Husband resents me for debt

[wishes1111]

Hello

I'll try and explain as briefly as possible.

I was raised by my grandparents and lost them both within 3 years or each other to cancer (in their 60s). I've also had 6 miscarriages during and since.

I have been on antidepressants since age 14 and have a history of anxiety too.

My coping mechanism was to spend, I took loans out, ordered clothes, things I didn't need and racked up nearly £8000 in debt, exchanging my utter sadness and despair for temporary happiness.

After 2 years of paying the minimum payments, I realised I couldn't hide it anymore, interest was rising and I was struggling to cope and was losing the battle of keeping my head above water.

I earn £24,000 a year, my husband earns £40,000.

I admitted it all during a breakdown, he was angry and sad that I'd done this and especially since I'd hid it from him. I fully understood this and took responsibility for my actions. I entered a payment plan with stepchange and have kept up with payments over the past couple of years and it's slowly but surely reducing. I'm paying this myself, as well as £550 for my half of rent and £30 for my phone. The rest, I use for birthday presents, diesel, car insurance and tax and I'm left with little per month. I've also cleared my overdraft in this time.

I have taken no further loans out since entering my plan with stepchange.

My problem is, my Husband resents me for this. He is a saver, he won't spend unless he has to and he saves what he can (which is a good thing). I've tried my hardest to turn my life around and take responsibility.

He said he will resent me until it's all paid off which will be another couple of years. Some days he is lovely, others it's like he's punishing me for my mistakes. Digs here and there, cold towards me, brings up what I did.

I can't even explain how much I regret doing this but I can't live like this. If I have £10 left for the last week of the month and I need to get something such as tampons or some lunch stuff for work , he tells me to sort it out myself. I understand I'm not his responsibility but this is wearing me down.

He has more than enough in savings to clear my debt. I don't expect him to do that but know in a heartbeat I would do it for him if I knew it was weighing on his shoulders, adding anxiety to his life and and he'd made an effort to change.

I feel I can't go on this way, but when he's in a nice mood I love him so much, when he's in his resentful mood he makes me feel low and like he'll never move past it.

I'm waffling, I don't expect people to think he's in the wrong, I get it.

I guess I'm just hoping for a hand hold whilst suffering my latest miscarriage, dealing with a resentful husband and trying my hardest to not fall back into a deep depression x

@SurvivalIsInsufficient

You did NOT borrow the debt money from HIM.HE is the victim of NOTHING here. This is emotional abuse

Hold on. His wife LIED to him, for years. She hid a very large debt, she hid her spending. She expects him to use his savings to clear her debts.

If this was the reverse and he was the woman, you would not in a million years call her abusive and save all your sympathy for him. You would call him a cheating bastard who should work harder to clear his own debts, and advise getting rid of him.

For me it would be less about the money and more about the lies. I couldn't forgive that easily.

Grief can do terrible things. Hence why some people turn to drink and drugs, being married and hiding spending does not in any way shape or form give someone a right to punish someone for a MISTAKE. he hasn’t lost out through it so why is he even bothered.

Ok so he had a huge shock when your debt was revealed and he has had some time to process it.

You need to sit down and have a serious chat. If you are prepared to do the hard work and change your ways and commit to being debt free as soon as feasibly possible, then he also needs to commit to accepting the situation and moving forward with you. He is currently stuck back where he was you revealed the extent of the debt. He has to move forward. It’s. It healthy or productive for either of you.

You deserve praise and encouragement OP not derision and shame and guilt that he’s allowing you to feel. I personally wouldn’t stay in a marriage where that continued.

I can see both sides, however you are paying back the debt and making positive moves. I belive your husband needs to do this too. To avoid you begining to resent him for not supporting you.

There maybe feelings he's not expressing and he may not understand that spending is emotional and can be a release to all the hurt a person is feeling. For this reason I would advice marriage counselling as they will be able to let you express both your feelings in constructive way.

I find it odd that he can put a timeline on when he will be over it. He is understandably hurt and upset but if his actions are genuinely caused by that how can he say he will no longer be hurt and upset on a particular day in the future, emotions don't work like that. It feels more like it's a handy excuse to find fault to me.

@user234987653

He is very much in the wrong, he is using this as a stick to beat you with. This is emotional abuse.

You did NOT borrow the debt money from HIM.
HE is the victim of NOTHING here.
He has no legal responsibility here.
He has no right to pass judgement in repeated comments, that's abusive.

