DH is going to find out about my CC debt isn’t he.

[Blueskyfordays]

PLEASE, PLEASE not a pile on.

I have £4K of CC debt, tbh I have no idea how I’ve even accumulated it over the years but here we are. Minimum payments are £150 a month, I pay off £200-£250 a month but it has a fairly high interest rate (about £80 a month interest charges) husband doesn’t know, we have separate bank accounts with my wages going into mine and his going into his. I just transfer him money for mortgage and bills.

I have never been on our mortgage, mainly because DH can easily afford the mortgage himself and this house was his before we married. We married a couple of years ago.

Mortgage now up for renewal, he said a couple of months ago he wanted to put me on the mortgage. I didn’t say anything, hoping he’d forget/ change his mind.

This morning, the new provider that he’s gone to a quote for rang him and he said he wanted to put his wife on the mortgage too and I had to give some details, name, DOB, job title, current salary etc.

Between us we earn £98k and we would be looking to take out a mortgage of £240,000.

The man on the phone thanked him for the details and said someone will be in touch.

Will they ask/ tell him about the debt? 😭😭 I know people will say I should have told him/ should tell him but I pay it every month, I’ve never missed a payment, it comes out of my wage and if I was spending £200 a month on clothes and shoes (I don’t!) I wouldn’t tell him, so long as I could afford it.

I was just hoping to get it all paid off in the next 2-3 years with him being none the wiser 😞

@Deathbyfluffy

You're exactly right first 2 pages consist of 'are you scared of him and 'he should pay it off'
Imagine a role reversal.

Im not scared of him and I don’t expect him to pay it off. I’m just frightened he’ll split our family up over in general terms, what is a nominal amount and something that I can easily pay off over the next year and a half interest free. Yes it’s the fact I’ve kept it from him, I get that, but I only did so because I was scared he’d end the marriage and I guess if he does so, then my fears are justified.

You sound like your minimising the amount you have lied. You have lied your entire marriage and you have no plans to fess up.

If he decides to end the marriage then he has adequate cause.

But you've continued to use it and spend it over a period of time, with no intention of telling him. You're now trying to think of a lie to get out of tne mortgage.

It's not even that much money. Ifs the fact you are fine to lie right to his face.

A bully?! Where?

He isn’t paying anything towards your debt, it doesn’t impact him at all. If you have completely separate finances as you say then tbh it’s fuck all to do with him.

Having a credit card isn’t some moral failing ffs.

.

Yes it’s the fact I’ve kept it from him, I get that, but I only did so because I was scared he’d end the marriage and I guess if he does so, then my fears are justified.

You genuinely thought he’d end your marriage if you told him about a relatively small amount of credit card debt? Are you also saying that if you’d told him from the start, he wouldn't have got married and had a child with you?

I really think that you’re magnifying this out if all proportion. Tell him, apologize, promise to be open about your finances in the future, and move forward. Yes, he’ll be angry, but telling him now is the best thing to do.

He won't find out unless you tell him. Whe n we got our mortgage my husband had thousands of debt and I didn't find out how much exactly. Also, they will just ask for some bank statement and some pay slips I never had to provide my credit card statement. This is at least my experience with mortgages.

Did you not have to fill out forms/ speak about finances in front of each other? Did you know about the debt beforehand or did applying for the mortgage make you aware?

You genuinely thought he’d end your marriage if you told him about a relatively small amount of credit card debt? Are you also saying that if you’d told him from the start, he wouldn't have got married and had a child with you?

Yes, I think all of that tbh. He absolutely hates debt.

@Blueskyfordays

I knew he had debt but not how much I still don't :)

As I said everything they wanted was current account statements for last 3 months and pay slips. When you fill out forms they usually have debt amounts but it's pretty loose I don't think we actually reported how much we have on our CC.

I honestly don't see them caring much about CC statement of like 3 to 4k but this is just my experience. We renewed this year and didn't change the provider we didn't need to send them any documents whatsoever. I realise its different when you add a person but since it's already ongoing mortgage they won't be so scrutinising.

Im not scared of him and I don’t expect him to pay it off. I’m just frightened he’ll split our family up over in general terms, what is a nominal amount and something that I can easily pay off over the next year and a half interest free. Yes it’s the fact I’ve kept it from him, I get that, but I only did so because I was scared he’d end the marriage and I guess if he does so, then my fears are justified.

