Anonymous wrote:Thanks everyone. My husband showed me everything and let me go through his credit card statements, W2, etc. I really appreciated that. His income was what I expected and there were no more big surprises which was a relief. The debt seemed to be from some consistently compulsive purchases like expensive clothing. He said he had a shopping problem and had always had an unhealthy relationship with money. He was trying to pay it down but it was just out of hand. To consolidate the credit, he only kept one credit card for his use. But his payments were only able to cover so much of the debt since the interest rate is so high and it seemed like he was still spending above his means. He said he was committed to finding a solution together and wanted to stay accountable and transparent. We worked out a budget and plan to start putting the majority of our income going forward into a joint checking account. We have a budget planned where we have specific amounts allocated towards expenses which we split, and large chucks of his income are being allocated so he can pay off the bills. I offered to pay some of the cards off immediately but he would pay me back according to the budget spreadsheet. We calculated that he should be in the clear by end of November this year. I promised to try to be more empathetic and we agreed to continue to monitor the budget together. Good news, I think. I’m still processing all this but I feel like we are making progress and have a plan.

Glad to hear things are better but I feel uneasy reading your description. You write as if your husband's shopping problems are all in the past. I'm guessing they're not. I speak as someone married to a guy who had a serious shopping problem for awhile. Eventually it got better but it was on his timeline, not mine. (combination of moving to a city where he could be actively involved in his (non-shopping) community activist interests and also some embarrassment at realizing his friends didn't need to have the latest in fashion or high end appliances) But I hope I'm wrong about how I read your post. Best of luck to you both!

I just can't believe OP is being such a pushover. It's great that you have a plan, OP, but you and your husband really need to see therapists. Don't have children with this man, you'll be divorced in two years, I'm sure of it. Come back and tell us we're wrong then.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, I am weary of commenters who say we should have discussed before we got married - yes I now agree with you, and I realize the mistake I made. I trusted but did not verify. Repeating that fact doesn't help me now... I swear I will tell my children to pull the credit report of anyone they plan to marry to avoid this situation. I appreciate the advice but the "you should have's" are really not helping in this situation and sound more like lecturing at this point. I appreciate it, but believe me, I realize my mistake. Advice for my situation now would be much appreciated...!

That advice was followed by “do it now”. You need to be in counseling. This isn’t just “he hid something”. It’s also why he feels like he can’t talk to you. There’s a basic communication issue here. You can get through it and have a wonderful marriage but you both need to work on this. If you read your initial post, it’s obvious why he didn’t tell you. He didn’t want you to think less of him and you think you’re better than him at finances. Maybe you are, but he didn’t want to be looked down upon by his partner. You wouldn’t like that feeling either.

This is not a valid summation of whot is going on here.

First and foremost Op's dh is dishonest. This is not op's fault and she is being gaslighted into believing it is her fault. Her dh is dishonest. She needs to protect herself asap.

Anonymous wrote:I found out he has $8.5K in credit card debt, $2K in a personal loan that he took out to pay that debt, and he withdrew from his 401K to pay the debt. He had told me that he was maxing out his 401K since 2019, but that was inaccurate. I also saw his checking/savings, which have only $20 in them. He has more saved in our mortgage and joint savings account than on his own. I appreciate that he was totally open and showed me his credit report online. We worked out a budget where he could put $1000 per month towards his debts to pay them off in about a year. I am just unsure of where to go from here.

No. It was a lie. Call it what it is. Face this.

Anonymous wrote:

Why would you even get married in this situation. I am shocked by some of the marriages I read about here.

I chalk some of this up to later marriages and the times we live in. I have been married for 37 years. We got married in our 20's (25 and 27) and neither of us had much (husband was still in school getting a PhD). Our first real estate purchase was 5 years into our marriage and all on our jointly saved money. This was very common at the time. Of course people didn't have much in student loans back then either. I had a small one and my husband had none. We never used credit cards. Credit cards were not as available and our parents had never used them so it was just not a typical thing like it is now. Computers were not around to track everything.

Things have changed a lot. I worked with a young woman and she talked about bachelor/bachelorette parties in resort locations around the world. We never had such parties. She and her future husband bought a house before they even married. The wedding was very upscale (ours was not). Now everyone puts up all their plans/parties/homes/etc. online and everyone can see everything. She even compared her husband's friends to hers in terms of money (and hers came up "higher"). In short, I am not shocked that some of these marriages do not work out.

