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 😞

He doesn't sound controlling. I would have been a lot angrier than he seems to be that you'd lied for years.

I am glad that he is going to clear this debt for you.

Now you need to cut up the card so that you don't build it up again. I have been the spouse who cleared the debt to help , only for him to build it up again. I felt completely betrayed after doing it to help him reduce the interest by putting the debt in my name on a 0% card!.

As PP says, you do need to sit down and look at all finances now that you have less money coming in, to ensure that you are not left short. You should also have some savings in your name, although I can understand it, if he thinks you would blow the lot, why he would keep them in his name.

I have been the spouse who cleared the debt to help , only for him to build it up again

I think that's what quite a few of us were wondering about - after all it's happened before and it'll need quite a change in mindset if it's not to happen again, especially as the main concern throughout was to keep this from DH

However now it's in the open, hopefully they'll be able to work on this together

This

op
If they do go through your expenditure line by line like you're worried about, you have nothing to hide, so there is not a problem? You DH knows about the debt, so that is accounted for now too. The worst thing that can happen is that you will be rejected from the mortgage, is that so bad?

Glad it’s all getting sorted out. Fwiw, the worst time financially that I had was when i had small kids and worked part time, you need to go over your budget and revise your contributions and outgoings down £ for £ to your new earnings.

you earn less as PT, but your outgoings go up on childcare and entertainment and it can really add up.

Planned to go to the park, but it rains, mum friends invites you out for coffee or drinks etc etc.

Did any of the debt arise because you were funding an unfair proportion of the family expenses?
Do you and your DH have the same amount of spending money each month?
How was your unpaid leave financed?
Is childcare a joint expense?
Have contributions been reset to take into account that you will be earning less?

I am the higher earner and I pay the bulk of the bills. When my earnings were over 5x DH’s I paid pretty much everything except his personal spending and the car (which I don’t use much). I am naturally frugal and could end up being miserly if I wasn’t careful but there was no way I could see my partner carry an unfair share of the financial burden so please check the split.

...unless you meant to write £40, 000 of debt, I don't know why you're worried?

4k of debt is sadly nothing, first you should look at 0% balance transfer it's useful and helps manage your debt.
The second thing you need to do is go on the Freedom project, the fact that you think your partner would take your child from you or leave you is concerning and a huge red flag, that thought is not normal healthy relationship responses.

Also if he had a mortgage, his debt was well over 4k. Mortgage is still debt!

This! She is taking home 25% of their joint net income and paying 1/3 of the mortgage and all the food shopping?

This is surely basically all of her £1600 a month take home - carrying the cost of food shopping for a 3 person family is expensive!

OP you need to go back through your bank statements and work out an average how much you are spending on family expenses like food shopping etc I think you’ll be surprised how much you’re contributing.

Remeber your husband is taking home about £4000 a month after tax, so once he’s paid his share of the mortgage and covered the bills he’s still left with a hefty chunk his own spending money (at least £2k I would say) while you’re struggling on £1600 and expected to pay for the mortgage and food shopping which doesn’t seem fair.

I say have an account you can both access, decide a budget for food shopping, bills, mortgage, family expenses like clothes for little one, baby classes, disposable fun money like meals out etc then contribute your fair share to the account. So 25% from you, 75% from him.

this removes all the tit for tat and will make things much more equitable.

This is all really odd OP. You say you are married, with a child. It's his child, yes? So why are you "paying him back" for this credit card? How can you pay your own husband? Your money is already his and vice versa. What are you both on about? Get a joint mortgage - er yes! You are married. Get joint bank accounts like normal couples. You have a child and you are faffing about with all this he pays for this and you pay for that and percentages of this and that? Who has the energy for all this? In the eyes if the law, your money and assets are all one and the same. Life is too short for all this. What did you bother getting married for if you can't even have shared finances? This is basic. You will pass all this financial weirdness on to your child if you're not careful.

Separate finances aren’t “weirdness”, it’s the way a lot of us run our marriages - for 23 years in my case. Not everyone wants to give their spouse access to their finances for a whole variety of reasons

I am recently married but been together over 16 years, I have always had seperate finances and we have no wish to change that after marriage. We own a mortaged house together and split the living costs , My husband is self employed and his earnings go up & down, he can sort his finances and I sort mine. Works fine for us with no squabbling about money ever in the time we have been together!..

