Would you be annoyed if partner took out a loan without discussing it with you?

[secretloan]

Not married. 7 years together. Shared finances. 1 DC together.

Jus found out he took out a loan last December without telling me, as he left the statement lying around so I saw it this morning.

AIBU that when you share finances and live together you discuss these things openly?

Also can't get any straight answers about where the money went. I asked if there are any more debts I don't know about, he denied it. I said how can I trust that though if you kept this from me? can I see your bank statement to prove it? He lost his temper and said "we are not married and you are not going through my statements, that's controlling".

I'm controlling?! For not trusting him due to the secret loan and now wanting some sort of proof he hasn't done this several times?

So as not to drip feed - he was also messaging another woman around the time of the loan being taken out - there's about a month between these two things. We are having counselling about that at the moment. He swears he never slept with her and it was just flirty messages that went no further then fizzled out. But now my mind is in overdrive that he took out this loan to buy her stuff (it was around Christmas last year) and that's why he's refusing to let me see his statements??

Am i going mad here? And I totally paranoid and controlling like he says? Or is this not ok? 😢

@HangryFeminist

I know. I read it back and my heart sank. I know it's not good. I don't know why I cling to it, hoping one day it will be something better.

Have faith in your self,you are better than this life you are living.We all make mistakes you need to accept this and try and find a solution.You want to believe he will change there is no hope of that.Tell him to leave and find some peace if he shows you his bank accounts and it is all a terrible mistake then you can talk.Forget joint counselling but find some for yourself.You can do this I promise.

Your posts have been shameful. You should have been advised to leave the thread, not the OP. Apart from a few lunatics getting at her, she has received some extremely useful and supportive posts.

Oh took quite long for the cool wives to come out on this one to say it’s perfectly ok

Oops only now I understood what you mean, apols

But if you are financially linked to someone then it is very much your business how the other person spends their money.

The impact on your own credit rating, the ability for you to get a credit card, loan, financing, even car lease or even mobile phone on contract will be impacted

Also if you divorce his debts become your debts.

Knors If you are married or even just financially linked to someone with debts, loans etc you need to do a bit of homework on how this will affect you because you don’t seem to understand how things like credit ratings and divorce work.

I don’t think Cool Wives is the appropriate description

Financially ignorant maybe a better description

I think you misunderstood me Love.
I was in agreement that it SHOULD be my business how my husband spends his money (for all those reasons you've listed). Hence why I quoted the person who said it shouldn't be anyone's business how their partner spends their money. Which again, I find strange, knowing full well how it can affect me.

That's a bit judgy, don't you think?

My wife and I keep our finances separate. Neither of us have any need to know about the other's finances beyond our share of the bills and the mortgage being paid. Her money's her business, and I have absolutely no desire to know anything about it....and she feels exactly the same way. If she tells me she's short of cash, I hand some of mine over because I don't want her stressed about it, and vice versa. The only time I've ever seen her bank statements was when she asked for help understanding some weird shit that had been going on (she's dyslexic and has difficulty dealing with badly-laid-out documents).

It's worked pretty much perfectly that way for 23 years, because we actually trust each other and act like adults instead of reactive, possessive control freaks about it.

It's worked pretty much perfectly that way for 23 years, because we actually trust each other and act like adults instead of reactive, possessive control freaks about it.

That's great, I'm so pleased your relationship works "perfectly".

I'm going to assume your wife has never been caught messaging other people with intent to sleep with them? Around the same time she took a personal loan without your knowledge? So... not comparable to my situation, is it.

I wasn't referring to your situation - I was specifically replying to the post I quoted, which stated that anybody who doesn't want to pry into the details of their partner's finances is financially ignorant.

"Reactive possessive control freak" is just more gaslighting. Much like DP calling me "controlling" for wanting to see proof he didn't spend that money on this OW.

I'm none of those things. I'm rightly untrusting of him - like any normal person would be - because he's betrayed the trust with lies and secrecy.

From what you’ve written, there’s absolutely no intent she’s done it.

@xyhere

Right. So if you were in my exact situation, might you want to "pry into" your partner's finances to get some answers? Or am I also reactive and a control freak?

No, I wouldn't. Your situation is a little different, but the reason for the breach of trust isn't the loan. You have nothing but supposition to suggest that the loan and the flirty messages were anything to do with each other - there is no evidence available that they're linked, and both parties involved have told you there was nothing to it.

If you don't believe either of them, then surely that's your answer already?

The issue to my mind, if I was in your position, would be the fact that the exchange happened at all. Trying to dig into his finances is simply escalating the conflict to the point where a split is inevitable regardless of what you find.

If you genuinely can't get past the fact that he wants to keep his finances private, then just skip to the last step and get a divorce, because you're going to end up there anyway. That'll be stressful enough as it is, you don't need a massive boatload of additional stress and angst building up to it.

Note that I'm explicitly not making any judgements here. Just an attempt at an assessment of it while trying not to be emotive.

@secretloan my ex had an affair. He fucked her on my birthday in a hotel room paid for my credit card because he was unemployed at the time having dumped my kids with family members to babysit while he went off to do that.
I absolutely tortured myself for three months Going through bank statements going through phone bills. I wish I hadn’t bothered.

He never admitted to it. she did only after I literally put her in a position where she couldn’t deny it. Naturally, I became an abusive gaslighting Tossa. When history was completely re-written. Just save yourself the fucking bother, you know what’s happened. Death by 1000 cuts is not going to make you feel any better.

@secretloan - OK, on reflection, let's put it another way: if he showed you his statements and it shows that the loan was in no way linked to the message exchange, would you be 100% satisfied? Would you suddenly trust him implicitly?

My hunch (and do correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not trying to make this an argument) is that you still wouldn't be able to trust him.

That being the case, I can only see three possible ways this can play out:

1 - He gives you the statements, they confirm he spent the loan on her. Result: divorce.

2 - He won't give you the statements, you can't trust him. Result: divorce.

3 - He gives you the statements, they show that the two things aren't linked, but you still can't trust him because of the flirting. Result: divorce.

Unless I'm completely wrong on any of those (like I said, very possible - I don't know you, only what I've read here), then his finances are irrelevant to the end result.

@xyhere

If the outcome were number 3 on your list, then we would continue as we were before I discovered the loan. Because that's the precise reason we are attending counselling - to address exactly that.

In other words:

If it's 1, our relationship is over because he lied about the extent of his relationship with the OW. It was clearly more than just messages that fizzled out if he spent money on her.

If it's 2, our relationship is over because he's clearly hiding something.

If it's 3, we are at the same point we were pre secret loan discovery, and we continue addressing it in counselling.

Fair enough. I'd be extremely happy to be wrong, but I've never seen a relationship recover properly once it gets to this point.

Gotta say, though, if there are conditions under which you believe your relationship can right itself, there's no way in hell I'd be asking about it on here. No matter what the question is, the answer from at least 90% of respondents is "divorce him" ;)

How on earth are you at .3 if he hasn’t spent the money on her, but he still basically stolen from you and committed fraud ?

How has he stolen from me and committed fraud?

He's kept a loan secret from me. I'm struggling to see where theft and fraud come into it?

Really? He would never think his child needs clothing? How stupid is this man? Of course he knows, he also knows that if he keeps his head down, you’ll buy it all.

This is an excellent post and says what I had been thinking.

I hope you get the answers at counselling tonight @secretloan