I feel betrayed

fudgecat

I have always been money savvy. My husband has always hated to discuss money. We have had separate bank accounts all of our married life (46 years) and been separated financially, apart from a mortgage. We are now mortgage free.
About 7 years ago, I stumbled on a SO for £100 pcm on the Lottery.  When I pointed out how much he was spending he was genuinely shocked and cancelled the SO.
Fast forward: about 6 months ago  I found out that he had an Amazon credit card and was paying a DD. Again, he had forgotten the DD. I was cross, as we were living on my teachers and civil pension, trying not to dip into savings. Investigating further, I found a debt to Amazon of over £1000.00, interest payments and the DD was for minimum payment. After a row, I paid off the debt and said I would cancel the card. He said HE would do it and I agreed, as I don't want to treat him like a child who needs supervision. He swore that this was the only debt and apologised.
I discovered last week that he had not cancelled the DD. Something snapped and I told him that he could check these things easily on Credit Karma for free. He said he would do it later and I said no now.
We signed him up, and up came over £10,000.00 of debt, spread over three cards that I knew nothing about. He has been making minimum payments and incurred over £1200.00 in interest last year alone. These debts stretched back for years. I was shocked rigid and so was he. He knew there was debt, but had no idea if the extent.
I thought we were completely debt free, as Ihave paid all the bills for years, manage all our finances, or so I thought, and have a spreadsheet and list of log ons, account numbers,etc, which is freely accessible and updated. I always consult him before taking any action and make sure we agree. I have tried, with minor success, to get him on board and see the advantages. 
I have given up smoking, drinking, holidays and general luxuries to manage our early retirement, but I'm not miser and we have always lived simply.
The shock of finding this debt and the realisation of how much is interest accumulated over years has left me feeling utterly betrayed.
We are both retired on a limited income. Our savings and investments are finite. Our financial position is more precarious than I knew.
I feel betrayed and beyond anger.
I really feel this is the deal breaker.
Is 46 years down the river?

Catsacor

Whether it's 46 years down the river is entirely up to you, that decision is one you have to make.

Your partner has had no qualms in keeping vital information from you and that shows in his character, he is clearly very different to you.
He doesn't feel he can share that burden, i wouldn't personally, have confidence in the person going forwards, but i'm not you. 

Much soul searching needs doing and i feel for you 🙏

tacpot12

I don't think that your marriage is over, but you have learned something fundamental about your husband that you didn't know before. It's now about what you do with that knowledge. 

You are not responsible for your husband's debts, but his estate will be. Ultimately, it is his decision as to how he leaves his affairs when he dies. He might want to leave you the most money he can, because you are likely to need it his pension income ceases, or he might want to leave you with debts that cannot be settled from his estate - for some people dying while having negative net worth is ideal; a target to be aimed for!

You should sound him out on how he wants to leave the world. You need to consider whether you can tolerate his aims, or even help him with them, but you won't have much success with any plan unless he is fully behind it.

I too am sorry for you. I know what a shock it will have been, but try not to see it as a "betrayal". It is what it is, and you need to find out a bit more from him as to why he has done this and what his intentions were. I would advise taking some time over your reaction. You may end up deciding that you really can't live with his deceit, but it would be worth thinking hard about whether you could let him to his thing while you do yours - 46 years is a long time together.

fudgecat

Thank you for the replies. Clearly to stay together for 46 years, my husband has many good qualities, even if money management is not one of them.
The problem is me - my reaction. Far from being incandescently angry, and then it being over, this time I am really finding it hard to get over the hurt and deceit. It feels like he has had an affair - in fact worse, as an affair does not necessarily affect our financial future.
I know I am not responsible for his debts, but with a state pension only ( he promised me he had signed up for the optional company pension but had not), it impacts me as I have to shoulder all the bills as well as paying money into my grandchildren's savings accounts.
I am overwhelmed, very sad. I just don't know where to turn.
Not helped by the fact that we have been living for SIX years in a doer upper building site...

tacpot12

I doubly sympathise if you have been living in a building site for six year! It took me a couple of years to do up my fixer-upper, and I never wanted to lift a finger on it for another couple of years once I was done. I know how draining it can be. 

