I've massively screwed up, its linked to my mental health and my marriage is at risk

[Gerrysmum]

I'm in a very vulnerable place right now so please be kind.

I am diagnosed and medicated for GADS, I also highly suspect I have ADHD and am looking into a diagnosis.

My husband have been together for 15 years, married for 5. I haven't been the besy partner, I struggle with impulse control and have previously got myself into financial difficulty. Its happened again but on a massive scale, I've lied to my husband to cover it up because of the guilt and shame and he is rightly considering whether he wants to end our marriage.

A couple of months ago I discovered an app called Whatnot. Its an impulse buyers dream with constant live streams of people selling items at 'cheap' prices. My impulse control was non exsistent and I've racked up a credit card bill of £7500 and went £1500 into my overdraft. At the same time he is doing everything he can to save money because he wants to train to be a pilot.

I told him about it last night and he is rightly furious, about the lies, me spending so much money on shit and putting his dream at risk. I have given him an out and said I should be making his life better not worse and it would hurt me but I would understand if he wanted a divorce. He says he is adamant he wants us to stay together but the spending and lies have to stop.

Overnight I have not been in a good place, I've even checked my death in service payments to see if they are still paid out if I die by suicide. I don't think Ive ever had a romantic or personal relationship that I havent messed up because I've done stupid shit like this and hid it out of guilt and shame. I don't know what to do now. He is amazing and deserves so much better, I want to be better but don't know how to be.

Has anyone else experienced this and made it through? Please dont respond unless its helpful and said with kindness. I know I dont deserve it but I havent got the resillience for anything else right now

When I had my last, worst bipolar manic episode, I quickly racked up a £10000 credit card bill. That was 2 years ago. We were saving for a house. I’m still paying it off very slowly but surely. DH knows it was my illness and I have showed him I am serious about staying well and making sure it never happens again.

If you know you have a propensity to shop, like I do, you need to watch yourself like a hawk because others won’t notice and ask the hard questions. I actually get anxious about buying stuff we need now because I’m an expert at constructing very convincing excuses to spend money.

Would it help if you made a plan for how you’re going to pay it back? The temptation is to make an unachievable payment plan that you can’t stick to, so make sure the repayments are affordable.

First thing is off course to cut the card up. Don't end up making things worse

Can you focus your energy on selling the stuff you’ve bought? I’m not familiar with the app, but could you just resell many of the items and recover some of the money that way?

I've even checked my death in service payments to see if they are still paid out if I die by suicide.

they won’t be

When someone does something wrong, the things which I want to see from them are:

-Acknowledge they have done something wrong (you’ve done this)
-Apologise properly (you’ve done this)
-Take the lead in fixing the problem

So, my advice would be to get very practical and make yourself a plan, which you can stick to in order to fix things. Very bluntly, you’re no use to your husband and kids if you’re dead. But alive, engaged and working hard you can 100 percent fix this.

You’ll need to decide what is feasible for you, but mine would be the list below. I’ve focused on short-time-frame stuff and permenamt changes as those seem most likely to work with your adhd.

Short term:
Sell some of the things which you have bought and use the money you have earned to pay against the credit card.
Have a no-spend month in November to pay off the overdraft (use up food, clothes,stuff which you have in the house, only use petrol for school run and work, no daytrips or takeaways or meals out)
Speak to DH about having a low key Christmas and about making Christmas decisions jointly - don’t buy anything for Christmas without joint discussions.
Can you increase your November income? Take on some extra shifts, or ask for a raise at work?

Longer term:
Cut up the credit card and any store cards etc which you own. Just use the bank card from your bank account. Any time that you max out your overdraft there, or get worried that you might, take out cash for the week, tell your husband what has happened, and ask him to hold onto your card for a few weeks.

Either get rid of the smartphone and replace with a brick phone; or delete off all addictive apps and get some sort of blocking tech so that you can’t add new ones, or look at the hybrid phones where you can get google maps and WhatsApp but can’t download apps. If you go for option 3 don’t buy this, ask your family for it for Christmas.

