First Steps to Solvency

getmore4less

I think what has bothered me most about this...

you put the trust in your wife to manage the spending and she has let her family down big time.

There is progress on addressing this but I wonder if it is time to go full on guilt trip  and accept this is going to be tears all the way if you have to take back control.

Can she do better,  I very much doubt it.

She has a good un, I think she knows it but is struggling to deal with the new you where her manipulations have stopped working.

Purplelady65

First of all congratulations on day 37! That’s a massive achievement considering where you were around 40 days ago. Over the last 37 days there appears to have been a massive shift in your mindset - by far the biggest shift since you first started this thread. Restricting access to money seems to have really worked for you. That’s probably the one action that has resulted in the best outcome for you and has the greatest impact on your behaviour and outlook. Maybe keep your money restricted for as long as you possibly can so these new habits become more firmly embedded. 

Re your wife’s overspending and attitude towards your earnings this has been a common, recurring theme since you started this thread. There did seem to be a shift in her attitude when she was selling lots of stuff but she seems to have reverted back to type over the past week or so. There’s been loads of suggestions made on this thread about what action you could take so I won’t add to what’s already been covered lots of times. It makes me think of someone trying to lose weight. I’ve had friends start off joining the gym, buying a smartwatch, changing their diets and then they start to lose the weight and it’s all exciting. Then after the initial weight loss it takes longer and more effort to lose weight. It becomes a hard tedious slog then the odd bar of chocolate, bag of crisps start finding their way back into the diet, gym sessions get missed and before they know it they’re back where they started. I’m wondering if your wife is at the ‘finding it a boring slog stage’ even though she does have an allowance to treat herself - just not as much as she’s been used to as unlimited spending has been the norm for many years. 

Out of interest do you know of the items you and your wife sold what they cost in the first place? I’m just wondering if the gap between what you originally paid and what you sold the items for provided any value for money? It might be a useful exercise for you both to see what value you get from your spending. Maybe work out a coat per wear to see what value you get from items. For example, if your wife had a coat that cost £800 and you sold it for £400 how many times did she actually wear it? What does the cost per wear work out at? It might make her think about what value she might get from high priced items. 

Re the adverts yes, that’s correct the adverts will be targeted depending on what sites the user has visited. Some apps listen in as well. I had a conversation with my daughter one evening about Kurt Geiger handbags. A few hours later she received on her mobile adverts for Kurt Geiger handbags! Scary stuff! 

You’re both on a learning journey and trying to develop new habits so it’s going to take time to embed them. I know a while ago you were reading Atomic Habits but have you read Tiny Habits by B J Fogg? I think it’s a great book (better than Atomic Habits). It has a simple formula: 

B = MAP

Behaviour = Motivation (M) Ability (A) Prompt (P)

Behaviour happens when Motivation & Ability & Prompt converge at the same moment. 

This can either be a negative behaviour or a positive behaviour. If everything is aligned then the Behaviour is easier. So in your case when you were doing coke you had the motivation to buy it so you could feel differently, you had the ability as you had access to money and you had a prompt which was the desire or craving for it. For a positive behaviour say if someone wanted to do more exercise then if MAP is in place they are more likely to carry out the new behaviour. BJ Fogg advocates to change a negative behaviour then you have to remove one of the three prompts. In your case you have removed Ability. If you applied this to your wife’s spending then she has Motivation - she likes buying things and showing them off to friends on IG, Ability - she has access to money to buy the items and Prompt - messages from her friends and IG adverts. When she was off IG the Prompts weren’t there so that reduced her spending. Now she’s back on it then all aspects of MAP are aligned. 

Apologies if you have across something similar in your therapy but I really like the simplicity of it. The author gives an example of wanting to watch less tv so packed the tv away in the garage with all the cables (he reduced Ability). Then when he wanted to watch tv he had to go into the garage, carry it into the house, unpack it and cable it all back up again. Consequently he watched a lot less tv. The book goes into lots more detail about starting off new habits, developing new habits and embedding them and has lots of useful information in it. Just thought you might find it of interest if you hadn’t come across it before. 

alt80

Day 37 through, only one more sleep to the football final, this house is getting a bit anxious now haha. 

