boyfriends debt???

dogwoof

its tricky ..

for months my boyfriend of 5yrs who i live with didnt have a full time job, and i did, therefore i paid all the rent £800 each month, all the shopping, gas, water, heating bills, etc etc. he agreed to give me most of his wages to repay me. and at first i kept a record of the amounts e gave me each month, but then i got waylaid and didnt have a record of the total amounts he owed me.

he got a new job in august and full time and gave me his wages to repay me each month. i have not spent one thing on myself for absolutely months and months. the money has went on shopping, bills rent, etc etc. emergencies.

now the trouble is i dont know how much exactly he owes me. or if the debt is clear. ideally i would just like us to each get our own full wage then he gives me half of the rent, half of the bills, (cos i do the paperwork) and then he can go and spend the rest of his money on whatever he likes. and me vice versa. he says he'll be paying me his wages til he's 40 but i dont want that.

what should i do? we had a small argument about it, i need to sort it. do i continue with him giving me his wages for november and december and then in the new year forget the debt. cos he has started another new job (with the wages being alot more) and call it a fresh start? just for the sake of it.

trouble is he told me that he went out and bought a gadget thing for over £100 today, he'd been saving bits of money up, i was partly upset as i thought he claimed all the money he was giving me was all that he had, that means he had other money and he could have given it towards bills, shopping, other stuff etc. should i be mad?

he said he's taking it back as he feels guilty, should he? i said if you want it keep it, he said oh if it was you buying stuff, i wouldnt mind, but its him that owes me money.

ive wanted to buy myself a new mobile and perfume for months but i havent been able to cos i had to use the money to pay for everything, part of me just thinks how selfish. even he could have bought me something that would have been nice after everything ive done for him. i dont ask for much. he's certainly not romantic. we didnt even get each other birthday presents cos money was tight.

ontop of the rent, bills and shopping, i had to pay for alot of his stuff, like getting his stuff out of storage £400 i paid or else they were going 2 take it to an auction. and i also paid £350 for him to see a private dentist because a normal dentist wouldnt take him (he had terrible pain with a nerve in his tooth) i had to pay it to see him out of misery. then i had to pay alot of money for his dog (he caught fleas) and i paid for a new bed, flea treatment, sprays, powder and frontline which cost alot. all of these were not my problems.

what do i do? should i be angry with him. just last weekend i hired a car for the weekend, used our money to buy a computer, paid for lunch, food, and other things in the day and i jokingly said don't spose youve got any money (when buying lunch and that) and he said no, so does that mean he was lying. all in all that day i spent about £70 + computer £560 yet it was for both of us, he could argue well i gave you all my wages but then i find out today he's gone out and spent £100 on something for himself?

please i dont know what to do? is he being selfish, how do i work out what/if he owes me still?

geordie_joe

Personally I don't think you should be in business with this person.

First he can't finance the partnership then when he can he has the cheek to save a little to spend on himself.

You "carried" him when he was down and now you can't work out how much he owes you.

You'd be better off dumping him because it's a sure bet he will dump you one day.

Forgive the sarcasm, but in my day couples helped each other and didn't count it as a debt.


He was short of money for a while and you covered for him, in the future you may be short of money through not having a job and he will cover for you. How will you feel, when you find work again, and he expects you to hand over all your wages until you have repaid him. And when he gets angry every time you buy something for your self when you still owe him money. "You bought perfume! You could have given me the money to pay off more of your debt!"

C_Ronaldo

He shouldnt have kept some money aside or he should have been honest about it, is there anymore money hes kept hidden, you need to talk to him sort it out

geordie_joe

C_Ronaldo wrote: »

He shouldnt have kept some money aside or he should have been honest about it, is there anymore money hes kept hidden, you need to talk to him sort it out

Why not? The OP says "he agreed to give me most of his wages to repay me". Most does not mean all.

jamesd

Sounds as though he paid you most of his wages but that isn't the main problem here.

You need to work out what your split of paying the bills was and go back and calculate how his portion of that built up. Then you'll have some idea of what he still owes. At the moment neither of you does and you're both getting upset or guilty over it. That's not fair to either of you.

So: go back and work out what he should have been paying, what he did pay, what he's paid so far. Make sure that he agrees with the calculation and that it is scrupulously fair. Then sort out how to get caught up over say the next year. At least four times as long to get caught up as it took to get behind, because while catching up he has to pay the current bills. Don't forget to add interest at the after tax rate being lost on the money not being in your savings account - that's money you're losing and needs to be part of the calculation to be fair to you.

