Sad day

Mojisola

margaretclare wrote: »

You may have to be very certain that none of this debt has your name on it, otherwise you'll certainly be landed with it.

As they are married, both assets and debts with be considered shared when the financial part of the divorce is organised.

esmerelda98

The £9000 to the catalogues is your business. I would argue that the £20,000 to her mother is not. Let her sort that out on her own.

JoW123

Bendigo wrote: »

Sorry to offload all this on you all but here goes...along with quite a few other things my wife and I are separated, but a financial issue was the straw that broke the camel's back.


Our relationship was already on it's !!!! but we strived to resolve it and be a family for our beautiful children, aged 5 & 8.


My wife always had money issues and shopping addiction, so much so we've remortgaged twice, got a secured loan and borrowed shed loads off our parents to pay off her debts.


Finally we did an IVA for 6 years at £700 pcm. It finished in February and I saw light at the end of the tunnel.


I was working overtime one Saturday morning and asked if we owed money elsewhere. I was thrilled we had cleared off all our debts and was in a good place.


She texted back we owed catalogues £9000 and her Mum £20 000.


Yes that's right, after scrimping & saving for years when we was in the IVA we're even worse off than we was.


There are other reasons and money's not everything but I've decided to try my luck on my own. I've gone all the way through my 30s skint and I turned 40 in March.


I never planned to ever leave her but enough's enough and I've been taken for a fool.


Today's our 12th wedding anniversary and I'm broken.

You have my sympathy. I was at this point 5 years ago. I can still remember the heartache, the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when another debt was uncovered, the lack of trust and the lies he told. In my case he had (and still has) a gambling addiction.


I wanted to post to tell you that you might be broken now but you won't always be. It takes time and there's less money on your own, but at least I know my money is mine to sort out and no one is hiding it or running up debts. I would advise some counselling to help you through it all. My situation is different in that I'm female and I have the 2 children full-time with me, although they do see their dad and he is involved. Take small steps and turn to your family/friends to help you through.

SuzieSue

Mojisola wrote: »

As they are married, both assets and debts with be considered shared when the financial part of the divorce is organised.

I that is what I thought, but that's not what happened when my OH got divorced. They had been married for 20 years and had 3 kids. The assets were considered to be joint, but any debts in is sole name were considered to be his alone.

BigAunty

esmerelda98 wrote: »

The £9000 to the catalogues is your business. I would argue that the £20,000 to her mother is not. Let her sort that out on her own.

Why is her sly purchase of 9k of tat from catalogues the OPs problem? If it's a joint account, there will be a legal liability.

To the OP - yes, she received the goods at work but did you not notice lots of extra clothes, shoes and household goods at home? 9k buys an awful lot of items unless its designer label.

My partner is very thrift and frugal and perhaps this is why I notice straight away if they have so much as a new tee-shirt.

I'm not finger pointing by the way - someone with any type of compulsive behaviour/addiction will develop the most sophisticated and systematic ways of hiding it and this includes hiding the true extent of their problem from themselves.

BigAunty

Bendigo wrote: »

She makes me out to be the villain for calling it a day.

Clearly, she doesn't want the relationship to end. You are the one initiating the breakup, hence the main reason why she is directing her anger at you. This sounds like quite a standard reaction to the unwanted and surprise end of a long-term relationship, so far, so normal.

A secondary reason is that it has exposed to her the degree of her problems with money -with no-one challenging it, she always believed that it was okay. You've disrupted this viewpoint. It is very unwelcome to her that her behaviour is unacceptable. This may be impossible for her to accept so she has turned the blame on you.

I'm not saying that she's mercenary and she now realises the gravy train is over and that the easy purchase of goods is going to be much harder without your financial support.

How much of her debt did you pay off - what was the extent of your subsidy of what amounted to her personal debt? She knows she's on her own for a problem she probably considered was a joint thing to resolve so she can't be happy at that.

Is it worth you checking whether she's managed to take out any secured loans on the property? By right, this should not be possible for a jointly owned property (if that's what you have) without your consent and knowledge but we do see instances on the housing forum and in the news where a spouse has forged signatures. I think you can check this out quite cheaply by downloading a report from the land registry website.

I take it that she's quite furtive about her mail? My partner and I happily leave our bank statements and personal mail around the house and know where we file our paperwork. Chances are that if she has extra debts to those that you are aware about, she's got a secret stash of other creditors letters (perhaps stored at work?).

BigAunty

Bendigo wrote: »

It's a mess. I just want to sell the house asap.

Is it jointly owned and has she consented to the sale? Do you think she might sabotage it? Is she currently working or is she a stay at home mum?

I had a friend who was debt prone for the 20+ years that I knew her. I am convinced that she had a blithe attitude to living within her means because she had a deep belief that she deserved and was entitled to a particular standard of living, that it was her right and due to have luxury items, expensive holidays and active social life.

So is your wife going meekly along with your plans to offload the family property and perhaps move into rented accommodation or does she have an embedded belief around entitlement?

I'm surprised she would give up the family property when she clearly likes the goodlife.

BigAunty

To the OP, you may find support and allies on the debt free wanabee board as it includes posts from debtors or their partners that discuss the impact of secret debts on their relationship. Here's a couple of relevant posts.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5030282


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4866803

Bendigo

Firstly, thanks for you all of your replies and kind words. Just had my kids for a few hours so that's been lovely.
I spoke to CAB and they said that anything in my name is my responsibility. There's one catalogue with over a grand on. I never applied for it so that was another shock.
She's living with her Mum, and our kids, and I have them as much as I can.
She's hoping the house sells soon to use the equity to pay off some of her debt. I'll use mine to buy stuff for a place I intend on renting.
I just need to get the damn place sold.
It's tough period of my life and has been a difficult year so far, but I'm adamant I'll get on my feet and move on.
My kids mean the world to me and she knows that. As long as they're happy then so am I. So far they've been OK.

thorsoak

You need to get legal advice asap : I take it that you are happy to pay maintenance to your OH for the children, and that you will lose any child tax credits (if any) if you are the non-resident parent.

Be aware that if she takes legal advice she could also change her mind about selling the house and settling up her debts, and apply to the courts to be able to stay in the house until the children are adult/out of education.