Sort out finances after wife lost her job.

tallyhoh

durzoblint said:

I'll be paying off my credit card in full next month. My main issue is what to do with hers. I have the suspicion that if I help to pay hers off, then she will be free to accrue more debt or spend all her disposable income on frivolous stuff again. 
Ideally, I'd like to get into a position where if her job isn't extended after the 12 months, our finances are in a position where I can easily take on all the household expenses sans debts. 

Unfortunately I had to do this years ago. I thought my partner had a temporary problem with debt & even  didn't have any household contributions off him for years as I thought he was clearing his debts. Far from clearing his debts he was just accruing more. I have had to accept that this is some sort of personality disorder that will never change (it's been happening for over 50 years)  Now he has to hand over his share of the expenses and everything is in my name so I know its being paid. We have nothing in joint names whatsoever, it's too risky.
It was either handle it like this or split up. It might still come to that but so far its working.
I think you must do whatever it takes to protect your personal finances. While it may seem extreme to some couples its the only thing that's worked so far for us.

[Deleted User]

Good luck on your journey to becoming debt free. Your post really resonates with me as by the sounds of it me & your wife are pretty similar. My OH has a well paid job & as we mainly keep our finances separate this has allowed me to run up debts ‘in secret’. Shamefully this has happened more than once & my DH has supported me & cleared my debts. I am again on a debt free journey but my debt although high is manageable & I am determined to clear it myself. I think it does sound like your OH is a little depressed or she may have shopaholic tendencies like I have/had. It’s easy for others to just say stop spending but it is a lot more complicated than that. I really wish you & her well. 

durzoblint

MrsLincoln said:

Good luck on your journey to becoming debt free. Your post really resonates with me as by the sounds of it me & your wife are pretty similar. My OH has a well paid job & as we mainly keep our finances separate this has allowed me to run up debts ‘in secret’. Shamefully this has happened more than once & my DH has supported me & cleared my debts. I am again on a debt free journey but my debt although high is manageable & I am determined to clear it myself. I think it does sound like your OH is a little depressed or she may have shopaholic tendencies like I have/had. It’s easy for others to just say stop spending but it is a lot more complicated than that. I really wish you & her well. 

Thanks for your post, what was it motivated you to change your ways. I've caught my wife playing the lottery recently which I translated to mean "I won't be having this problem if I just had more money". 

[Deleted User]

There are a few motivating factors for me, I’m tired of spending a fairly large portion of my wage on debt repayments when I could be doing much more with that money. I want to be more financially responsible & not have to rely on my husband to bail me out & I want my family to have financial security in the future. I don’t suffer from depression as such but if I feel stressed or sad I do tend to spend more so I know my relationship with shopping & credit cards is not healthy. In all honesty I doubt I would ever be able to truly trust myself with a credit card as even with the best intentions I end up spending more than I intend to & am never able to pay it off in full each month. I have managed to rein in my spending drastically by following the KonMari method of decluttering & thinking differently about shopping. It’s sad your OH is now using online gambling but I do get that it does sound like she wants to win back some money as she probably thinks this will solve yours & her problems. If she is anything like me she likely does feel very ashamed of her actions but just doesn’t seem able to kick those compulsions to spend. It’s very complicated & not an easy addiction to overcome. I would say you need to let her own up to her actions though as if you constantly bail her out she’ll never learn, as I too well know.

spoovy

I too used to be a chronic overspender and ran up large debts despite having a high income. As another poster wrote, a lot of money is not unlimited money, and if your spending habits are sufficiently out of whack you can get into just as much trouble (or more) on a salary of £100k as on £20k. 

I realise now that my overspending was caused by a deep unhappiness with my life. I was buying things to try to fill a hole and each purchase helped, for a while at least. But it's like a drug addiction where you need to spend more each time to get the same effect, and the results are shorter lived each time.  It seems to me (of course I could be totally wrong and no offense intended) that your wife might be in a similar place.  If so trying to tackle the spending directly might not be the best approach, as you are addressing the symptom not the cause, and any success you do have will likely be temporary.

You need to address together what the root unhappiness is about (you mentioned you were struggling to conceive which seems a strong candidate) and then maybe you can both understand together what a laughably misguided attempt at a remedy buying new shoes is.

