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.