Gee, grandma, can you tell me what it was like in the olden times, when women were basically property, passed from father to husband, and weren't allowed to hold bank accounts or property without a man around to supervise? Or the good old days of college not costing tens of thousands of dollars? Yeah, it was a lot easier not to go into debt for education four decades ago - next you'll tell me that things were less expensive, and healthcare was more affordable too! I will take the times we live in over when women had little control over their financial destinies and OP would simply have to go along for the ride with her spendthrift husband. It's nice that nowadays, these marriages don't have to work out and women have choices not tied to a man.

But, sure, the problem is social media, credit cards, and people having assets of their own prior to marriage.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, I am weary of commenters who say we should have discussed before we got married - yes I now agree with you, and I realize the mistake I made. I trusted but did not verify. Repeating that fact doesn't help me now... I swear I will tell my children to pull the credit report of anyone they plan to marry to avoid this situation. I appreciate the advice but the "you should have's" are really not helping in this situation and sound more like lecturing at this point. I appreciate it, but believe me, I realize my mistake. Advice for my situation now would be much appreciated...!

Why are you wary of those commenters? You have gotten a lot of good advice. Take it.

Weary. She said she’s weary. I’m weary of it too just reading the same thing that fifty people have written without also providing her with a time machine that would allow her to do it.

Anonymous wrote:Op I saw your update and I’m glad you all have had these discussions. I had a similar situation with my husband though a smaller amount of money. But the same feelings were happening - me being controlling about money and maybe too frugal and him not sharing everything out of fear and shame. You have to get at the heart of this - I would go to therapy stat. That’s what we did and we are thriving now and have fully joint accounts and are successful financially. You will have to take some responsibility for whatever part you made in potentially leading him to feel scared to tell you this. He will need to take responsibility for letting his shame get the best of him and breaking trust in your relationship. You’ll have to figure out why he is scared to tell you things. In my case we discovered a pattern in my husbands family of wanting to keep everyone happy and being scared to share things that might upset someone. It’s difficult to fight against your families patterns.

My husband has had to work work work at this over there years since and it hasn’t been a straight line. Empathy from me has been huge. Empathy that this wasn’t intentional (but doesn’t take away the hurt and he needs to be 100% responsible) and tbat it was the result of patterns and fear. But I also held him to a very high standard that he has to figure this out with me and take responsibility. That this wouldn’t be acceptable in our relationship and I was very clear it could ruin it and lead to divorce.

I hope this gives you some hope that it can be done. For us we learned it didn’t work for one person to be In charge of finances or savings just because I enjoyed it. We both have to have ownership, be involved, and be checking in with each other and communicating regularly. At first this meant a pretty rigorous budget we both agreed to in YNAB that felt good to both of us with lots of check ins. Now we can do it without that. But we still do a yearly check in and I check in on how he’s feeling and him vice versa. You can get through this.

+1 I know two couples who have been through this and come out well on the other side. In one case it took decades, but they finally broke the secret debt cycle. The other tackled it early in their marriage and have been happily married with no further problems like this for about 15 years.

You seem to be on a good path, but please be vigilant. I am also a firm believer that paying back debts needs to "hurt" a little. From canceling the cable hookup for a year to dropping the gym membership or no restaurants for a time period. You paying off a debt doesn't teach anything. Best of luck.

OP, I understand you are trying to fix things and trying to solve this and trying to empathize and trying to make this all not be as bad as it really is.

My heart goes out to you. You are a really good person.

But you are moving too quickly to making his problems your own to fix. YOU have a problem. This man has demonstrated an established pattern of dishonesty and trickle truth when confronted. He has proven to you again and again and again that he cannot be trusted and does not have your best interest at heart. On a fundamental level, he tricked you into marrying him.

Would your road to marriage have been as quick and smooth if he had been honest that he has a an addiction or a compulsive behavior that is interfering in his life? Would you have consented to being his partner under these circumstances?

I think you really need to take a few steps back and ask yourself if this is what you want for your life.