Also try to arrange it so each of you gets a good bit of take-home pay for whatever each of you wants, whether it's saving or spending or a mixture. And this may mean delaying most of the repaying until the new year's job.

You may be inclined to save but that doesn't mean that he has to be, provided that the bits that you agree are being taken care of.

Effectively this is setting up a system of shared bills and loans for times when one of you can't keep up for whatever reason. It should offer complete clarity for who's paying what and who owes what to the loan and shared bills pools at any particular time.

Once the loan repaying is done, you can look into building up a shared emergency fund balance for the shared bills, with each of you gradually paying in extra to the point where the pot contains enough savings to cover at least three months of bills, better six months, for each of you. That way the next time either of you changes job there will be a cushion that can be drawn on to keep paying the bills out of that person's part of the emergency fund. And then neither of you will need to have this particular stress over the short term ups and downs of work. As with the repayment part, allow at least four months to accumulate each month's worth of the target amount, so it doesn't hurt to do it.

Don't just write off part of the money. Better to account for it and be generous with nice comfortable times for repaying it. Even if you're accounting for the money, you can be more generous than a bank about repayments. At the moment you're worse than a bank because upsetting you hurts far more than paying interest. And hurts you as well. That's a bad deal for both of you. So set up proper accounting and make sure that it's not more expensive emotionally to help each other out than to use a bank for it.

You'll also need to consider whether he agrees with the "both of us" view of pooled finances for you deciding when to buy a computer or whatever else. It might be helpful to have a shared pot that you keep track of for such things so that each of you can agree how much you want to put into the pot and what you want to buy with it. And you each then get to continue to have your own personal pot to do with as you like, without discussing with the other one.

Once you're both happy you could gradually shift more of your individual incomes into the shared pool, eventually maybe to 100% shared. Or not - different relationships work differently, some go shared, some don't.

lindseykim13

When me and my husband were dating, he lost his job and i covered him and the bills until he found another, then a few months later i had to leave my job whilst pregnant (try finding a job when your expecting ha) he covered me then.
The point i'm making is if you love eachother then you will look after eachother, it works both ways.
Don't get caught up in bills as that will ruin any fun in your relashonship, as long as they are getting paid and your not in debt thats all that matters.
From your post this doesn't just seem like a money issue seems he need a kick up the !!! to treat you with a bit more respect (they all need it from time to time) lol
Come to some arangement where you pay certain bills and he pays the others. Give him those bills to sort out himself sounds like he needs to learn how to pay them and to grow up a little, if you do all the paperwork he won't ever undersatand the pressure of making sure the bills are paid on time.

If your in this for the long run then a joint bank acount would be the easiest option, all wages in all bills out there will be nowhere to hide (works for some couples)

I think you need to draw a line in the sand now forget past debt and make a new plan now! so that you don't end up in this situation again. all the best.

geordie_joe

lindseykim13 wrote: »

When me and my husband were dating, he lost his job and i covered him and the bills until he found another, then a few months later i had to leave my job whilst pregnant (try finding a job when your expecting ha) he covered me then.
The point i'm making is if you love eachother then you will look after eachother, it works both ways.

Well said, that's how it should be.

lindseykim13 wrote: »

From your post this doesn't just seem like a money issue seems he need a kick up the !!! to treat you with a bit more respect (they all need it from time to time) lol

Why does he need a kick?????

If it's because he bought himself a gadget then consider this. The OP first said

he agreed to give me most of his wages to repay me

Then said

i was partly upset as i thought he claimed all the money he was giving me was all that he had,

Sounds like a typical female to me, being told they were getting most of his money then some twisting that to mean they were getting it all.

I also like the

even he could have bought me something that would have been nice after everything ive done for him. i dont ask for much.

Bit!

(Aimed at the OP not lindseykim13)

Excuse me love, you paid all the bills when he was out of work, but they are paid and now you are only paying half of them again AND you are getting an extra chunk of his wages over and above what is need for his share of the bills.

You can afford to buy your own mobile and perfume now!

Do you really want him to give you most of his wages then spend what he has left on you too!

Like I said earlier, dump him and save face before he dumps you.

You haven't got the slightest interest in giving him anything and seem obsessed with getting back what you have had to give as soon as possible.

and i also paid £350 for him to see a private dentist because a normal dentist wouldnt take him (he had terrible pain with a nerve in his tooth) i had to pay it to see him out of misery.

You HAD to pay to end his misery!!! What is he going to do when he discovers there's girls/women out there that would do that because they wanted to?

roxalana

I think it depends on what you agreed when he initially could not pay his way.