Had a conversation with wife re cards/ access/ her being an additional cardholder on a lot of cards that I'm trying to pay off / haven't been used in a while. Told her I'm seriously considering closing card accounts that are not really used anymore and closing our amex card which is what we currently use for everyday spends (still the odd few places don't accept amex so those spends end up on another card). Plan to use Barclaycard for everyday spends - I bank with Barclays and the app updates all my accounts so just for simplicity really. Find the app really decent generally and won't be missing out too much on the avios points I get through amex as I can get that through Barclays anyway which should make our Greece trips cheaper I think - need to look into that properly. I've told wife I'm planning to spend other holidays in the UK for a good few years - I don't really like flying much and we have all really enjoyed our UK breaks this year. First time in a long time I can honestly say I've enjoyed holidays.

Idk why but it's time I get serious about this. We have a 100% workable plan in place, opportunity to be free of debt with all cars owned outright in five years time and just my res mortgage outstanding which is offset by BTL income a fair few times over. I'm doing ok first time in my life I believe that but I am doing ok - being in a strong position personally or stronger than I have been for years has helped me to stop thinking about screwing my business for money. I am for the first time in my life ok with the income I have and believe I can cover my expenses without end of tax year additional dividends that just went towards trying to make a dent in mounting credit card debt. Balances still crept up though because I was out of control with it. I have problems with spending still getting the treatment for that, sticking with it. Being on here has been brilliant for this- I've had plenty of fleeting moments over the years of being concerned about my levels of spending just managed to push it away and crack on fml. 

First time in my life I believe I have a future. Spent my whole adult life needing to turn more and more money for no other reason than not quite keeping up with my spending, a want for more and fear of not being able to carry on turning money was the only thing that stopped me many times completely screwing my business for cash. I've not been well and rather than engaging with the pros etc I spent a lot of years turning to the coke on the same !!!!!! cycle of knowing nothing other than work/ spending and getting off my head on !!!!!! near continual repeat. The other day speaking to the pros first time I've ever believed this but I acknowledged I could be better than that. I can step away from it, put my efforts into my business and family have nice things because they are things I want to work towards not because it's some !!!!!! rite of passage in my screwed up coke fuelled head.

I love my home but if I move it'll be because I want a change of scenery, bit further out of town not my old goal which was '7 figure house'. The value meant more than what it was/ where it was etc. To me I was a failure without a 7 figure res home. Felt the same about owning an AM - that without one I have failed. Lots more things did that to me I'd get very depressed but that's what using substances does - makes you feel like !!!!!! without it. I see it in my wife when she's on IG - someone has it, she wants it, must find a way to get it etc etc etc it's a !!!!!! horrible way to live. She doesn't just do it with the spends, she sees these young girls 20/21 realised she's older but wants to look like them always been into her fitness but they are on the next level, she works to get to that next level but can't get to the next level of 20 year old girl with a load of edited to the nth degree pictures. Lot of these girls don't even look like their accounts in real life but my Mrs wants to at least match them. It breaks my heart when she's been on the cutting to the degree of hardly being able to exercise (which she genuinely loves), losing all strength when she loves strength training. I wish she never had it on her phone tbh. A few years back I encouraged it all and I used to enjoy dressing her up like some !!!!!! doll I hate myself for it now. Things were going great for her until !!!!!! Love Island came on.

enthusiasticsaver

It is amazing how a simple TV programme like Love Island can have such a negative impact on your wife to the degree she has been affected with the discontent and over spending. I too think she needs to have her access to money restricted. It seems to have worked for you. Well done on not letting her latest behaviour push you into self destructive mode. Well done to your FIL for laying down the law to her re IG etc. 

alt80

@Purplelady65 nail on head re behaviour I like my acronyms if not obv so B=MAP works for me ha will check that book out thanks. Motivation is always fluctuating for everyone and can't really be relied on alone the old 'willpower' argument there in a nutshell ha. Access def a bit more reliable in my case I'd like to think with access I wouldn't have touched it but who knows I don't want to find out rn not far enough into recovery to risk it - did that before. Learned a lot at the rehab but some I chose to ignore when out. Go back to a lot of the stuff I did there and my pros are the same team so I'm not going to knock it reason I came out and didn't last long I wasn't using the motivation/ willpower and letting the prompts trip me off. Also think I needed the peer support I spent a long time fighting against. Fought that one !!!!!! hard tbh spent a load of money to avoid it fml look back and think what a !!!!!!. Not massively involved with it now tbh but am a little and I suppose it makes me think how lucky and fortunate I am. Lots to be grateful for.

