Lying about finances and debt

[Anonymous]

Anyone dealt with this? Spouse and I have been together for a very long time. We have young kids. And this is the second time he’s come clean about lying about debt. He’s not a great saver but has never even come close to having a severe spending problem or lying about his.
Last year he came clean that he took out a 10k loan against his 401k to try and start a side hustle that failed. He paid off the loan a few months ago.

Now he tells me he has a spending problem and thinks it’s a mental health issue because he can’t stop and has racked up 15k in credit card debt in the past few months. Our combined income is 250k.


How do you come back from this? I feel like the trust is lost. What’s going to happen next. I don’t want to have to babysit his finances forever. Am I overreacting? How would you handle paying off the debt? Take over it or let him figure it out himself?

[Anonymous]

What did spend $15k on? Yeah that is on him to pay off.

I don’t know but seems like he’s also a liar What else has he withheld from you ?

Girlllllllllll… Hate to toss D word out but ummm consider it.

[Anonymous]

I babysit my household finances. It's your husband, you took a vow, a 10k loan is not worth a divorce. He came clean.

[Anonymous]

1. He pays off the debt himself
2. Freeze your credit
3. Separate your finances and keep excellent documentation that you did not approve any debt
4. Have an attorney draw up a postnup that specifies any debt is his responsibility, although that won’t stop creditors from coming after you
5. If it happens again, legal separation to protect yourself

[Anonymous]

What is his message? What did he want from you? Take away his credit card if he is ok with it? Why does he not cover the CC bill in full if you guys are pretty well off?
I just have this feeling he’s doing these things to gain your attention or something? Like a child would

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I babysit my household finances. It's your husband, you took a vow, a 10k loan is not worth a divorce. He came clean.

It was two separate lies. A 10k loan and now 15k in credit card debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. He pays off the debt himself
2. Freeze your credit
3. Separate your finances and keep excellent documentation that you did not approve any debt
4. Have an attorney draw up a postnup that specifies any debt is his responsibility, although that won’t stop creditors from coming after you
5. If it happens again, legal separation to protect yourself

Agree.

Out in some serious guardrails

[Anonymous]

First and foremost you make sure there’s nothing else you don’t know about. I have a family member who is in the process of divorcing their spouse over similar issues and generally when they “confessed” it was just the tip of the ice berg and they had other debt and unmade payments that they continued to hide.

You have to do a full audit and make sure he’s actually being paying all bills he says he has, there are no other credit cards and no other accounts. I think there are ways to be sure you get a notification if someone has opened up a card, I would look into that. I know you don’t want to babysit your husband but you have to. My family member had their head in the sand and let their kids be in a house where the electricity was cut off and they would have been kicked out completely without help from family. You have to protect your kids right now.

You won’t know for a long time if you can trust your husband again. I would start getting things together for divorce in case if you need to protect yourself financially. If he gets it together then you don’t have to go through with it.

[Anonymous]

There's probably debt that he isn't telling you about. Seconding the full audit.

[Anonymous]

You also need to see whether he is up to date on Federal and state taxes - particularly if he is self-employed or someone who is not a W2 employee and has to pay estimated taxes.

[Anonymous]

How do you handle finances now?

What did he buy? Can anything be returned?

I think you need a full internal audit of finances - every account, every bill, every movement of money. Taxes!

And then you have to become the Finance Manager. That doesn't stop him doing things on the side, but you have a better idea of overall picture, you keep the bills paid, and you take measures others outlined to protect yourself.

[Anonymous]

You can freeze all the credit and have him take out cash every month for spending. But he needs to go to therapy to figure out his issues.

But separately you guys seem to have big communication issues. How did you not know about the side hustle? Don’t you spend time together?

[Anonymous]

We have a higher HHI but I have seen our AMEX bill at 20k some months but DH pays it off.

We have joint accounts for primary bills but all our Amazon and subscriptions go on his AMEX.

He will buy things here and there but definitely pays way more than I do (he makes more obviously) for pretty much everything.

If it does impact you or your credit and not going to onlyfans models who cares.

[Anonymous]

Since he mentioned mental health, can you see if he'd go to an addiction therapist? Isn't this sometimes a sign of bipolar?

[Anonymous]

If that's truly all the wasted/borrowed money, it's a fixable problem at this stage.

If he will allow full transparency, it's possible you can work out a way to control this problem together.