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 😞

You can also say you didn't mention it as you were handling it and didn't want him to feel under pressure to fix it for you

Agree

I missed OP's post!

That should now read:

rack up debt including on clothing, get my parents to help pay it off, add more debt to the card, *just shut my eyes and pay the bloody extortionate interest each month, instead of looking for alternatives on my okay salary

Of course anyone so shit at money would be scared of confronting it, that doesn't mean her husband is abusive. In fact it's hilarious to twist HER debt into him financially abusing her

Say ' remember what a lovely dress I had- I actually had to borrow to buy that. I didn't mention at the time as it was a 'for me' splurge but I've struggled to pay it back, it's quite a lot but I've got a plan and it will be paid back in x months I just wanted to share as we're having mortgage chats.' Tell him it was just a bit embarrassing spending so much on a wedding dress is the only reason you didn't mention it and you haven't done it since and don't plan to and you promise no more credit cards.

So lie even more?

OP added 2.5k to the 3k that she had already said was paid off, so she never accumulate this debt solely for a wedding dress. Surely honesty is the best policy at this stage, start with a clean slate and no additional lies?!

I am sorry, but I don't think this rings true.

Of course it would be very worrying if someone were frightened of their partner.

But the OP is not acting like someone who is frightened of their partner. She sounds like a nice person who is scared of her own debt, but all of her responses have been focussed on hiding her debt. I think she is scared of admitting to the debt, not scared of her partner.

You might be right, @SarahAndQuack Some people are bad with money and find it hard to face up to. Although as she’s been paying it off regularly, she’s not irresponsible and she thought she could manage this independently. Personally, I think she’s magnified this in her mind to an unforgivable, marriage-ending sin, and it doesn’t have to be.

I think she needs to tell him, face the music and let him help her manage this debt.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been married for 20-plus years, both DH and I have screwed up many times, and forgiven each other.

I absolutely agree with what you say about the OP feeling so scared this is a terrible thing when it needn't be - and what you say about everyone screwing up.

OP, I do hope you can tell him. Yes, it's not good - but the only way out is honesty.

@HamBone No, she shouldn’t have lied to her DH, but I find it concerning that she’s SO frightened to tell him the truth. No one should be so frightened of their partner.

My sister wasn't frightened of her husband, she was scared that he wouldn't be able to trust her again after having lied for so long. Not only that but she built it up in her head so much that it became much more massive than it needed to be.

As it turned out his reaction wasn't over the top and they sorted it out together.

@nokidshere Exactly, she needs to tell him.

Op, I think it would be good for you if you educated yourself about money. Maybe try regularly reading Money Saving Expert and get some books on budgeting and finances? You sound totally at a loss and stressed out by a situation that will be relatively easy to sort. You’ll feel better when you are informed and it might help soothe any tension with your husband.

If you have those savings then you are crazy to be paying all that interest each month.

Realistically though a £4,000 debt isn't much!

No it shows you all your accounts too.

@Blueskyfordays at some point he is going to find out about the debt. He might already have given the mortgage provider permission to check your credit rating and he might be about to receive the information. Worse, giving the mortgage provider your details might worsen his credit rating (I am unsure about this though).

Almost certainly you can find out your credit rating yourself writing to Experian and I suggest you do this.

But - it sounds like he can help you clear this debt much faster if you work with him. Also, look at getting the debt transferred to a 0% card ASAP to stop paying the fees - but I wouldn't change it without being honest with him.

But also "He said the only reason he’s putting me on the mortgage is if he dies, they can’t just kick me out of the house." I'm not sure that this reason is actually factually correct. If he is this forward thinking then I would suggest he draws up a basic will making it clear what he wants to happen with the house (although that's not an easy discussion to have with him)

You are paying money which is going into the mortgage (via him) - so you should have a claim on the house. Best get this debt cleared ASAP then look at changing mortgage then

We have already given the mortgage company permission to check my credit rating. They asked me that on speaker phone yesterday morning and I didn’t feel like I could say no there and then put on the spot.

I’ve just checked my credit rating with clear score, it says 711 out of 1000 and is green and scored ‘good’?