I agree that he is 100% being abusive, but it's naive to think a partner's finances won't affect the other person. It could affect ability to get a mortgage, impede on the whole family's lifestyle etc. The way he is handling it is grounds for divorce however.

OP sorry you are having such a crap time of late, losing your grandparents is bad enough, but with the miscarriages on top of that - life it just not fair sometimes. Your husband doesn't sound like he is really on your side.

What’s he going to hold over you when the debt has gone? Is he going to go from a resentful arse to all sweetness and light overnight?

Yes he was right to be pissed off initially but now he needs to let it go and behave like a partner. This debt doesn’t effect him at all with maybe the exception of less generous birthday gifts. You are holding your own in the household and living on a pittance yourself.

Assuming you are otherwise happy You need to stop apologising for it and refuse to engage with him when he becomes resentful.

Other thing I would suggest, rather than paying any surplus onto the debt, perhaps you should squirrel it away in a savings account, it will mean you will have a safety net if anything of yours goes wrong or it will give you an escape fund if things don’t work out.

What happens when there are household emergencies like the washing machine breaks are you expected to contribute half?

Is it also worth having a session of eBaying things to make a little extra too

Good luck 💐

@SurvivalIsInsufficient

You did NOT borrow the debt money from HIM.HE is the victim of NOTHING here. This is emotional abuse

Hold on. His wife LIED to him, for years. She hid a very large debt, she hid her spending. She expects him to use his savings to clear her debts.

If this was the reverse and he was the woman, you would not in a million years call her abusive and save all your sympathy for him. You would call him a cheating bastard who should work harder to clear his own debts, and advise getting rid of him.

For me it would be less about the money and more about the lies. I couldn't forgive that easily.

Then he could have dumped her.

He chose to stay married.

He doesn't get to treat her like shit for the next two years because he made the decision to stick it out, and she's paying it herself.

@wishes1111 is he eating the food you're paying for? He's using the diesel you're paying for - that needs to stop. He needs to contribute.

But to be honest, I think this relationship is dead in the water.

Op, I do agree with everyone else that once your debt is paid off, if you and your spouse remain married, you need to re-examine how you think about your finances. This isn’t a fair split and it will be absolutely ridiculous if you ever have children.

I’m really perplexed by the people who think this is a small amount of debt. Makes me think about the financial literacy thread that is going on right now and the different messages we get depending on our particular families.

OP I think you are doing amazingly. You’ve had a really shit time of it, chose an toxic coping mechanism as many of us do, recognised this, got help, are sorting the issue and doing it all without the support of the one person who should be your bedrock, your arsehole of a husband. I bet if you came on here and had said you had chosen alcohol as a coping mechanism and had hidden it and was now getting help you’d have had much more supportive posts, people are really odd about shopping addictions, it’s an addiction like any other.

I am with the posters who say clear your debts and leave. Find a fresh start with someone who respects you.

I can understand your husband’s initial shock and anger but to continually “punish” you is disgusting frankly. You sound like you are a couple which keep their finances separate and so he is not being impacted by this at all. Please look after yourself.

I wouldn't expect or let, him pay off your debts.
I wouldn't be trying to have a child whilst your marriage is not in a good place.
I'd make sure the depression is being properly managed, you are getting support.
Has your spending started creeping up, though you aren't adding to the debt? Debt repayment plan payments are usually calculated taking into consideration other outgoings, so shouldn't be leaving you short each month
I'd try and discuss the imbalance of bills, if he earns x 2 what you do, surely the % you pay should be half?
He feels let down by you, fair enough, but he needs to forgive/support or end the marriage, you can't keep going about it, I think that's unfair.
Are you still spending on un-essential items?
stick to your payment plan, you can do it, and you feel will great!

@SurvivalIsInsufficient

You did NOT borrow the debt money from HIM.HE is the victim of NOTHING here. This is emotional abuse

Hold on. His wife LIED to him, for years. She hid a very large debt, she hid her spending. She expects him to use his savings to clear her debts.

If this was the reverse and he was the woman, you would not in a million years call her abusive and save all your sympathy for him. You would call him a cheating bastard who should work harder to clear his own debts, and advise getting rid of him.

For me it would be less about the money and more about the lies. I couldn't forgive that easily.

Then your choice would be:

Leave, because your marriage was untenable
Stay, work it out as a couple

But nobody has the right to stay and then make their life partner fucking miserable just because!

And OP has said quite clearly that she expects nothing from him! She said she expects nothing from him but would, if it were his debt, pay it off! She is clearing her debt herself - whilst paying more than her fair share into the family pot!