Make a plan to pay off the debt yourself from your own wages so that it doesn’t impact your husband. Proactively go to somewhere like citizens advice with your bank and credit card statements and ask them to look at how much you can afford to repay each month. Can you get the debt onto a 0 percent card whist you pay it off?

Pull out a list of all monthly personal and household spending for the last four months and check that you’re not paying for anything which you don’t need. Cancel subscriptions which you aren’t using etc.

Make a plan to jointly review spending with your husband at the end of the month each month. Be really honest in these reviews and show each other your statements etc. once you get in the swing of doing it, it’ll help you be honest with him in the future.

Good luck, you’ve raised this in time and can sort it out yourself.

Can you return all the stuff you brought? Delete the app asap.

Hello @Gerrysmum, we are really sorry to hear you are feeling this way.

We hope you don't mind, but when these threads are flagged up to us we usually add a link to our Mental Health resources. You can also go to the Samaritans website or email them on [email protected].

Support from other Mumsnetters is great and we really hope you will be able to take some comfort from your fellow posters, but as other MNers will tell you, it's really a good idea to seek RL help and support as well.

We also like to remind everyone that, although we're awed daily by the astonishing support our members give each other through life's trickier twists and turns, we'd always caution anyone never to give more of themselves to another poster, emotionally or financially, than they can afford to spare.

Wishing you the very best,
MNHQ 💐

Your husband is understandably angry and disappointed but it’s nothing compared to how he will feel if you take your own life.
It’s a lot of money but only money and it’s totally recoverable from.
Please keep speaking with him and plan a way forward together.
You are obviously genuinely sorry for what you have done so that is worth a lot as long as you work to sort it out and prevent it happening again.
Best of luck xx

“I don't know what to do now.”

Abive all, OP, don’t do anything stupid. First, take the app off your phone. Cut up your credit cards. Sit down with your DH and work out a schedule of repayments. Budget for eg Christmas, and stick to what you have decided. Do not lie to your husband - you’ll only be found out, and it massively erodes trust. Your DH sounds like a good man - he doesn’t want a divorce, and he’d be devastated if anything happened to you. You have got yourself into a difficult place, but you have told your DH and now, together, you can find a way through. Yes, it takes discipline, but you will be so pleased when the debt is repaid and you can start saving towards your DH’s pilot training. Meanwhile, if you’ve been spending money on “shit”, can you re-sell any of it on eBay or vinted to recoup some of the cash?

Hi all,

Thank you for your replies. Unfortunatley its not returnable but I have started listing it on Vinted and ebay to try and recoup some of the money. We've also got a 0% interest credit card sorted to transfer the debt onto. Its all very raw at the moment. The credit card has gone and so have the apps. I've also agreed to let my husband hace access to my banking apps so he can see whats happening on them. I know I've got a lot of work to do to repair this but im willing to give it all I can. I really have been so stupid and selfish, no idea what I was thinking... although I clearly wasn't thinking

That’s such a positive plan OP.
It’s good that you are remorseful but try not to be SO hard on yourself.
Im wondering if there is any support you could get for your MH issues?

You say you’ve been like this for years and have ruined other relationships. What have you done to address this issue? What therapy have you tried? A diagnoses of GAD or ADHD won’t do anything productive to actually help you stop this damaging behaviour ( maybe a reason to the ‘why’ but not a cure)
If I were your partner and this was reoccurring behaviour, I would only stand by you if you showed signs of actually trying to help yourself and get therapy instead of seeking out more diagnoses

Thanks for your reply. I've axtually had quite a bit of therapy in the past, its mostly been foxussed on past trauma though. I do need to understand this pattern of behaviour, we've talked about me contacting my GP, I did a referral for talking therapies a few weeks ago so do need to chace it

Have you had any family therapy or at least therapy with your husband?

Its something we've been talking about today. I definitley need to work on how I communicate with him and ask for help before things get to be a problem