OP,

I've been through this with my DH for 15 years and I can tell you more monitoring doesn't work. This is an illness that won't be fixed simply by scolding him or hovering over him no matter how much he may genuinely want to change. He needs treatment. The mistake I made years ago was thinking I didn't have enough money for therapy and putting it off. It was far more expensive NOT to get therapy than to invest in it.

In the meantime, protect yourself. Don't just monitor - you'll make yourself crazy and it won't solve the problem - but completely separate your finances. Buy a home in your name only, even if it means you need to get smaller home. Close all joint accounts and insist on a certain $ amount for bills each month. Soon enough the credit card problem will take care of itself because he won't be able to get credit if he overextends himself and you won't be there to bail him out. Remember this is his problem and protect your own credit. DH actually ended up losing his bank account too and had to switch to a prepaid card. Ridiculous given our salaries but not my problem. I still get my money for bills so that I can save a portion of my income, my credit is excellent, and my funds are secure.

You'll need to decide if you can live with this. In my case, there is enough good in DH that I've accepted this major flaw as long as I'm protected and he is managing his condition in therapy. If you can't live with the reality that your DH will always struggle with finances to some extent, you really have no choice but to move on.

Marriage counseling and Al-Anon for you. If you try to monitor your way out of this you will turn him into even more of a child, and you’ll find you don’t want to be married to a child.

Do you have kids together?

OP- Here is the info for Debtors Anonymous. There are several meetings in the DC area. If you’re not from here, obviously do a new search:
https://debtorsanonymous.org/getting_started/index.php/find/city?city=Washington&state=DC&submit=Go

I would make his attendance at these meetings a condition of you staying in the marriage. If he doesn’t go at least once a week, you’re out the door.

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. Thank you for the responses. I am keeping my emotions out of this thread.

I think he does have a problem. He is stressed at work, so he buys things. He wants everything to be the best quality, but really he cannot afford it as all his money should be going to min. family expenses and to service his debt.

No matter what happens (I will consult a divorce atty), I want complete transparency going forward:

ability to monitor his debts with agencies directly
in addition to cutting up his credit cards, what is the best way to ensure they cannot be reissued - have access to all of his accounts, have him call and "cancel" them, so he can only pay them down?
no cash withdrawals - is there a way to ensure that?
talk to his friends and relatives to ensure they cannot help him get a card by adding him as an authorized user to their cards, so that he cannot borrow cash?
support group for him - is there something like "recovering credit card debtors anon" (and a group for me?)

What else? Certainly, the above requires his cooperation. If he is not willing to do that, I see no way forward.

He can freeze his credit so that no new accounts can be opened...the downside is that he can also unfreeze it. Depending on the credit cards he has you can monitor on their website. I have a chase account and our car (in my husband's name only) is also with chase. They offer a credit monitoring service and I can log on an view every one of his balances, updated monthly.

This is OP. Thank you for the responses. I am keeping my emotions out of this thread.

I think he does have a problem. He is stressed at work, so he buys things. He wants everything to be the best quality, but really he cannot afford it as all his money should be going to min. family expenses and to service his debt.

No matter what happens (I will consult a divorce atty), I want complete transparency going forward:

ability to monitor his debts with agencies directly
in addition to cutting up his credit cards, what is the best way to ensure they cannot be reissued - have access to all of his accounts, have him call and "cancel" them, so he can only pay them down?
no cash withdrawals - is there a way to ensure that?
talk to his friends and relatives to ensure they cannot help him get a card by adding him as an authorized user to their cards, so that he cannot borrow cash?
support group for him - is there something like "recovering credit card debtors anon" (and a group for me?)

What else? Certainly, the above requires his cooperation. If he is not willing to do that, I see no way forward.

This is fairly common I think. It is financial literacy and untreated mental illness. If you have proof he altered statements with Adobe, collect all the evidence. Use it to make sure he gets nothing from you in the divorce and shoulders the debt he accurred by himself.

Divorce him now and get out. Get whatever court appointed child support or alimony but realize you'll probably never collect any of it. Leave.

OP can his collection be sold to pay down some debt?

Anonymous wrote:OP, I couldn’t get over the adobe thing. If he is capable of that level of deception, what is he not capable of? Please see a lawyer and begin to think about divorce and separating yourself and the kids from this mess.

I actually couldn’t either. 12 years of my life dedicated to meeting what I thought was a joint goal and to learn that?! Nope, I’d be done. I’d talk to an attorney this week.

I had a close friend back home lose their house over the husbands hidden debt.

Anonymous wrote:A therapist would say that you set him up for failure by the constant monitoring. He was far too scared to admit the situation though he likely really wanted to do so. And if you are being honest, in the back of your mind, you suspected and felt the constant monitoring was giving you peace of mind.

He had a real problem being a shopohlic and hoarder not a problem that just needs more will power.

What would the therapist suggest she do while he blows his kid’s college fund on trinkets?

Anonymous wrote:OP, I couldn’t get over the adobe thing. If he is capable of that level of deception, what is he not capable of? Please see a lawyer and begin to think about divorce and separating yourself and the kids from this mess.

That’s what really gets me too

A therapist would say that you set him up for failure by the constant monitoring. He was far too scared to admit the situation though he likely really wanted to do so. And if you are being honest, in the back of your mind, you suspected and felt the constant monitoring was giving you peace of mind.

He had a real problem being a shopohlic and hoarder not a problem that just needs more will power.

Anonymous wrote:https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/787308.page

That's me but I'm not the OP of this thread.

OP, I couldn’t get over the adobe thing. If he is capable of that level of deception, what is he not capable of? Please see a lawyer and begin to think about divorce and separating yourself and the kids from this mess.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two friends that this happened to, and both ended up divorced. They couldn’t get past the betrayal and the lies. In both cases my friends were scrimping and saving to pay the bills, save up for vacations etc and their husbands were racking up 10s of thousands in debt and lying about it. Your DH basically store money from your kids college funds. I don’t think I could stay married. Sorry, I don’t have advice about next steps, but you could consult a divorce atty.

Are you serious?? I was pretty sure that OP must have been trolling. I just can't believe that some people's marriages are so thin that they basically have no idea who they actually married. And worse, had kids with. It's literally unbelievable to me.

Then I hope nothing ever happens to shatter your illusions.