I say this as someone who has made the mistake of trying to fix people who have CORE, FUNDAMENTAL honesty issues. People with addictions and habits of lying to protect their addictions are very dangerous to partner with. He has no qualms about lying to protect himself. This will not change. He will display some radical honesty to build back your trust and make you feel validated. But he's not going to magically develop a conscience about lying. Lying suited him and does not bother him. Right now, telling some bit of the truth is cementing him to you so he will keep doing that. But make no mistake that he will lie again if he feels threatened.

You also need to know that compulsive behaviors like shopping often go along with other compulsions...sex addiction and gambling among the two most prevalent other than actual substance abuse. He is not all of a sudden going to develop coping skills for the feelings that compulsive buying can medicate. So look out for a new addiction or compulsion to take the place of this one.

Please do a lot of reading for yourself on whether you wish to be the partner of an addict. And please read about codependency. Your rush to offer to pay off his debt screamed "codependent" to me. I understand the impulse all too well. You seriously need therapy and I don't say that in a mean way. You need help to save yourself from these tendencies.

I'm rooting for you to focus on yourself for a while, on the fact of this huge betrayal, and on what you are going to invest your time and effort in right now.

Anonymous wrote:

Why would you even get married in this situation. I am shocked by some of the marriages I read about here.

I chalk some of this up to later marriages and the times we live in. I have been married for 37 years. We got married in our 20's (25 and 27) and neither of us had much (husband was still in school getting a PhD). Our first real estate purchase was 5 years into our marriage and all on our jointly saved money. This was very common at the time. Of course people didn't have much in student loans back then either. I had a small one and my husband had none. We never used credit cards. Credit cards were not as available and our parents had never used them so it was just not a typical thing like it is now. Computers were not around to track everything.

Things have changed a lot. I worked with a young woman and she talked about bachelor/bachelorette parties in resort locations around the world. We never had such parties. She and her future husband bought a house before they even married. The wedding was very upscale (ours was not). Now everyone puts up all their plans/parties/homes/etc. online and everyone can see everything. She even compared her husband's friends to hers in terms of money (and hers came up "higher"). In short, I am not shocked that some of these marriages do not work out.

Eh, in my circles my friends marrying in their 30s won't walk down the aisle without the key 3 visits: 1) A few meetings with a counselor as part of (secular) pre-marriage counseling 2) Meetings with a financial advisor where EVERYTHING is on the table and a "move forward" plan is discussed 3) Doctors for full physicals. People in their 30s with good jobs and assets usually want to protect themselves if they're smart, so this in an OP issue, not an age thing.

I sure hope that you are both going to start individual and couples counseling.

One suggestion to discuss with him. On my Discover card, I can set a limit that if a charge exceeds that, it automatically sends me an email. I have the limit set to $100, but you can set it for any value. You might want to check your CC and check to see if they have such an option and if they do, set it so that it emails both of you. Then he knows that if a charge exceeds a certain amount, you'll know about it when it happens. That kind of alert may help him control his spending habit when he knows that he can't just hide the charge.

I’m really happy to see your updates op. I’m one of the posters who had a similar issue with husbands secret spending and have come out the other side in a very good place. It sounds like you guys are really on the right track. Remember that when anyone heals from behaviors like this there are often ups and downs - it may be really good for awhile and then you will both get comfortable and he may slightly revert to some old behaviors. It’s really really hard to change our patterns so this is normal and for us got much better with time by chugging through it together and me calling him out when I didn’t think things were fully transparent. Wishing you all luck!

He doesn't want you to file a joint tax return because he owes taxes for his 401k withdrawal. They only withhold the penalty amount, not the actual tax rate, so you get stuck with a huge bill to the IRS with you withdrawal from your 401k.

I very much doubt he's actually filed his return. Ask to see it. But don't commingle finances or file joint returns. You are better off keeping things separate, at least until you are 100% sure you know the full story.

OP, consider buying and using the above-mentioned You Need a Budget - it's an app that you can both see/access and can, if you want, connect to your financial accounts to keep real-time accounting of your budget. You can also have multiple budgets on one account, so he could put his personal stuff in there for you to see, along with the joint finances.

It was designed for people paying down debt, too, so watch the videos about the app creator's philosophy. It only lets you budget money you have, so it helps you think about what you're spending/where to spend it.

We've been using it for several years, and I've been quite happy with the way it works and how easy it is to use, plus, if my husband, who doesn't manage the budget, wants to see anything, it's all right there - account balances, spending reports, transaction history.