Not being able to forgive it is one thing, and an entirely reasonable view. But would you stay and make you and your partner miserable for years? Would you use the debt as a stick with which to beat your partner for years, and tell them that's what you are doing?

Awww OP. I really feel for you.

I do understand his shock / hurt regarding you keeping it for him, however, he chose to stay with you.

In choosing to stay with someone despite hurt feelings etc., it's my opinion that by doing so you are agreeing to try to move on from something. Resentment has no place in relationships. If he was that hurt / resentful of you that he felt he could not get over it, he should not have stayed with you.

There are two choices for any betrayal in a relationship - you try to forgive and if you don't think you can, you leave.

He needs to get over it, or do one.

You should tell him that you have apologized, tried to sort it, and that that is all you can do. Tell him if he can not get over it he needs to have a long think as to what to do about that because you both can't live like this forever.

Something I am noticing about your posts that reminds me of my DP, is the way you take a sort of broad-brush, big-picture approach.

You'd forgive him debt in a heartbeat.

You pay 'your half' of things.

You've not had a treat in a couple of years, not even a top or a lipstick.

But ... you're not in a position to forgive him debt, so you don't know. You pay 40%, not half. Your budget includes birthday presents.

I'm not saying you're a bad person for expressing yourself the way you do, and I don't think you're deliberately being dishonest or anything like that, but I think you are someone who naturally generalises and isn't precise. IME impulse spenders are like that. They spend £30 here and £40 there and £10 somewhere else and think it's roughly fifty quid they've spent, surely not more? Or they check their bank balance, see it's £325 and round up, deciding they've got about 350 in the bank.

Savers are not like that (I am not a natural saver btw, but my mum is!). Savers know exactly what's in the bank. They know how much they spent yesterday and they have a mental map of what's coming out next week.

A person who thinks in broad-brush generalisations and says they're 'paying my half' when they're paying 40% is always going to be slightly at odds with a saver who knows damn well it's not half; a person who concentrates on how they've not had treats but somehow has spare money to give people presents is always going to make a saver feel a bit irritated.

I know we never have a full picture of someone's situation on MN and other posters who see this story differently may well be right that he's not a nice person; I don't know. But I do wonder if the way you talk about money on this thread could be part of the reason he is still so resentful/why he still brings it up.

I couldn’t stay with someone who would punish you like this. You made a mistake you are paying it off. You have no money at all after bills and debt. That is punishment enough. I’m not expecting him to be doing cartwheels but marriage is about supporting each other. Look forward to better times not sulking and cold shoulder.

No matter the error of you need money for lunch or tampons and he’s sitting with savings and refusing WTF. I would give a stranger a £5 for emergency grub or Period supples.

It sounds like your repayment levels are unsustainable and that's what you need to fix. Can you talk to Stepchange (or whoever you are repaying - sorry, don't know if Stepchange would manage this or not) to get your repayments lowered slighty to leave you with a bit more money to spend? Even just £20/30 a month sounds like it would help you out a lot.

Doing this might be worth it for both you and your DH as he probably feels like your skintness limits your life together and you feel hurt when he doesn't pick up bits for you when you're broke at the end of the month because you don't feel supported.

I'd probably tell him that I was going to slightly decrease repayments as I just can't afford it, so the debt will last a little longer. He may decide to pick up an extra £30 (or whatever) of the rent so you can still finish your repayments on the same schedule.

It's a difficult situation because I do feel that he's being harsh to make you feel so awful when you are already doing what you can, but I also know that debt can affect a partner more than you'd really imagine given that they're not being asked to pay any of it off. I was in your DH's shoes and just things like not being able to get a takeaway or go out anywhere unless they pick up the bill for it makes a difference, or having to/wanting to replace household stuff but knowing you have to foot the whole cost or not do it at all.

So you pay 60/40 but you then have to pay the council tax, food, pet stuff, presents and car? All that should be added to the outgoings and then split 60/40 - it sounds like you could be paying more than him per month on nearly half the salary?

Frankly, I would LTB. He is using your past behaviour as a stick to beat you with, despite you taking all steps to clear your debts. I would not expect him to contribute towards the debt and understand that you should not have kept this from him, but him saying he will resent you until you pay if off is really awful, as this reeks of him punishing you, rather than being a purely emotional reaction on his part, ie. he has decided to resent you for a set period of time.

He should be paying more towards the household expenses, as he earns more.

I honestly couldn't put up with this at all.