Do you honestly, in your rational mind, think that your husband will be SO cross about £4,000 that he will want a divorce and to take your DC away 50% of the time? Do you truly, honestly believe that if you said

“DH, when we got together and I told you I was £10K in debt, I was too ashamed to say it was actually more than that. The £10K my parents lent me didn’t pay it all off and I still have £4K on a credit card. I’ve been making payments of £250 a month to try to clear it for ages but it’s not going down. I find talking about money really hard but I don’t have as much disposable income as you so I can’t pay off this debt quickly on my own.”

that he would DIVORCE you?

Because if he would he’s not a good man.

He might be annoyed about the initial lie but that is the ONLY thing he should be annoyed about.

And you should mind separate finances and not having as much money as him. It’s not fair when you’re married. You could have cleared this debt ages ago if you had more access to family finances.

it’s a completely unreasonable position to leave someone over a small fixable-and-being fixed historical credit card debt. I cannot understand why you started out with this lie all those years back or continued it, or plan to continue it as this thread boils down to, you want to see how you can lie til you’ve paid it off and you really do think he’ll leave you over this.

I do suffer with anxiety (which has got so much worse since DC came along) so I could be blowing it up out of proportion but there have been several people on this thread that have said they would leave their partners over this.

I plan to tell him when he comes home, which now should be tonight.

Honestly I’m not sure honesty is the best policy in this scenario and I really hope I don’t regret doing ‘the right thing’

I hope so too, but if someone is this mad about their money, sooner or later you’ll hit this kind of scenario. Personally I can understand why you’ve lied and this is your only offence, so hopefully your dh will be similar.

Agree.

earlier she said he’s financially controlling. So he may limit what she allowed to diene in herself and her child.

so she probably used the card to get herself things she deserves and needs.

if OP is concerned he will kick her and the baby out due to a CC debt that is more than likely due to his not letting her have money, she needs to think of an exit strategy now because it will only get worse.

and I know he says on mortgage so she doesn’t get kicked out if he dies— this is untrue

she only needs to be in the deed. And they are married so she’s have the rights to the house.

Something fishy is going on here IMO as he is asking her to take in debt.

she needs to ask better questions and stop trusting him blindly

I totally understand. I earn more than hubby and he has always been the most me that taken control I pay for quite a lot but leading up to this point when the kids were in childcare etc we struggle and when I changed jobs as it was stressful so my income halved and I wasn’t prepared financially I have got myself into £30k worth of debt which I pay off each month but it must be about 1k and of that 50% interests!!! I wish I had told hubby when it started but now I am so far down I want to clear it my choice to change jobs abs my choice to not say no to still paying for things but I have to say I keep thinking I will be retired before I have paid off. Please don’t judge either hubby not controlling but I will feel I let him down by not sharing - also he has reduced hours. We never had any help with childcare no subsidies and we struggled with mortgage rates high but we did it on our own. I feel for everyone at the moment with the rates going up but even older couples struggle too. Good luck and for me I would swap to 0% card on transfer and over pay. Learn from my lesson and tell him once you are in control of it please for your own sanity x

if your earnings vs mortgage is high enough they don’t seem to do then. Wr bought our house nearly seven years ago and didn’t do an affordability check and we didn’t do one when we remortgaged a few years later.

from reading on here, with our earnings we could in theory have gotten twice the size of mortgage we got plus we had a pretty good deposit due to equity so I’ve always assumed that is why they didn’t do the affordability checks. We just told them how much we earned and priced it and I think they asked how much our childcare was. We didn’t go into any great detail.

No, you have a high enough salary and so long as you have always paid in time then having this debt will actually help your credit rating.
And, it’s up to you how you manage the money you work for. If he finds out then don’t be apologetic - be indignant that he should think it’s his business.
I had a HUGE debt and we got a mortgage without it coming up.

And, it’s up to you how you manage the money you work for. If he finds out then don’t be apologetic - be indignant that he should think it’s his business.

So is it up to the husband if he gambles all his money away so the mortgage doesn't get paid and they get evicted? The wife has no right to know or object? I don't know how peoole live like that.

Nobody is gambling! Talk about extremes - it’s a minor debt - easily paid off and quite frankly none of his business!!

OP have you ever paid into a pension? What you’ve paid in is your money and might be worth looking at disinvesting?

That didn’t happen here though? She’s literally just spending her money and managing her own credit. He chose to keep finances separate.

You don't need to! They check Experian or Equifax or one of the other main credit agencies to check the application matches your credit profile, the moment you press submit on an agreement in principle. I am a mortgage paraplanner, I'm not talking out of my arse here.

The bank statements are to check how you manage money, whether you're in your overdraft, whether you said no children but have a nursery bill on there.

The only way OP could have avoided this was being the only one dealing with the mortgage intermediary and doing all the paperwork/emails, but even so it should be mentioned in the recommendation report.