From your post it sounds like you didn't exactly agree that he would pay you back once he was earning more, it sounds like it was an arrangement where he paid what he could but that you hadn't said explictly that you were loaning him the money for the rent and bills etc until a later date. If you were expecting it back, I assume you would have continued to keep a record.

I think it will be difficult for you to say now that you've estimated what he owes and ask for the money back and if you do try to do that I think it will be a recipe for more rows.

I know that you will be out of pocket if you just start afresh and ignore the fact you have been paying out all these months, but as lindseykim says relationships are about give and take - if the situation was reversed would he support you?

If I were you I would take the time now to divide everything equally so from now on you each pay your way. You also need to discuss what your money priorities are so that you are both saving for emergencies etc - we have a joint account for bills etc where we pay in extra for surprise costs but separate a/cs for spending money.

That will hopefully stop you getting annoyed if he buys stuff for himself (I get annoyed with that sort of thing too!)

It would be nice if he paid you a token amount back or got something nice for you (it would be courteous!) but you can't force him really!

melancholly

sounds complicated! whether he owes you 20p or £2000 isn't really the big issue as i see it - you have different attitudes to money, and you also clearly resent having to carry him financially for so long (and i'm not saying you're wrong - i'd struggle to be ok with paying for someone for months, then watching them pour money down the drain on needless gadgets...!).

perhaps you both need to go through what needs to be paid every month. maybe if he had a bit more control of his financial matters he might realise what things cost. it would also share the 'burden' with you. i wouldn't be comfortable paying money to someone every month if it wasn't all broken down into exact costs!

i also think it's pretty poor of him not to get you something (even just a bunch of flowers!) to show that he appreciates you looking after money matters for so long, but then again, perhaps his pride is dented because he needed to be carried so he doesn't want to remind himself? accepting charity can be diffcult..... and the more you obsess over a few pounds here and there, the worse he will feel. it could be a very sore point with him....

i don't have any quick fix solutions, except to say that you two need to sit down and talk it out and find something that will work that both of you are happy with. it's hard to give anything more specific beacuse, unlike some other posts on here, we don't know the full story, or what he's thinking, and sexist generalisations just don't help!

good luck - but sort it out asap or this will rot through the rest of the relationship!

anewman

A relationship shouldn't be a financial arrangement IMO or it's doomed to arguments and a potential split later down the line, unless the person losing the money is the sort who sits next to the drain throwing tenners down, and is happier the more they throw away.

I think for some people a relationship becomes more of a nice way of life and a "convenience" - somewhere to live, someone to cook and clean, someone to pay for things, than the loving relationship the other person might be thinking.

If I was him I'd be trying my best to do right by you, firstly by doing my absolute best not to take any money from you in the first place. And if I had to repay you money I'd try my best to get it back to you ASAP.

As for the £350 for dentist, I am in a kind of similar situation at the moment, although no pain at present, but would not ask my girlfriend for the money. So I can appreciate this scenario. NHS dentist are a mess right now. I went to an emergency dentist, he scraped decay away and put in a temporary filling and prescribed anti-biotics. He said I must see a dentist to get the tooth removed. I go to the dentist and all he can say is there's a waiting list at the hospital but it's closed, but you can pay us £300 if you like. There has to be a way to get treatment free but I haven't found it yet.

Kaminari_2

I had a similar thing in my relationship.

When i met my OH he had some debts that I paid on the condition that he sorted out his finances. We then went through his finances with a fine tooth comb to get them all sorted. We worked out a payment plan for all debts, rent and bills and repayments for me with enough left over to live on and so he had his own money, then i left him to manage this plan. I made him pay me back because i believe he had things to learn about money and management and never wanted him to think he could just spend spend spend while i cleaned up the mess. That was a very long time ago (all his debt long gone) and while we split the rent and bill we don't really keep tabs on anything else. If he was out of work now i would definitely cover him for anything without payment back and i know he would do the same for me. We are now a team and on equal ground.

It would depend on how long you had been together but if i was in your situation i would work out a fair total of what you both believe is owed. Make sure you both agree. Then work out how much he can afford to pay you out of each pay, after rent/bills/other debts that would leave him enough to live on and buy himself (and maybe you) some luxuries. Once you work out how much this is organise for it to be transfered to your account as soon as he gets paid by standing order until the amount he owes is paid off. If you do this you both know exactly where you stand and it will avoid arguments.

I know you have struggled for a very long time and given up a lot for him but if he gives ALL his spare cash without leaving any for himself he might come to resent you, especially if you start to spend it. It is not nice to be indebt to someone else, it can creates an equality imbalance and destablise your relationship.

Anyway goodluck!