had some savings that was meant to be for a house/wedding but he has let me use this to repay the payday loans, the rest of the debt I am planning on entering a DMP. With his help, I can have the debt repaid in 2-3 years.

I am just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with hiding debts? And did your partner/husband eventually come round?

I'm terrified of losing him, we have been together 7 years and I love him so much, I was just too scared to tell him sooner incase he left me. He says he still has to make a decision whether to give me another chance. I should mention that in my early 20's I ran up debt but that was through wreckless spending, this time the debts are more for living expenses/nursery fees. Not that it makes it right, it definitely doesn't. I should have faced up to this sooner, if I had done this 2 years ago things wouldn't have been half as bad.


Anyone got any good advice or been through similar? I can't eat or sleep for worrying

illegally_blonde wrote: »

He had no idea I was struggling because I didn't communicate with him.. And we didn't budget together, something which I now know is essential. He worked hard to pay off his loans and credit cards, he now has no debt & thought we were singing from the same hymn sheet.

He's decided not to go out now, so we will probably chat tonight, it will either go one way or another.. I'm hoping he can forgive. I've been very foolish and I will have to accept that I can never be trusted with money, I'm totally and utterly useless with it. Time to change though, fingers crossed its not too late.

illegally_blonde wrote: »

He's gave me the 2.5K out of his savings to pay off the payday loans.. (ridiculous I know, will never ever touch these companies again, the interest on them is partly why i'm in this situation) he's also gave me another £300 towards one of the catalogues.. Which is one step forward. He has another 5K in savings which he is reluctant to give me, as he doesn't trust me not to get in the mess again - so he could give me the 5K then he think's i might run up all the debt again and leave him with nothing! Totally understand where he is coming from. As he has made it clear that if he forgives me this time, there won't be a second time and he wants to keep the savings.

It was mainly expenditure for nursery/food etc. However, there are a couple of things which I could have cut back on myself, like new dress's for nights out... but he know's that i haven't been using it to live lavishly, as he has now asked to see my bank statements to see where the money has went, because he doesn't see me with lots of new clothes/new shoes/bags or whatever.

Hi Illegally_blonde.

I hope you are feeling a bit better about it all. I just want to ask, would he have been able to pay off his debts and put money into savings if you hadn't been subsidising his living expenses (albeit with payday loans etc)?

I'd say that both debts and savings are joint, in the circumstances!

It's all very well for him to save money, but surely he could have made himself aware of your joint expenses and checked that all was okay from time to time. I wouldn't say you can't be trusted with money, but that is down to your judgement.

I honestly don't believe the debt is 99% your fault. It was BOTH your living expenses, not yours alone! I can't believe he is still punishing you! In your position (by now) I'd be telling him I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay with such an unsupportive and unfair partner!

illegally_blonde

Sorry, I should have explained- the savings weren't 'ours' as such, his dad gave him money from a payout that he got when he retired & we put it in ISA's So we didn't save any of it ourselves..I just referred to it as 'savings' but we technically didn't save it up, (even though it was still his money to do as he wished, we were keeping it for house/wedding)