Husbands secret debt

[Beckixox]

Apologies in advance for the long thread.

So I have a major problem, Ive found out that my husband has got himself in to a lot of debt through various credit cards and loans. I was already going to meet my mum, I couldn’t look at him let alone talk to him so went with the boys to meet my mum. I told her everything. When we got back to hers and having a cup of tea, my FIL rings and says how depressed his son is and that he thinks he’s “going to top himself” and that he’s “worried about HIS son” He then said don’t tell him I’ve rung. he wouldn’t do that, he’s just shitting himself because he has been found out.
I went to work the next day, just before leaving he remembered about another £5k on a card and while I was at work another £800 was remembered. I do genuinely think he had forgotten about it as his head was everywhere but not making excuses for him.

He’s been going to his parents house every day since then and have since said that he did it with the “best intentions”
I threw the book at him and said they are enabling you and you didn’t do it with the best intentions as you have nothing to show for it, it has literally been spent on nothing.

I found out because I was sorting though what outgoings we had to get a bigger mortgage. We have separate bank accounts and all bills etc come out of mine so that’s why I had no idea about it all. My parents have offered to help us as much as they can and we are meeting with them to help us look at everything to see what the best options are. His dad has quite serious health issues to the point where he is bed bound at the moment.
I want my marriage to work through this and I’ve told my husband that all the debt needs to be sorted before we can work on us and that it’s going to be a long road and I can’t guarantee the outcome. He’s terrified of losing his family

AIBU to tell his parents exactly what’s going on and that this could cost us the marriage

AIBU to not talk to them at all.

AIBU to leave the family home to make him realise that I’m serious.

Any advice or anything would be so appreciated.

£30k can't go on absolutely nothing - what did he actually buy?

I know on MN the advice is to LTB over anything and everything but quite honestly OP, either-

1. Leave him or
2. Stay, work it out and stop punishing him. It's bad but he hasn't killed anyone, and you will be able to work through it.

But staying and punishing and threatening him won't help or achieve anything. Addicts (and he is an addict) need support, not chastising.

If you do choose option 2, get out all what he owes, write it down, speak to the companies. First ask them to write it off. Unlikely this will happen but worth an ask. Ask them to freeze action for a period of time if that suits you. If that doesn't work you need to decide how much you can afford towards all the debts each month and make an offer to them. National Debt Helpline and Citizens Advice are your friends here.

@kidsdrivingmemad

I'd be leaving him and letting him move back to his parents and sort his own mess out. You'll never trust him again and who's to say he won't get in this mess again?

It's really difficult to tell from just that how exactly he got into this situation

Might he be secretly supporting another partner/family?

He doesn’t have another family, apart from work we are together, so doesn’t have the time to be with someone else.
Thankyou for the advice and websites to look at.
I honestly don’t know what he has spent it on, I wish I knew. I wish it waS something like gambling then I know where the money has gone but this just looks like regular spending. Nothing is jumping out at me.
He doesn’t know what it’s gone on.
I wish it was that easy to just leave but I love him and I want to try and make it work for the sake of our children, if it doesn’t work at least we have tried x

Be careful about you and your parents bailing him out, as you might just settle his debts and then he walks away.

What has he spent it on? He's not acting like he's on your team. He needs to fully explain himself

Perhaps it's just gone on every day living costs like petrol, food a day out in which case he's/ you might be living beyond your means. If he's not good with money why not suggest all money goes into your account you pay for everything out of that and what's left split between you and transfer his half into his current account. At least it's out in the open. I personally wouldn't involve family unless we'd got to a point where we couldn't come to an agreed way forward

You're only going to be able to work through this if

1. he's honest about how much debt he's in - suggest you both get a credit report from experian, clearscore, whatever, they all offer free trials.
2. he's honest with you about where it's gone. If he has a gambking or drugs problem then that needs to be addressed otherwise the cycle starts again.

@gobbynorthernbird

If he's got nothing to show for it could he have been gambling?

You really do need to get to the root cause of how he's managed to overspend by such a massive amount, or you'll be back in the same situation in a couple of years time.

This. It is astounding the debt that can be run up with compound interest alone! GCSE Maths taught me about this- I'd not heard of it beforehand. Interest piling upon interest..Very scary.

BUT....unless the chap acknowledges what he is spending on, and reining it in, it will just recur.

Bailing out someone who is still ''financially irresponsible'' doesn't help them..They just get into debt again. {Seen it happen with a friend's DP..they lost their beautiful Georgian cottage over his crazy debt..

