To feel devastated - husband credit card up to £23k

[Willowtree87]

When I met my husband I fell for him for lots of different reasons, and one of them being that he was a stable and sensible person. I came from a really volatile family so the fact he was calm and “together” was really appealing to me (among other things). Another aspect of this was that he was financially responsible - he’d saved £12k and seemed to have good money management. I on the other hand had never learnt to manage money well at all. I was living in debt and probably also due to adhd could not get a grip of finances. I had a good job as a teacher but never lived within my means.
Anyway further down the line we bought a lovely house, got married. We got into debt over the wedding but had a plan to pay it off (around £8k). I know this was a mistake in itself but we’d had a tough time with my family being awful so I think we just thought let’s have a nice time and pay it back.

Despite best intentions we’ve never got rid of the debt. We’ve transferred it to 0% cards and managed it but never got rid. Various life events put us under stress and I think we just kept kicking the debt ball down the road if that makes sense.

Fast forward 8 years and we’re struggling under a large mortgage, elevated food bills, a house to renovate, two kids to pay for. I thought we still had the debt under credit and were chipping away at it. I think in the back of my mind I’d wondered if it might have crept up a bit but I still thought it was a manageable amount that we could get rid of if we properly focused on it.

Yesterday the debt crossed my mind and the fact I don’t have access to the balance on the credit cards bugged me and I said to my husband can you look into whether I can download the app for the cards even though my name isn’t on them so that I can monitor them too and make payments off the balance as and when I want to. He said sure. Last night I asked him dare I ask what the balance is at now and he said £23k. You could see the fear in his eyes. I was absolutely shocked.
Hes assured me there’s nothing untoward on there it’s simply food shops, petrol, house insurance lump payments etc that have made it go up.
i just feel so betrayed. He said he just wanted me to have the things that I wanted and didn’t want to say no. But im not high maintenance I don’t have any designer things. I do have adhd so I get fixated on doing things like decorating and fritter money. But I think if I’d known how bad the debt was I would have stopped the spending.
I don’t know what to do. He’s been up all night upset.
He has had a wage increase recently which he says means he can start paying off £600 per month off the card. The only reason he hasn’t done this yet is because we have to have some unavoidable work done on the house which is costing £2500.

how am I supposed to feel in this situation? My instinct is to team together to sort it out. I’ve taken the credit cards off him and we can get this debt gone with focus. But I also don’t know if I’m being a mug. Has he betrayed me? I don’t know. My family have betrayed me financially in the past and now I feel like my husband has done the same.

Not sure which way your vote is set up. Send like you willfully ignored knowledge of the debt and had a hand in creating it (doesn’t seem that he spent money on things he hid). I don’t see betrayal.

If the debt has been created by everyday living as he says, then no, I don’t think he’s betrayed you. And your instinct to work together to sort it is correct.

Gently, there has been ignorance on your part and you’ve been willing to kick the debt ball down the road without paying proper attention to the true situation.

But now you do know and you can work together on a plan. His pay rise will help, but it does sound like the household has been living beyond its means for years and some serious budgeting and review of spending is needed.

I don’t think he’s done it to betray you, I think he’s done it to keep life afloat and to not worry you, even if that wasn’t the best thing to do
my husband has some similar and is probably in the same or more debt than that, we are sticking together and paying it off little by little, he knows now to be more honest about it, I know there will be tonnes of people on here saying to leave your husband (usually for debt threads anyway) but I wouldn’t leave my husband over money, I wouldn’t rip my family apart for debt personally

In your position I think that I would want to see the statements with my own eyes to be sure that the spend is genuinely from day-to-day living.

Your husband has done the wrong thing here, but I think it’s something which you can move past together if there’s total honesty now, and a genuine agreement from both of you to work together to clear the debt.

I know that adhd and upbringing both make money management harder, but now is the time to work on sorting that out - you need to take some responsibility here too.

I have been in a similar position. Don't ever take your eyes off the finances again. Take control yourself if necessary and never leave it for someone else to deal with. It sounds like you gave him the responsibility and that was a mistake. You can't hold him completely responsible if you weren't paying attention too. Budget and pay it off and don't let it happen again. I would also check the statements and make sure it was all spent on the family and that there is nothing dodgy or deeper going on. If it is all legit then he didn't betray you, you both took your eyes off the spending.

You have to accept partial responsibility as you say you fritter money and spend money on things like decorating, which is rarely essential if you're in debt.

You need to work as a team to get out of debt and manage your finances more responsibly. Also try and get as much as the debt as possible on 0% and concentrate on paying it down.

Have a look at:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan/

I think you're disproportionately blaming your dh for this debt, but in your own words "frittering money away" and shrugging this off because of your adhd.

You're a team, you're married, you're both responsible. You started your marriage by getting into debt and that set the tone.

I don't think it's useful or fair to blame him. Stand side by side and tackle this together.

Why have you never had access to the balance on the CC? You had access to the cards themselves, right? Because it sounds like you’ve been spending just as much on them as he has (unless I picked that up wrong).

