DH being weird

[JelloHorse]

My DH an I are in about £20,000 worth of debt between various credit cards and loans.

We met when we were 18/19 and were both quite irresponsible with money. Unfortunately this has chased us into our early 30's. We've also had many family bereavements and situations which we've had to fork out for.

I'm self employed and unfortunately wasted my degree in order to help him out in his business. I now have zero relevant skills for the modern workplace. I teach Japanese online and make around £1500 per month (my mum was Japanese.) I was brought up in England and I'm bilingual. I don't know if any of this matters but I'm just trying to give the full story.

I spoke to a debt charity today (stepchange) about consolidating my debt into a monthly payment.

My DH went crazy, talking about things that could affect us from the previous business, well be chased by creditors etc, we'll never be able to live in America (we've never even been to the US or considered living there).

He apparently has some cryptocurrencies that he can't touch for 18 months. But, as soon as the 18 months are over everything will be fine and I don't have to worry.

I'm not an idiot, but I don't really know much about crypto. He's now stormed off to bed and told me I'm an idiot.

OP - I've been in crypto since 2017. I don't claim to be an expert, but I'll tell you what I know. As far as I'm aware, you would only use escrow with a smart contract if you were selling/trading crypto. That's what escrow basically is, a deposit of money held by a third-party as a safety feature until a transaction is complete.

A bit of background :

Crypto was invented as a form of 'peer to peer cash'. The reason it has gained a lot of negatively recently and people branding it as a 'scam', 'gamble' 'ponzi' etc is simply because there has been a lot of bad actors in the space (FTX, Luna, Celcisus, Blockfi) to name a few. These are centralised scams.
You should never, I repeat, NEVER give your crypto to a centralised exchange. 'Not your keys; not your coins' as the saying goes.* *I have warned too many people about them and they wouldn't listen.

You can lock up cryptocurrencies and gain yield in a safe way, however. This is called defi and the difference is you keep full control of your keys. Unless he is in one of these projects and has full conviction in it then I'm very sceptical of what he is doing. I am unaware of any projects right now where you can lock up your Bitcoin, Ether or XRP and gain yield without giving your keys to some kind of centralised platform.

As I say, I don't claim to know everything but he may have done this with the promise that they would pay him a commission, but he no longer realistically has his crypto. I am conflicted though as you say he keeps his crypto is on a hardware wallet, which is the right thing to do and means he has his keys with no risk.

When did he get into crypto? If he secretly got in early then it's very possible he has 60K in assets and waiting for the next bull run/cycle and wants to throw you off by saying some shit about smart contracts and escrow etc. You need to ask him specifically what he's doing.

I would look into "hedging" with crypto currency. You may find he owed more than he pledged

OP if he has escrows by default his money or crypto will be held by a third party - he either does not understand what he is talking about or he is purposely talking shit. Crypto exchanges are computerised of course, but he needs to have his "keys" (which is the code proving he owns the crypto) in a hard wallet (cold storage) of an exchange for him to actually own them.

The saying is not your keys not your coins.... a few exchanges and crypto projects have gone bankrupt lately and attracted a lot of bad press and people lost a lot of money (e.g. FTX, Luna, Celsius, BlockFi).

I have been in this space a while and I don't know of projects that hold your money for 18 months...so I would be concerned that he originally invested much more than £60k... that the price of whatever he holds tanked and that it is now only worth £60k and he is waiting to make the money back in 18months when he thinks the market will go up...

Ask him when he invested? how much? and if he borrowed the money to invest..

he needs to have his "keys" (which is the code proving he owns the crypto) in a hard wallet (cold storage) of an exchange for him to actually own them.

I have RTFT and there is already plenty of sage advice, but I'm chiming in because there are still a couple of things that don't seem clear to me.

Surely, if you are married, then most/all debts are joint? In which case you need to find out what his situation is as well as your own.

Also, while you remain married, if you are fighting to repay debt and improve your credit score while he piles up debt and/or plays with crypto, he will be undermining everything your are trying to do.

I am shocked at his reaction to you trying to sort things out - as PP have said, he is either incredibly immature around money or is actively shutting you out and hiding things which is not ideal.

I am also confused as to how you have 20k in debt but he apparently has three times that amount just sat in crypto. Although I am HUGELY skeptical about this, I want to know why he's sat on 60k while you are apparently struggling to pay back 20k.