Sorry to speculate but this does have gambling hallmarks.
Any apps appeared ?

Frittering that kind of money, he might have a gambling problem

Or if it's built up over a few years it could simply be a few quid or so of unaffordable spending each week made worse by interest and possibly PPI.

Plus it could be that he's taken out loans to 'pay off' the credit cards and then continued to overspend.

OP, point him towards moneysavingexpert for advice on the best solution, depending on how long it could take him to repay the debt.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan/

It's different with children.

You need to drill down to the bottom about the debt then take it from there.

Is he trying to emulate friends?

If it's credit cards etc, there will be statements, this will tell you what it has been spent on. I think you need to know the full picture before you can decide your next move? Sorry you're going through this OP

Nope. Couldn’t ever trust him again. For me it would be over. There is no way in hell I’d allow my parents to bail him out.

@TheQueef

Sorry to speculate but this does have gambling hallmarks. Any apps appeared ?

Gambling or Class A drugs can really blast through money at an alarming rate...But compound interest can be a beast, too.

Plus is want to know how long it took to accrue 30k of debt. Over a few months, years, decades?

It’s strange that you cannot determine what he’s spent £30k on, I would definitely have to know wtf it’s gone on.
I would also not be prepared to stay because once the trust is gone you have little left. I would never be able to trust him again.

Hi OP,

That’s a hell of a lot of money.

And a lot of secrecy. He’s been comfortable living with money secrets for so long it would be hard to trust he wouldn’t revert to this somewhere down the line.

But if you are determined to stay with him, I would suggest:

1. immediately order credit reports on both of you, to see all outstanding debts
2. print credit card statements for these secret accounts, so you can see if the money was frittered away, or if there is a bigger problem here - gambling, affair, alcohol or drug use, etc.
3. try and move credit card accounts to zero or low interest accounts, then start to pay off. Depending on size of debts you may need a loan or other financial advice here.
4. join your money, so his pay goes into a joint family account and so does all his expenditure (yours too). You need to know he isn’t doing this again behind your back.
5. strict budgeting including both your spending money.
6. marriage counseling as to the debt and secrecy

In relation to his parents, if they called me saying that, I’d probably say “thanks for calling Gerry, yes, your son just disclosed over £30,000 pounds in secret spending over the last X years, and frankly he has every right to be worried and I’m not sure emotionally how well I am either. It’s very kind of you to be so worried about me, and no doubt you are furious with your son and can’t believe this is the kind of man you raised. I’m sure you’ve let him know how disappointed in him you are, and how you expect him to fix this and to look after his family, not ruin them.”

You have no hope of moving forward until he tells you where that money has gone. He knows, of course he does. If he has nothing material to show for it, you dont have expensive cars/holidays, and you pay the general bills then it's likely to be gambling, drugs or sex.

I can't get my head around 30k just vanishing into thin air. Have you got full access to all statements?

I think he needs to be more honest and more proactive if the marriage is going to work. It comes across as he has passed the problem to you and sat back while you tie yourself in knots to sort it.

Buy something on credit, the repayment leaves you short. You then buy more on credit to cover the difference and payments increase. You balance transfer to help, but then start spending on the original card again. Slippery slope.

I had this but luckily before kids. It was horrible, and I know how betrayed you must feel we split up. I simply couldn't get over the higher earning partner spending 1.5x their very good salary while I had a second job doing weekend night shifts to fund our future (in a career where earnings will increase quite rapidly). There was no explanation. I still think gambling, but it is denied. A few years on, their life is frankly still a mess, never any money and has lost a few jobs ending up on much lower pay, but I am remarried to a wonderful man, where things are transparent, & expecting a baby. However, with a longer marriage & kids, I can see why you want to work on it. First, you need him to shift from "poor me being found out" to "poor you for the lying and sabotaging of our future I have done". And he needs to tell people who can support him, some family & friends. If he starts engaging with the problem & what he's done, their might be hope.

Sorry but don’t people think that he might actually need help and support? It is scarily easy to build up debt and can happen to even nice people. Yes the secrecy is not ideal but maybe he just found it really hard to tell you. But now he has. So you are either a partnership or you aren’t. I suggest sitting down with him and coming up with a plan if you love him. Or you can do what others have suggested and walk away but it scares me how little people are prepared to support their other halves on here when they make a mistake ...

My credit card sends an annual statement that can be downloaded into an excel file, which makes it easy to sort and categorise the transactions so you can see where the money went.

@FollowYourOwnNorthStar
Thankyou, I hadn’t thought of marriage counseling but will look into it.