I guess I was hoping that given the small amount of debt in relation to our household income and mortgage needed and the fact he’s got an excellent credit score and I’ve got ‘good’ that the mortgage company might not mention the debt. But that was before I realised I’m going to have to sit down and go though my bank statements etc with them. Could I do this in private? It’s a company over the phone, I don’t think we’ll be seeing anyone in person.

Does anyone know when he’d be informed of the debt if he gave them the details yesterday?

I know i’m probably going to have to tell him, but he’s away this weekend so realistically tomorrow night is probably the soonest that I could. But that is still a last resort for me. I know the lying is bad but if I can get this card shifted to a 0% and start paying £300 a month, I could get it shifted in less than 18 months.

You have a plan and 700 is above the UK average too you can also get your free score from Experian mine is higher on Experian. Good luck.

https://www.experian.co.uk/exp

Link won’t load just put in Experian free credit score 👍

@Blueskyfordays my dp has just had to remortgage and in the process added me to the mortgage. We have our offer and are currently mid way through conveyancing. May not be what generally happens but other than our joint account I never had to provide personal bank statements or complete anything with any debt. My dp did have to show his personal bank statements. We had a few queries about transactions on the joint account and despite clearly showing transactions going to my personal account they never asked to see anything from my personal bank account not one statement. I have a credit card which my dp knows about as would they as would show on my credit report but they haven’t made enquiries around repayments at all - although granted I have less than 500 on my card. If you really don’t want to be on the mortgage you can register home rights if you are married as an alternative.

You have to put commitments on a mortgage application. I work for a broker. It's not about credit ratings or bank statements. If you put £0 on credit cards on the application, the lender will come back to the broker to say there is undisclosed debt.

It’s such a shame this is causing you so much stress OP, it’s so unnecessary. You earn a lot and have heaps of savings, you just shouldn’t be in this position. If I was your husband I’d be really sad to know you’ve been tying yourself in knots over a matter we could clear up so easily.

yes the whole thing is ridiculous and a good example of how lies spiral - if you’d come clean when the £10k was paid off, you’d be debt free already.

fwiw I’m not sure I’d want to be married to someone so disapproving - people make mistakes, they fix them and move on.

Shows how differently we all see things. Would you want to be married to somebody who can be dishonest no matter what form the dishonesty takes? I wouldn’t. A dishonest person won’t just be dishonest about one thing, it will permeate across the marriage cumulatively and no doubt the DH will feel this weight all the time.

I don't like debt, but if DH had a small amount of manageable debt it wouldn't concern me.

It would bother me if he had been paying stupid amount of interest for years, when we had savings that we could use to pay it off (and then he could then repay) as it would be such a waste of money and just suggest he was rubbish with money.

It would also bother me that he had kept it quiet for so long whilst leading me to believe a totally different thing about his finances. It would make me wonder what else he wasn't telling me.

So many people on here have shouted "financial abuse" - if he'd known about this and done nothing to support OP whilst keeping her short of money that would indeed have been financial abuse. So, it would also bother me that outsiders could think that I'd treated my DH so poorly about something I had absolutely no knowledge of.

Whether you tell him now or not OP you are in danger of becoming the child in your marriage, which will destroy it in the end.

For this reason I think it would be a good idea if you told him. It’s not megabucks, and you can explain that you know you were wrong to hold it back, but you know he hates debt and didn’t want to trouble him.

More importantly though, you have the same access to money he does? You are a partnership, so you should. But it sounds to me that you have much less money to spend than him? If so, that’s not right.

I would suggest you pool all your finances, so everything goes into the same account, and then equal amounts of spending money go into your separate accounts.

This is how most married couples run their finances, especially when one earns more.

He is not the financial leader just because he earns more, you are a partnership. Start acting like his equal.

I know, I really want a clean slate moving forward and for us to feel more equal.

No, I doubt we do have access to the same amount of money but I’m fine with that as he pays the majority of the mortgage and bills. I pay a 1/3rd of the mortgage and do all the food shopping (well, when I’m not on maternity) he covers the rest of the mortgage (about £500-600) and the bills.

I haven’t minded separate finances and neither has he I don’t think.

I just don’t know what the hell I’m going to say and I’d rather not say anything unless I really have to and just quietly move it to a 0% and pay it off over the next 15-16 months. But it seems from the responses there’s no way he won’t find out about it when we have to do the application so I guess I have no choice.