Some people can be very funny; they have pride over their DIY efforts and won't let a professional near the place, but then they have no pride in their ability to manage money. I find this odd, but I guess it would be boring if we were all the same. 

Have you checked your state pension forecast, and has he checked his? You should make sure that you have as many years of NI contributions as are needed to maximise your state pension. You can pay voluntary contributions, and I would stop saving for the grandchildren if you can't make these voluntary contributions from your own savings. Your grandchilren will benefit if you have the best state pension income you can as you will have more money to spend on them when you start drawing it.





 

pollypenny

Fudgecat,  just sending sympathy. I would feel as you do. My OH isn't good with money either and he was in complete charge of finances the year I did my finals. He would always project forward with great optimism, but we ended up £800 in debt,  which seemed a fortune at the time. 

I did the budget for a few years, but felt like his mother, having to say we couldn't afford such and such a thing.  We settled on twice a month and together. 

I can't advise you at all, but all the best. 

arnoldy

We have had separate bank accounts all of our married life (46 years) and been separated financially

This is usually big alarm bells and sirens going off in a marriage. Best way forward is  to have a single common account - put in with what each of you gets and each takes out what's needed, simple.

No secrets, deceits and endless petty squabbling as to who pays for what, when and how much etc.

QrizB

arnoldy said:

We have had separate bank accounts all of our married life (46 years) and been separated financially

This is usually big alarm bells and sirens going off in a marriage. Best way forward is  to have a single common account - put in with what each of you gets and each takes out what's needed, simple.

No secrets, deceits and endless petty squabbling as to who pays for what, when and how much etc.

There's more than one way to make a marriage work and your claimed "best way" might not suit everyone.

Mrs QrizB and I have only been married for 20 years but for that time we've had a joint account plus individual ones. Our incomes are paid into the joint a/c and shared bills (mortgage, council tax, utilities etc) are paid from it, but there's also a monthly allowance paid from it into our personal ac/s. The personal a/cs are used for cars, phones, club menberships, magazine subs and so on. It's worked well for us.

2-3 times a year we sit down together and check that everything still balances, adjusting as necessary.

If the OP can persuade their OH to have a this sort of "show and tell" session every so often, with statements, payslips etc. on the table to be openly pored over, it might help prevent the situarion recurring.

fudgecat said:

I know I am not responsible for his debts, but with a state pension only ( he promised me he had signed up for the optional company pension but had not) ...

This should really have tipped the OP off that her OH wasn't entirely reliable when it came to finances. A review would have shown that he wasn't making pension payments and it could have been fixed then.

kazwookie

Sorry for this, but why are you paying into your grand childrens bank accounts and scrimping else where.

IMO your OH is a pain, he needs to hand everything out to you to sort out either with or without him helping, and he needs a good kick up the a ss, you need to close down any excess accounts / and stop all unknown / not wanted DD etc.

fudgecat

Thank you again for your replies. Ironically, I would say that he has become better over finances since our retirement! Probably because of lockdown and having time on our hands ( and no hiding place to escape to ) he has become more open to looking at my spreadsheet. I have always said if I went under a bus tomorrow, it is really important that he knows what is where, passwords, account numbers, etc.
What saddens me the most us that he is not a big spender type, with flashy clothes, car or jewellery. I honestly don't think he knows where the money went. One of the credit cards was opened in 2004 - and I have remained in ignorance about it all this time.

Savvy_Sue

You don't know where to turn, and you don't know how to deal with the feelings of betrayal, and I do feel for you.

Relate might be one option, https://www.relate.org.uk/

Together you might be able to work out how to fix this. And if he won't go with you, they'll see you on your own.


Or one of the good debt charities might help you work things out. 

https://www.stepchange.org/

https://capuk.org/ 

Ideally they'd work with you together if he's willing.

I have to say that if not willing, I'd be more ready to walk away, but only you can decide this.