You say you’re not high maintenance but also that you fritter money away. You also said if you’d known how bad the debt was you’d have stopped spending but that sounds unlikely given the admission you’ve never been able to manage your money.

Unfortunately it sounds like he’s come over to your approach to money since the marriage rather than you move closer to his. Now that you know, you can devise a plan together to tackle the debt. Have you finished the house reno or is there more still to do?

If you owed £8k and weren’t paying the minimum each month, it could easily grow to £23k without him spending anything else on it.

I’d look into whether you can remortgage to pay it off, then cut the card up. I do think you have put your head in the sand about this a bit - it doesn’t sound like he has hidden it.

You’ve had your head in the sand and now blame him.

Thank you for your replies.
Theres still more house Reno but all cosmetic so can definitely be completed halted until the debt is gone

Do you work, OP? If not, you need to get a job. You seem to have absolved yourself of all responsibility for this debt yet acknowledge that you spend freely and fritter away money. It is his fault for not saying no to you, but you both need to make a plan of action to get out of debt.

it doesn’t appear that you and DH have the means to not be reviewing your finances frequently and routinely. It’s really easy to get into debt and for it to accumulate by just spending over your means each month on seemingly normal things. He should have said something but I don’t think he’s betrayed you unless he’s spent all that on himself / been gambling. If he’s not been doing something like that then you are both responsible for where you are now and should work together to get yourselves out of it. Reviewing and planning your finances shouldn’t stop even when the debt has been cleared.

Agree with above.

If it’s true what the debt is for, both of you have been irresponsible in budgeting and have failed to have adult conversations about it.

Do you work op. How much are you paying off the debt each month? Your troubles started when you had a wedding that you couldn’t afford. I’m sorry but you are as much to blame for this situation as your husband. Stop trying to blame him and work together as a team to sort it out.

I also do not see betrayal. I understand you feel that way because it is the same end result meaning lots of debt but the cause of this was the opposite of betrayal.

I think too, even if you had known the debt were increasing you would not have cut back your spending as your weakness is living beyond your means even when you do know every penny of debt.

Your husband’s weakness is his desire to give you a good life, the inability to say no we can’t afford that. It is hard too being the financially responsible one to say anything when it is just €50 here and there. A family day out. A child wanting ice cream. A gym membership. Once the debt is in the tens of thousands of € the human psyche thinks €50 won’t make a difference in the long run but it’s the difference between being a misery maker and a nice day.

All in all, much of this debt is due to the fact you both have high bills during a cost of living crisis. We went through similar after the crash in 2008. You know it is bad when you have to put the food shop on credit.

I agree tackling it as a team is the right approach. These are tough times and you both need to be on board with economising.

i think you’re both at fault here, you’re a team and you know you fritter away money. If you have that much self awareness then you must know you’ve been ignoring it!

Time to act as a team and work together to pay it off.

You dont get to absolve yourself of responsibility for a debt, crown your husband king if making ends meet and then call betrayal that you owe more than you think. You need to be an equal partner in sorting this, and any equal partner in managing family money going forward.
Make a budget, stick to it. Planned expenditure only, no more impulse purchases, even the little ones. ADHD will make this harder but not impossible.

23000 @ 600 = 38/29 months without factoring in interest.

Can you pick up any hours anywhere to help out.
Agree you need to tackle as a team and hold any spending where you can.
Good luck OP talk to him more about the finances

I think its really unfair to term this as a betrayal. You seem to have decided that finances were your husband's responsibility - was that with his agreement? If its true that the spending is entirely grocery shops etc then its a joint inability to live within your means, not him being irresponsible.

You need to work as a team and come up with a plan to pay down the debt together. If you've been putting life essentials on the credit card, you probably have to rein in your spending a lot more, even with the pay rise, to be able to pay down your credit card significantly.

Consider going on a debt management plan. £600pm is barely going to cover the interest on £23k. On the other hand, if you go on a DMP (the interest is typically frozen), you will clear it easily in 5 years.

Either way, it might be worth speaking to stepchange.

stepchange

He's not betrayed you. You both ran up a ridiculous debt over your wedding and since then, you've buried your head in the sand. Time to see a debt counsellor and get external help to manage this. You are both to blame.

I voted YANBU in response to your instinct to work together, not in response to the question about whether he has betrayed you. I agree with others that it's hard to be the money police, and it sounds like you started your marriage already living outside your means.

You're an adult, and part of moving on from your family's financial betrayal is to take responsibility for your own finances. This means monitoring the accounts and having joint conversations about debt, savings goals etc.

Go through all your cards and accounts and look at what has been spent and where, not as a blame game but so you both understand where your money is going.

I know people who have downloaded their bank statements and asked Claude/ChatGPT to analyse their spending and sort it into categories. That's one option if it feels too overwhelming. My DH isn't keen on this approach but if that's what it takes to get a clear picture, it might be worth considering.

How is this a betrayal? You admit that you have frittered money away. This was debt that you both created and you have taken no responsibility for ensuring it was paid off. No wonder your Dh is upset.
You need to work together now and plan how to repay this debt.