How relationships are affected by hidden debt

SueC_2

Prompted by several threads on here, plus personal experience, and the experience of all too many people I know (maybe I just mix in dubious circles), I'd be interested to get an idea of how likely it is that a relationship can survive one partner running up large scale debt and keeping it hidden from the other partner.

Not scientific I know, but I'd be interested to know your experience if you have been affected by this.

neverdespairgirl

Surely you need an option, "my relationship hasn't been affected by hidden debt"?!

SueC_2

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Surely you need an option, "my relationship hasn't been affected by hidden debt"?!

Not really... I was only interested in the survival rates of relationships that had been affected by hidden debt.

Anyone with a relationship not affected by hidden debt was kind of outside of my area of interest and I just didn't expect them to respond to the poll. Sorry if you felt left out.

Annisele

I know this wasn't your point, but I also think you're missing options.

What about when both partners ran up hidden debt? Or when one ran up hidden debt, and the relationship is carrying on quite nicely because the other never found out?

I think this one is more for anecdotes that polls. But unfortunately I can't help you either; the debt in my household has always been joint.

pogofish

Yes, it affected me when an ex started racking-up the debt, then trying and failing to keep a lid on it for a long time, before her situation became untenable. For a while I tried to do the right thing and put my resources behind her but it soon became obvious that I was only facilitating her problems, building-up unwanted debt myself and putting myself into an impossible position in the relationship.

Then, after things had completely gone to do-do, we split-up and she had tried to go-ghost on her problems, I was left with the challenge of keeping the roof over my head, which led to some fairly creative re-financing and a very long period of remembering all the childhood lessons in thrift that my late gran (a woman who had known true poverty!) taught me.

It took a while and for the first two/three years I had next to no disposable income whatsoever - payments ans subsistence only but a promotion at work helped me become more stable and things progressed more evenly since then. I finished paying off the house last year.

whitewing

I think it would be greatly affected by whether you had children together.

I also think the danger of doing a poll like this is that it may terrify some people, who may be so scared of the results that they can't face the discussions. I would keep the thread as it is interesting but lose the poll.

FBaby

I vote although as it didn't work, it was ex partner!

Saying that, although the debt was the catalyst, i am not sure it was the only reason. It brought up lack of trust and respect which led to lack of love, but maybe if love had been stronger in the first place and we hadn't had the other stresses in our lives, maybe things might have been different.