Honestly OP it would be a totally different story had you racked up the debt before marriage and come clean when you met...etc

But if my DH had gone and spent thousands of pounds and hidden the debt from me like you have I’d have left him. It’s a total betrayal of trust (regardless of reason or personal struggles) and it’s selfish because he’s financially linked to you so your step change plan will significantly impact his credit score. It’s not clear cut like ‘this is my debt and I’m paying it’.

I have seen numerous threads on MN where women describe being in your DH’s situation. Their partners ‘come clean’ and admit large debts usually due to some sort of MH issue or addiction. 9/10 times all the comments are LEAVE HIM!

I think you’re pretty lucky he stayed tbh

I think your husband needs to be more understanding about the debt you are doing everything you can to rectify things. He has to forgive you and support you so that you can both move forward together without his resentment , and also he should pay more towards household expenses as he earns more than you.

He’s in the wrong. I get that he feels upset and deceived but his behaviour towards you is awful. You’re trying to put things right.

Whatever happened to “for better or worse”. He sounds like a bully.

OP has said they pay 60/40 - which is in proportion to their take home pay

No she said that is how they split the rent. She then pays the running of the shared car, the dog, the food/shopping adn 171ukp per month council tax. Unless they pay an exceptionally large rent I'm struggling to see that as less than 50%

You have my sympathy OP. Yes, you chose a wrong way to deal with your depression but you really have to live through depression and come out the other side to fully understand. I found another very damaging way to cope with my depression and it caused dreadful problems. Now I feel like a proper person again I can see where I went wrong.

Please don't let your husband's attitude make you depressed again. Your have survived and am probably stronger for it. I can see that, for him, the deception was very hurtful and I am sure you won't do this again. Good Luck.

@wishes1111 I am so sorry for the loss of your Grandparents and the losses you have experienced with having the miscarriages.

To be honest, if it had not been the debt he is resenting you for, he would have found something else to resent you for. Which from experience I assume he already has and you have accepted that behaviour from him.

If you do not have enough to live on then speak to Stepchange immediately, they will help you.

He is your problem, not the debt, you have got a debt remedy in place and it is being repaid, but yet his behaviour towards you is unacceptable and for you to open up and admit you have made a mistake is very brave of you especially with your struggle with your mental health.

Your DH is being abusive and is making your situation worse. He is not helping you whatsoever mentally or helping you clear your debt and at very least he does not even want to understand why you did get into debt in the first place. But I totally understand that being your coping mechanism in order to feel better.

If he is continually resenting what happened then you have to dig deep and take a step back and look at the state of your relationship. To me from what you have said this is emotional abuse and control. I have been there and I have been treated like this, I got out of the relationship completely.

If you do want to stay with your husband then you are going to have to tell him how you feel and more importantly how he makes you feel and suggest counselling.

Personally I do not think he will ever change.

Good luck OP.

@WagnerTheWehrWolf

He sounds like an absolute arse. Getting into debt wasn't some moral failing, you were using it to self-medicate your way through your grief and your MH issues. Yes of course, keeping the debt hidden from him was wrong but you owned up and took control. His reactions are revolting. He'll continue to resent you? He refuses to give you money for tampons? And now you're suffering another miscarriage?

I'm so dreadfully sad for you. You deserve better than this emotional ruin of a man.

Completely agree.

And I'm really proud about how you have dug yourself out of your overdraft, and have never succumbed to the lure of more debt after this episode.

And I'm so so sorry your husband can't tell you that. So I will

To answer some questions. He pays 60% of the rent, he pays for sky, internet, gas and electric.

I pay my 40% plus the others I have listed.

By the time I pay stepchange I have less than £30 for the month. I have endometriosis so go through tampons and pads fast, my cycles are unpredictable and can sometimes last 10 days. This is why sometimes I'm caught out at the end of the month when I'm not expecting a period but get one anyway. I will try to keep £5 in my bank as emergency in case I get an unexpected cycle. Hoping that the coil will help this.

He's of course had made mistakes during our relationship (cheating twice when we were teenagers) which I let go, we were very young.

When I married him, he was kind and caring, I cannot deny that he has supported me through the loss of our babies and my grandparents however he has a "get up and get going attitude". He doesn't understand depression because he's never suffered it. He thinks if I'm having a bad day I should go out for a walk or similar and I'll be cured when in reality I work a full time job, do housework and laundry, have an autoimmune disease, endometriosis and my mental health problems which make me very tired and sometimes I don't have the energy to just get up and go out (this annoys him).

Since I admitted the debt, he's been very on and off, for a week he can be that kind man I married but it can flick like a switch for no apparent reason other than the resentment he holds for me.