It's surely very unusual though to have separate finances in a marriage? If I didn't trust someone with money, I wouldn't have married them!

Just to clear up one error on here. Op I presume is legally married therefore her equitable interest in the property is deemed the same as her husbands irrespective of whose name it is in at the Land Registry or on the mortgage deed, unless it is a very short childless marriage.

@spir1t I don’t think it’s particularly unusual, tbh. DH and I have always had our salaries paid into our personal accounts and then we transfer a certain amount to the joint account for bills. We’re both on the mortgage and we have a joint savings account for major items-but everything else is separate.

I know what he has savings and investment-wise, because he shares this with me periodically, and vice versa. No idea about his credit card.

No it isn’t unusual. The split between those with shared finances and those with separate finances is probably about 50/50. I haven’t been a feminist all these years to give away total control of my money.

I don't think he is controlling with money. He hasn't known about her financial status for years, pays most of the mortgage and bills, and has kindly agreed to "baby" OP with the repayments, when a financially controlling man would have hit the roof.

Actually, without a financially sound partner supporting her all these years, OP might be in dire straits and behind on multiple rent/other payments by now, based on her random approach to money.

In my opinion, OP is a bit cunning because she hints at being controlled and abused without examples... But the timing of this is specifically only when the tide turns against her and it suits her.

In my stupid young adult days, I once dated a guy with 0 structure to his life: sleeping, spending, eating, whatever and whenever he wanted. He said my half past midnight bedtime, and my budgeting which was literally just 1 list, were draconian and I should unclench!

If you have no structure, are always panicking and in a mess, of course normal life is going to look like the military to you. And other people will seem 'controlling' and 'strict'. I don't think OP's life is like this, but she seems like this about money, especially the kind of basic things she panics about (fyi, OP, almost everyone has multiple bank accounts that they move money between monthly).

If my husband got into debt multiple times, and the first time his parents bailed him out, I would make him pay me back the second time. I don't want him to think he can always rely on others (his parents or his wife) to bail him out. I would never, ever want him to struggle or feel deprived. But he must absolutely learn money management and budgeting ahead, while I'm here to help him with it. It's a life skill.

That said, about them being a team: some good points above about household contribution. I suspect neither of them has really sat down to look at OP's part of the bills. This is good timing to do some financial planning together. It's helpful to give both the benefit of the doubt, and I'm sure neither OP nor her husband want each other to struggle or suffer in any way.

Just because they are married doesn’t necessarily mean they have to share finances. They both earn their own income and now OP was worried about her debts that she has now sorted with her husband.

How judgemental of you. I’m sure her child will never have any insight to their finances so won’t have any financial “weirdness”.

Don't most people get their salaries paid into their own bank accounts?

Thing is the op was servicing her debt and paying it off. It was small and manageable. 4k isn’t loads. The reason he paid it off was to suit the mortgage.

the op isn’t some irresponsible dolly who has juts run up thousands on a whim. So much of it is interest!

In this particular case the DH was right to pay off the debt and for that to be seen as act of marital kindness to get them to joint solvency for the sake of the mortgage.

I wouldn’t think someone on her earnings should “pay him back”. The debt clearance was for their future.

@Piyo for me, it would be the ridiculousness of my husband hiding wedding(!) debt and (unnecessary) monthly interest. That to me shows a foolish and fearful approach to life and finances. I think we would definitely have to approach finances as a very close team from then on. He would need to develop transparency and consistent habits.

At the same time, I would not like to sit him down every month and question his expenditure, force him into savings, etc like he's a child. Maybe "paying me back" would be a good way to make sure he is saving some of it – I'll put it away for him, or for use on things like our mortgage which he has his name on and so will benefit him.

You absolutely should go on the mortgage for your security and your husbands peace of mind. Your financial situation sounds fine and if it’s not the advisor would tell you as part of the application if it somehow wasn’t suitable to add you.

If they have separate bank accounts.

Our salaries get paid into our joint account (we haven’t had separate accounts for years).

I think if he died without a will, his estate would be split between his spouse and his child/children.
Much better to own a property as joint tenants.