Of course I may be totally wrong so feel free to ignore my ramblings and I wish you both well.

Pollycat

durzoblint said:

MrsLincoln said:

Good luck on your journey to becoming debt free. Your post really resonates with me as by the sounds of it me & your wife are pretty similar. My OH has a well paid job & as we mainly keep our finances separate this has allowed me to run up debts ‘in secret’. Shamefully this has happened more than once & my DH has supported me & cleared my debts. I am again on a debt free journey but my debt although high is manageable & I am determined to clear it myself. I think it does sound like your OH is a little depressed or she may have shopaholic tendencies like I have/had. It’s easy for others to just say stop spending but it is a lot more complicated than that. I really wish you & her well. 

Thanks for your post, what was it motivated you to change your ways. I've caught my wife playing the lottery recently which I translated to mean "I won't be having this problem if I just had more money". 

I'm slightly uneasy about the bit in bold.

'caught her playing the lottery' seems to imply that you are micro-checking up on her.

I've been pretty vocal on your threads about your wife's secretive spending and your responses have been quite understanding of that.

So I do hope the bit in bold wasn't meant in the way I read it.

durzoblint

Pollycat said:

durzoblint said:

MrsLincoln said:

Good luck on your journey to becoming debt free. Your post really resonates with me as by the sounds of it me & your wife are pretty similar. My OH has a well paid job & as we mainly keep our finances separate this has allowed me to run up debts ‘in secret’. Shamefully this has happened more than once & my DH has supported me & cleared my debts. I am again on a debt free journey but my debt although high is manageable & I am determined to clear it myself. I think it does sound like your OH is a little depressed or she may have shopaholic tendencies like I have/had. It’s easy for others to just say stop spending but it is a lot more complicated than that. I really wish you & her well. 

Thanks for your post, what was it motivated you to change your ways. I've caught my wife playing the lottery recently which I translated to mean "I won't be having this problem if I just had more money". 

I'm slightly uneasy about the bit in bold.

'caught her playing the lottery' seems to imply that you are micro-checking up on her.

I've been pretty vocal on your threads about your wife's secretive spending and your responses have been quite understanding of that.

So I do hope the bit in bold wasn't meant in the way I read it.

Well a charge for the National Lottery turned up on the debit card i set up for groceries. i have no idea if she's also doing similar on her own debit card but this was the one i picked up on. I felt it was worrying but i've not brought it up with her and most likely won't.
We have made a plan for reducing our debts and saving up over the rest of the year and i'll just check in with her ina couple of months to see how that is going.   

[Deleted User]

@spoovy I totally hear you. I’ve been on a similar path. Wasteful spending on things you don’t need with money you don’t have. It’s a complicated addiction & there’s really a lot more to it than just being silly with money. I agree its most likely to be a symptom of a bigger issue, so if the posters OH does have the same issue me & you have had/have then that needs addressing or it’ll likely just rear its ugly head again in the future. I hope you have managed to control your addiction & wish you well in future. 

durzoblint

Utop1st said:

Maybe she can apply for social help. Like this, she will receive some money and you will not have so many expenses to pay

Thanks ! Like i mentioned in an earlier post, she has now gotten a job and we are working on paying down our debts at the moment. Fortunately we both get to work from home, so the money getting saved on transport is being redirected to paying off debts. 

enthusiasticsaver

I am glad that your wife has finally got a job and hopefully that £3k a month will help in reducing the debt.  I think your biggest issue is with your wifes' attitude to spending and as this is a fixed term contract and due to the pandemic the economy is fairly precarious and we possibly may be going into a recession I suggest clearing the debt/and or saving for both of you should be a priority. 
 If she is the type of partner who applies for credit cards secretly I would be looking to split finances.  Make her pay a contribution to the household expenses and leave her to sort her own debts out.  If she is not on board you are giving yourself lots of stress and fighting a losing battle. Another alternative is all money is joint but you each have separate spending money each month and food and fuel are paid for on a  credit card repaid in full.  That way you have transparency on finances and there is a limit to the money your wife has access to (barring her getting more credit cards secretly which I would be furious about.). That is the way we organise our finances but we do not have any debt.