AIBU to not pay off DH's debt? (apols for long post)

[bookwormthatturned]

I'm trying to get some perspective on this so would appreciate your thoughts ....

My DH has largely not been employed for the last few years following losing his job at the same time as his father died. He has had a number of fresh starts which haven't worked out and has not had an easy time.
Discussing finances isn't something he is comfortable with so, after getting a vague response whenever I asked how he was financially I ended up leaving it to him to tell me. DH had an amount of cash reserves and was still contributing to the joint account.
It now transpires that he has a significant credit card debt. Talking about it DH had an expectation that I would pay this off (I received a legacy from a relative that would just about cover the debt).
I'm reluctant to do this. The same thing happened a few years ago and we put that amount onto our mortgage (DH had previously funded some improvements so we just 'refunded' an amount of this from the mortgage to cover the debt.)
I have offered to take out a joint 0% interest card and (I'm working so would have the credit rating to do this) transfer the debt onto this. I've also offered to cover the minimum payments while DH is job hunting but he doesn't want to do this. Instead his plan is to continue using the card and then pay it all off as soon as he gets a 'proper' job. I've been encouraging him to be flexible and look at any job to help the cash flow in the short term. He has now taken a Christmas casual job which is due to end shortly.

Sorry for a long post and all the background but I'm losing the plot here. Am I being an unsupportive cow not to just pay it off? My concern is that DH would just carry on using the card and things could escalate again.

TIA

Op said he got into debt not least because he was paying household and family expenses! Not keeping his hobby up. In fact I don't think op has said how much that costs? Garages can be as little as £20/ month

I literally do not understand this post. How, in a marriage, with joint funds does one person rack up debt putting in for household bills?

If you know your husband is not working that is just weird awful.

We have completely joint finances, even when i was at home looking after the children for 6 years. We look at our family budget and cut our cloth. We work together and maybe you could change your mindset and try doing that too.

That includes looking at what you can sell to pay off the debt and deciding together.

I think the issue that complicates matters is that he became a SAHP by stealth, and that isnt right. If they had discussed it and agreed that she would support the family for a few years then fine, but they didnt. He agreed to go back to work and flipflopped for 3 years with various "new starts" and not addressing the finances.

If an OP said on here that they didnt want to work so were just not going to try very hard at getting a job and would allow their OH to pull up the slack, they would get roasted and rightly so. If she said that she also expected to also continue her expensive hobby then you would be able to see the flames from space!

I would think that the OP should take on half of the debt and deal with it in whatever way she sees fit, a 0% card would be a good way to clear it, on the understanding that he clears the other half himself. How he does that is up to him and yes if that means selling his bikes then so be it. The issue isnt that SAHP shouldnt have luxuries, but that if they are not affordable then they have to go and due to the level of debt he is in, they are not affordable.

I wouldnt be at all surprised if "get a job or lose the bikes" would have him scrambling to be registered at every employment agency within a 50 mile radius.

Op you should like you are being financially abusive, you allowed DH to pay into the joint account with his inheritance and knew he had no income so had to use CC to pay bill.

Now you are controlling his hobbies with money.

If this was a women saying she was a at home mother and her husband thing would be very different.

I would say to your husband LTB (Leave the Bitch) as OP is main financial bread winner he will be initiated to spousal support and be out from under the bitch that is financially abusive.

If you have to borrow to afford something and it isn't feeding, clothing, medically treating, utilities-ing or essentially transporting someone in the family, it's a luxury. I don't think borrowing to afford the bills and borrowing to afford discretionary spending can be artificially divided either, although in any case OP said he'd borrowed to afford both, not just household expenses. If DH is borrowing even £20 a month to store bikes (which is the better part of a grand over three years and potentially lots more given the possibility of having to pay interest!) that's still money that could've been spent on something essential. I think you can acknowledge this, and not minimise the significance, whilst also agreeing with OP that she has been enabling his behaviour. However little it might be theoretically possible to spend on owning and storing multiple motorbikes, DH has been borrowing it and apparently wants to keep doing so. That's not good.

Fanny if a man stopped his at home wife having any money for hobbies and controlled all her income would you be OK with it.

"High risk job" "expenses related to a new job" "starting own business" - sounds like he is a dreamer or a commissioned salesperson. Very few other legit jobs have large start-up expenses beyond commuting pass and decent wardrobe. He needs to get a proper job with a reliable wage even if it isn't as lofty as he used to see himself being.

I'm sorry OP but the poster who said you have three children, not two, is correct. Even if his self-confidence and "manly pride" are dented, any man who knew he was responsible for a household and two children would be out there digging ditches if necessary to provide support. Let alone selling those bikes and getting out of the garage rental! That he bumbles along running up debt and then expects you to pay for it with a relative's legacy is just such a poor reflection on his character.

Do NOT use your legacy. Safeguard it as an emergency fund for your children's sake if not your own. Do NOT take his debt into your name on a 0% card until or unless he sells the bikes and makes a concerted (hours per day) effort to gain employment. Any employment.

Or, reconcile yourself that he is a SAHD and set him to work cleaning, doing laundry, etc. and prepare yourself to be the only breadwinner for the rest of your life.

Most importantly however I think you get used to the current situation because unless you really crack down, which you sound unwilling to do, as soon as he's been bailed out of this he'll get on to some other scheme and the debt will be run up again. Seen it a dozen times. I have friends who will be working into their 60s and 70s to support boy-men like this when they were formerly on track to retire in mid-50s. And the boy-men are incapable of understanding the concept of budgeting, doing without, deferred gratification, etc. Ironically one of them refurbishes and rides/shows minibikes. There's a garage-full but he wasn't content to RENT space, he had to spend tens of thousands of her money to build a second garage on their property to suit his bikes/cars/motorcycles etc. And she, the sap, acquiesced not because she has much love left for him any more but because he pouts and screams and throws things when he doesn't get his way.