Finally, as many PP have said, you have many skills that you might not even recognise yourself. I am bilingual, working outside the UK, and being an "English Mother Tongue" opens the door every single time. I would imagine that being fluent in Japanese is similarly sought after by Japanese companies or largec omapnies with Japanese clients within the UK. Banks, insurers, tech developers, manufacturers, distributors... A friend of mine once landed a job teaching English to a government ministry team in a European and she was practically swept up to go and live over there where they paid for her apartment, healthcare and pension.

As a language teacher, you have many valuable skills and as someone who has helped run a business you also have many skills you can transfer.

Also, you are young - a new career path at 30 is literally ideal.

Sorry that turned into a novel.

Surely, if you are married, then most/all debts are joint? In which case you need to find out what his situation is as well as your own.
Merging of finances seems to be the default cultural tradition with UK marriage. But it's not required, and makes very little sense. There is no valid reason why all personal debts should be joint debts within a marriage.

Each debt should be considered separately - is it a personal debt (student loan, career development loan, funding a hobby purchase, etc.) or is it a joint debt (mortgage, household purchase, etc.)?

I would ask him to show you what is in his cold wallets. Crypto in cold wallets can easily be transferable to your accounts. AGIX tokens are utility tokens.

OP, I think you need to make preparations to get away from him, as he is not showing you any respect at all, telling you that "you don't need to know" as if you were a small child.

I think he is dishonest and bad with money. Don't let him drag you down.

Speak to a lawyer!

How's he being this morning OP?

It sounds to me that he doesn't 100% understand what debt consolidation means and has panicked. It's not the same as going bankrupt and whilst some forms of DC can affect your credit score it really depends what your credit score is now. There's no reason why you shouldn't see what options StepChange advise for you and then make a decision together. My mother used them then she got herself into a lot of debt a few years ago and they really helped her.

I'd talk to him and make sure he realises that debt consolidation isn't the same as bankruptcy or IVA. In these times of rising interest rates it could be a really smart choice.

He’s panicked as he doesn’t want anyone looking into his finances - as they’ll find out he has lost a lot on crypto and is hoping it will recover in 18 months. If he had 60k in any investment that he can access he should pay the debt off with 1/3rd of it of course. Imho.

If he says there’s no third party involved (ie central exchange) then he must have his own keys. It is possible to lock yourself out by losing the code to your digital wallet. Escrow means a temporary account for moving money - if his crypto is genuinely in escrow it’s either moving to or away from him which means he’s not in full possession of it - is he actually using an exchange?

I don’t think there’s any point trying to untangle this as I think the whole thing is likely to be bollocks anyway.

He may simply be hoping that some crypto he’s bought increases in value over the next 18 months.

Thank you the explanation! Of course it makes logical sense that individuals within a marriage can have individual debts, but I don't really know the technicalities in the UK.

I think I also meant to add that even if the OP sorts out her own debts and improves her own credit score, any joint projects such as a mortgage would be impacted by his refusal to face facts or improve his own situation.

I've no idea really what any of this means. I've asked him to explain it further and he said I don't need to know

This is treating you with so little respect.

I would see if he has any proof of what he has in crypto and take a copy because you might not need to know how much is in the account but your divorce lawyer will. Remember that £60,000 of crypto is a marital asset. You might decide he can keep the crypto if you take £30,000 of other assets, investments, his pension etc.

If you stay I don’t think your Dh will stop and be realistic until he has lost everything and wiped you out as well.

He probably had loads of money in 2019 because crypto was on the rise.
I am presuming that he was in crypto from a few years before and thought it would just keep on going up. He thought he was so smart but not smart enough to know when it had peaked and didn’t get out

I wonder if he borrowed £60,000 to buy crypto and that is what he is hiding.

The problem is he in his head still thinks the 2019 days of crypto going up and having his own personal piggy bank are just around the corner and trying to convince him to tackle the reality of the debts you are in is beneath him.
I personally would leave. You have so much potential and you don’t want this buffoon dragging you back.

Have you any loans, credit cards or mortgage etc that is in both your names.

Your DH is a twat who talks bollocks.

A consolidation loan isn't remotely like bankruptcy. It's just a personal loan for people with a poor credit rating which you can use to pay off your debts and then you pay the money back to your lender every month at a lower interest rate so the debt is more manageable and your monthly payments are smaller than they previously were.

I had a consolidation loan and a 'managed loan' from my bank in my late 20s / early 30s when my credit rating was terrible. It didn't make my already terrible credit rating any worse - in fact, my credit rating started to creep up because I was paying off one debt every month instead of several and I wasn't racking up missed payments, huge interest penalties etc. I haven't had any problems with credit for at least 15 years now. My partner and I bought a house shortly after I paid off my consolidation loan and there was absolutely no problem with me getting a mortgage or anything like that.