I didn't finish Atomic Habits got about half way through, will start that one again I think, enjoy a bit of night time reading before bed. 

@enthusiasticsaver She can be sensible sometimes but so can I, it's that day you can't that you just !!!!!! it for yourself.

I'm really hoping she sticks with the Love Island free week she's said she'll have after my inlaws went !!!!!! crazy. Had her crying most of this afternoon saying all these opportunities are now and she's too old for them wouldn't get on the show even if she divorced me to be single for it etc then crying she doesn't want to get divorced but would have liked those opportunities when she was younger, no opportunities for her now fml. I've lived with this !!!!!! for years telling myself it's just what girls her age etc do and I stop buying her the !!!!!! ridiculously expensive bags/ trips to wherever the latest place is the IG girls get sent to model, unlimited make up palettes etc she'd find someone that did and can't buy it in the first place I'm a !!!!!! failure in business 100% skewed !!!!!! drug addled mindset my brain has been for far too long. Lot of people have said to me over the years I must be !!!!!! mad or so rich I couldn't care to keep buying it all. Def not the latter ha.

Allikat86

Alt, if I’m really honest, I think that your marriage sounds quite toxic. When you’d described how she was pulling together when you were in rehab I thought that perhaps that was a reflection of a true picture of things, and that the more negative thoughts had been drug induced paranoia. However, I think that your wife needs counselling/therapy too, and it is completely unacceptable to say the stuff that she’s said in your last post. I have absolutely no doubt that your addiction has put her through the mill, but she has a choice and can leave - she doesn’t need to stay. I am 34 so about the same age as her. She has plenty of opportunities that don’t involve vacuous dreams of sponging off of a Z list type of existence from a Love Island appearance - it sounds like she has a fair amount of transferable skills with the stuff that she’s done ad hoc, and her need to be ‘nice’ and show a perfect image to everyone overrules the ways in which she could realistically thrive. Doesn’t she see that the people who have any more than fleeting success after this sort of stuff have other skills and they use it as a springboard? Her boundaries and self confidence sounds  incredibly low, and I think she’d really benefit from some proper therapy to unpick some of this stuff. I’m not knocking her - things are never black and white. I previously struggled with being too ‘nice’ and had to work on my boundaries. In all honesty, it sounds like she has an addictive personality too - just a different drug of choice. I just think that she needs to make a choice about whether to really work at your marriage (and you’ve alluded to various problems previously) or whether you guys separate. 

MovingForwards

@alt80 When I first went through your diary, I hoped your wife had left due to your behaviour, however as I carried on going through it it was obvious it wasn't just you. I know we only get one side of what's going on.

There's always been opportunities for different things over the years, but she's never gone for any of them or backs out when reality is nothing like fantasy. 

In a way I pity your wife due to what she has created in her head and how much real life she's missed out on. 

I also doubt there's anyone commenting, moaning to their partner about missing out on opportunities as they would have gone for them.

You've done well to keep off the stuff and turn things around. Don't let this relationship undo everything.

Personally, I would be shipping her off to counseling. I would be having my own specifically about working out what I want from life / the relationship. A few months after having proper relationship counseling to either save the marriage or call time. 

You both can have such a better relationship, if that means a divorce and starting over then so be it. That's the great thing about modern times, there's no obligation to stay together. 

Do you really want this life for the next 50 years? 

alt80

Day 38. Had very little sleep last night wife let me have a lie in this morning. Looking forward to the football final later sticking with not drinking unless they win ha. Even then told my Mrs I’m having a glass and that’s my lot not feeling too well so last thing I need is a drink. 

She’s back on changing the steering wheel on the car haha I’ve told her to watch a few videos and have a crack at it if she wants - keeps her occupied and off IG ha. 

Won’t be spending any money today was meant to be going to the car show but I was asleep. My mate who’s let me have the MG is coming round later for roast so plenty for me to get on with and out of trouble. 

getmore4less

What does MG mate think about these modifications to HIS car?

I had a weird night 10-3am then 6-8.

Got a few episodes of the watch done in the gap.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09jgmfb

enthusiasticsaver

Enjoy your roast. We don't normally watch football but will make an exception tonight. Won't be drinking though. Hope your wife manages to steer clear of IG. I too think she needs counselling of some sort when she attaches so much importance to the type of false reality that social media portrays. Too much time on her hands probably.