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 😞

I look forward to you commenting this on the next "My DH hid debt from me" thread.

I'm saying some types of people are liars and lie as their "go to" move for anything involving consequences. There is no one they don't lie to so it really is just who they are and not related to circumstances or environment. They do it to make their lives easier and they think highly of themselves and justify it in their minds. Snakey types

you probably already had this conversation, but I have a suggestion as someone who avoids debt. Don’t try to use the argument that it is a nominal amount or that plenty of people have this much debt.

To a person who avoids debt or who only uses debt responsibly, it is not a small amount of debt. it may be a small amount of money relative to your incomes. It is certainly a situation that can be cleaned up easily.

However, if you try to argue that the debt is small and this no big deal, it will likely make the situation worse. The problem here isn’t just the debt, it is the secrecy and being irresponsible. Trying to argue that the debt is trivial will make it seem like you don’t understand finances.

instead, just say that you understand keeping it a secret was wrong. You have a schedule for clearing the debt. If he wants to talk about a different schedule you are open to discussion.

@JenWillsiam no, but that's not what you're arguing. Youte arguing that it is always justified.

I assume all the stories of men cheating is okay then?after all, there must have been a reason to lie.

I'm very debt averse tbh. My dh is too so we're on the same page, luckily, but I certainly wouldn't divorce him over a few thousand in credit card debt. These things happen, and they just need to be dealt with.

What would make me question the relationship is the dishonesty. Trust is very important to me, and if I discovered that DH had deliberately been seeking to hide stuff, I would be wondering what else he might be hiding and I would be seriously considering whether there was any future for us.

Just tell him, OP. If your relationship is really so flimsy that it will crack over this, then it probably isn't worth maintaining in any case. If you don't tell him, then it will be far more likely to break things if and when he does find out.

I don’t believe she isn’t scared of him.

I would.

And you think that applies to the original poster?

She has said she isnt. You are now discounting her word to prove your hypothesis that people must lie for a reason. If it was a man would you assume hes scared of his wife?

people lie when they cannot tell the truth.

and no, I don’t think cheating is black and white. It’s the consequence of an unhappy relationship.

🙈🙈

It’s clear she is and yes I would say the same if it was a man.

People who are scared of someone usually behave somewhat on eggshells, not rack up debt, lie about it, and even when its ahout to come up try and come up with ways to lie about it further.

Your views, while I appreciate you do sound like a kind and understanding people, do a disservice to people who are genuinely in distress. Yes, some people lie because they're scared. Some people lie because their relationship is abusive.

Some people lie because they are fundamentally not good people and make awful choices.

None of us really know which of these Op is, but your stance is naive.

People who are afraid absolutely run up debt in secret. And it often escalates due to fear.

I do not believe for one minute the OP is a bad person. Far from it.

I dont remember saying she was.

But excusing all actions ever helps no one, least of all Op

This does not seem like a equitable way to split the bills considering you make so much less than he does - how do you have any spare money after mortgage payments and food shopping?

Doing a quick salary check (assuming you both pay 5% into your pensions and don’t have student loans) you’re taking home roughly £1600 (after tax) and he is taking home £4400.

Even after he has paid his portion of the mortgage and the bills that still leaves him with a sizeable chunk of disposable income, whereas you seem to be struggling to make ends meet and are getting into debt to try and do so, while he is living the life of Riley with all the spare cash, looking down his nose at debt.

To make it equitable you have two options:

• you add your net incomes together and then pay your proportion of the food, bills, mortgage. So you make roughly about 25% of your joint net income and so that is what you should contribute to the household (this is what my husband and I did prior to having children)
• you decide what you think is a fair equal amount to keep yourselves each month and then the rest goes in a joint account where all the household spending comes out from and things like dinners out for the family etc. e.g. both keeping £500 each as your personal spending money and then putting the rest in a joint account. (this is what my husband and I did post child as my ‘job’ became looking after our child).

you have a child together and a life together, it is not acceptable that you have to bear the weight of trying to make your finances work when your husband makes so much more than you and from what it looks like is having a great time with his all spare cash. You are meant to be partners.

Probably.

You need to come clean or this will cause you extra anxiety, waiting for him to find out himself.

OP's fear of telling her husband comes from knowing she's been deceitful about her debt right from the start of the relationship so it's bizarre people are making out the husband to be the issue.

I’m not excusing all actions but I don’t agree this all on the OP. He’s created an environment where she cannot be honest with him.

We couldn’t disagree more.

You are. You're blaming him. I know hes not a "victim" in that sense but it is victim blaming.

I feel sorry for your DH in this situation because you’ve essentially been lying to him all this time, how can he trust you when you’ve kept debt hidden from him (admittedly it’s a tiny amount given your financial circumstances but debt nonetheless) his fears and concerns around finances are clearly justified. You need to divulge this, be transparent and hopefully draw a line underneath it.

This.

I agree with this. Her husband sounds very controlling and she seems afraid of him, financially at least. No, it's not right to hide something like this from your spouse. But I do understand why she did it. What is apparent is she doesn't feel she can confide in her own husband because of his rigid judgemental beliefs. And it's sad that she cannot confide in him.