No jenny, if they were in the position where a hobby had to be borrowed for, I wouldn't be ok with anything other than both parties being grown up enough to ascertain and accept for themselves that they couldn't pursue any.

Also, welcome. Fascinating first three posts.

My sister paints and does crafts as a hobby as a at home parent, if her husband said he provides the income she is not allowed any more paints or gear I am sure people would call financial abuse. She must sell all her paint equipment and do housework only.

And if the money for this comes from borrowing rather than the household income, it will be the same thing jenny. Does it? If not, what do you imagine your absolutely fascinating example has to do with this scenario?

Seriously, I think a lot of people get there are shades of grey here, most posters have expressed some concern about DH still paying bills whilst mostly without an income and OP not having questioned either this or him using his legacy to pay towards household bills. However, bleating about financial abuse is idiotic.

She has a joint income so all the money for crafts comes from the husband.

OP keeps the money separate so he had to use card to keep his hobby and pay bills, Op is being financially abusive buy withholding the single income coming into the household.

She has a joint income so all the money for crafts comes from the husband.

But then if she starts using a credit card to buy those things without telling him. Then tells him when it's stacked up, should he pay it off. When she says he will continue to get into debt?

If only there could have been some way for the DH not to spend his cash reserves to pay for living costs and luxuries while being unemployed for 3 years. It's almost like I could think of some alternative action he could have taken ... no, it's gone.

But then if she starts using a credit card to buy those things without telling him. Then tells him when it's stacked up, should he pay it off. When she says he will continue to get into debt?

She buys paints without telling him he know it's her hobby and they have a joint account.

Op keeps the money separate so her husband is be financially abused, she expected him to pay bills with no income where did she think the money came from.

OP need to combine all accounts now and talk about the accounts. She should allow him to keep his hobbies too to disallow them is abusive.

Right. So the money hasn't been borrowed, so your sister's setup isn't remotely like this one. Also, where do you get the idea that OP is withholding? I don't believe she's actually mentioned whether there's anything to withhold after essentials have been covered. You're just assuming jenny. Which you really can't do when you're throwing accusations of financial abuse out there. OP simply hasn't given us enough information for anyone to be able to ascertain whether there's sufficient money available for anyone to be able to have a hobby. This is what I was referring to upthread when I said that separate finances tend to work best when there's a surplus, and come unstuck when there isn't.

OP need to combine all accounts now and talk about the accounts

You're talking out of your arse. The very first thing to be happening is for the DH to acknowledge the situation they're in, discuss it without having a tantrum, and accept responsibility for his part in any solution. Without that the OP should keep her legacy under her own control.

It's not borrowed cause her husband lets her use the family income. She has no income so if he cut her from the family account she would have to borrow to paint.

OP kept the money separate when her husband had no income and expect him to still pay bills. She was controlling the purse strings and now people are saying he should sell is hobby and let his wife control all the money.

I would tell him to LTB and take half the money and get spousal support, no one deserves to be financially abused like that.

Without that the OP should keep her legacy under her own control.

She made him use his to pay bill when he had no income. They are married her money is his money, her keeping it separate to control him is financially abuse

Right. So what you're saying jenny is that you think OP has driven DH into borrowing to fund his hobby by not giving him access to the spare money you've decided they have. Can you tell us where you learned that they have enough disposable income for him to pursue his hobby? It wasn't on this thread, for starters. We don't even know what it costs.

Jenny you are ignoring the fact that at no point was it agreed between them that he would be a SAHP. He became one by stealth as none of his attempts at working came to anything.

In 3 years he has not managed to bring in any money bar a couple of months of Xmas work this year, I dont believe for a second this was a case of "couldnt" but more "wouldnt".

They were both living on the assumption that he would soon be working again, and that didnt happen, so I hardly think that the OP can be blamed for not considering him a SAHP, but more temporarily unemployed.

Bogeyface

Buy no working he is a SAHP he lot his job. So you are saying SAHP should not have access to the household income and should not be allowed hobbies, they should stay home and clean only and the breadwinner will give them pocket money if they they it is warrented

"If this was the other way round and DW was running up debts due to paying half the living expenses whilst unemployed I imagine the responses would be rather different."

They certainly would. I am shocked by the harshness towards the OP's husband, although I should be used to it on MN, where most of the time a man's place is in the wrong. I feel very sorry for him.

How is this financial abuse? He is being a knob and getting them more in to debt.

She has given him solutions but he still wants to keep it seperate and carry on spending. He needs to grow up and disclose the full amount as I bet there are more debts she doesn't know about.

My friends husband did the same thing. It's really not fair.

It could be financial abuse if, when he lost his job the op said

'Right be a sahp while you find something else but you must still pay half towards the bills, come what may. I am increasing my hours and so you just find something that fits my job and childcare. You will stay pay half the bills and I keep the extra to myself that I am now earning'. Then is money ran out and he dare not tell her so got himself into debt.

But it's not if

He lost his job, but still wanted to contribute to the bills so decided to pay it out of his savings. He inisisted that he pay his share out of his savings until he got a job. In which case OP wouldn't have had increase her hours. He then decided to start getting into debt rather than admit he had ran out of money through pride or not wanting to get a job.

The OP has left out quite a lot of detail.

Jenny your sisters situation is very different. She isn't getting into debt and they have agreed all money is joint money. In the OPs case all money isn't joint.

Mine and dhs money isn't joint but, thankfully, we are both fairly sensible.

She should allow him to keep his hobbies too to disallow them is abusive.

that depends on whether they an afford them or not.