If you're making $200k a year you can't be a dumb person. Before you tell your husband, have a solution laid out. Don't just present a problem, present a solution. Credit card debt is obscene and to run it up that high may indicate that you lack spending discipline. Cut up your credit cards and get one debit card.

OP, this is PP here who paid off 10k of debt. Please repost your situation on the money forum and ask for advice for a plan. You need a plan, a real one with steps that you follow. Right now you sound like you feel desperate, in a black hole with no way out. It may seem like it but it's not true. You can dig yourself out of it. Sometimes people are their own worst enemy and self sabotage their problems. But you can stop.

It sounds like you have debt spread over several cards. You need to write out exactly how much is owed on each card and the interest rate is for each. Can you pay off all of it today? If. So DO IT! If not, there are two theories: 1) pay as much as you can on the one with the highest rate or 2) if you have enough to pay off any of the cards in full, pay off those card(s) completely regardless of the interest rate. I subscribe to the second theory, because being able to pay off a balance in full and pay off completely a card is a mental victory and one less card to worry about. It gives you a sense of accomplishment and more confidence going forward to make better decisions. I am serious.

Most cards allow you to pay online. Login, pay off a card's balance you can afford today, all of it. See how much lighter you feel. See how less stress you have.

Then I would recommend seeing if you can open a new card with 0% apr for 12-18 months with free rollover balance and roll over all the other cards to this new card to basically freeze interest from accruing. Give yourself some breathing room. Give yourself a break here. You are not a terrible person. You made some mistakes, you're human after all.

But if you post on the money forum there are some seriously dedicated financial gurus on there who reply with good advice IMO. Try it out!

O0 again-- as I type that out I realize how stupid I sound.
This all comes down to my inability to handle difficult conversations or confrontations. We can afford to pay it off; I could have told him about it at any point. Now I am in a horrible situation of my own making, where he will lose all trust in me and will probably want a divorce. I truly hate myself.

OP here. Thank you all. A little more background, this is very old debt that has just grown over the years because of high interest rates. Some of it is from before we were married when I stupidly paid a large IRS bill with credit. Young and very dumb. Over the past year as he's been out of work, I have used the cards occasionally for things that I didn't want to pay cash for, but it's been minimal usage. The debt was never an issue before because the last time we needed to apply for credit was 7 years ago when we refinanced; his income and credit were higher than mine, so mine didn't get looked at too closely. Plus it was much lower debt since that was 7 years ago. Basically I've been paying the minimum on these cards for a decade, and using them from time to time, so never paying them down, and this is the result.

OP. I'm in the same boat as you expect it's 40k.

Is the debt in your name only? At least you haven't involved him in it.

Take responsibility for paying it off by cutting back very sharply on your own spending. Like PPs say, show him that you've set up automatic payments, et cetera. No new luxuries for you until it's gone! Show that you aren't letting it impact him or the kids too much, and that you realize this is a problem for you alone to solve.

You're correct that Amex does have crazy high interest rates. With $30K I'm guessing that you're paying several hundred a month just in interest. So I agree with the poster who suggested refinancing to a low-interest or zero-interest-for-the-first-year card. I also agree that HELOCs are dangerous and can seem like a quick fix but you may find yourself quickly getting into debt again.

DH ran up $50K on our home equity line of credit, and I was a cosigner. When he left for his midlife crisis 1 1/2 years ago, my lawyer asked his to explain the $50K. He made up some BS about "kitchen remodeling," but we didn't actually do a big remodel, just new counters and floor, and if you look at the back statements it was $300-400/month for several years, and that's not a kitchen remodel. I'm stuck with half of that HELOC because of being a cosigner. On a different note, I recently bought him out, and he told DCs that the $78K he got in home equity wasn't enough to pay off the credit card debt he ran up in the 1 1/2 years since leaving (and it certainly wasn't because of child support because he only gave me $5K because I filed very late in the game). Don't be my ex: take responsibility for your debt, and take control of your spending habits.

Why can't you just pay off...as in now. Like tomorrow.

Anonymous wrote:If you have a lot of equity in your home, take some out and pay off the debt. No big deal. Learn from it and move on. My husband I have been there several times. Try to identify where you can take money out besides retirement account, if possible, and pay the debt off or down.

while logical this may seem like the right thing to do, DO NOT DO THIS!

you need to stop the spending and start paying down the card before rearranging the debt.

Transferring to other cards is smart, but refinancing a mortgage will just cover up the real problem. Many people end up wasting the equity and getting into more debt.

ZachF wrote:$200k income, 30k credit card debt. What's that problem again?

The problem is undisciplined spending or that $30k credit card debt wouldn't exist in the first place.

$200k income, 30k credit card debt. What's that problem again?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Open up to him. Tell him exactly what you feel and why you keep doing this.

30K debt is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things(you could make that in a year or two working night jobs as a caregiver). The betrayal is.

You have to figure out how to help him get over your betrayal.

OP here. Yes, exactly. I also have major generalized anxiety disorder, so I'm having trouble putting into perspective how bad this is. I always go to the catastrophic scenario. The anxiety is what makes it so hard for me to share anything negative with him, much less this.

OP, it may be worse in your mind than actually telling him. He already knows about the first amount and may even suspect that the amount is higher. You'll feel better about everything once you tell him and especially if you have a plan of paying it off.


Do you feel comfortable telling us how you accumulated the debt? Only wondering because if it's due to something like a shopping addiction you may need additional support and people may be able to chime in with good recommendations.

My DH suffers from depression/anxiety, avoids conflict and has 'hiding' behaviors much like you, OP. Except, we don't earn $200K between us and he was unemployed for over a year and is now making $11/hr. We nearly divorced because of behaviors you've described, including hiding debt. My advice is for you to immediately contact a counselor to help you work through your issues and use those counseling sessions to come clean about EVERYTHING (I find it hard to believe the $30K debt is the only thing he doesn't know about) and to demonstrate to him you recognize the seriousness of what you've done. The debt isn't the problem. It's the betrayal of trust, especially since he had to discover the $15K and you've haven't disclosed the additional $15K. This is a lie of omission.

This is the best possible time to tell him. At least he won't leave you until he gets another job.

Anonymous wrote:He lost his job. I don't get why he would have any say.

Ha. So a SAHM gets no say in how the breadwinner husband spends the money he earns, right?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Open up to him. Tell him exactly what you feel and why you keep doing this.

30K debt is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things(you could make that in a year or two working night jobs as a caregiver). The betrayal is.

You have to figure out how to help him get over your betrayal.

OP here. Yes, exactly. I also have major generalized anxiety disorder, so I'm having trouble putting into perspective how bad this is. I always go to the catastrophic scenario. The anxiety is what makes it so hard for me to share anything negative with him, much less this.

Have you discussed this, the anxiety, hiding behaviors and/or shame with a therapist? This sounds like an area that would really improve with some focus and work.

I have not, but clearly I need to. My whole life is about avoiding conflict.