I actually want to kill DH...non debt disclosure

[AnnetteTwitcher]

I think I might kill my husband.

I found out yesterday that he took out a loan of £19k at an interest rate of 15.4% a year ago which over its 7 year term will actually cost us £31,668.

The circumstances:

A) £12k of his general debt on cc and other small loans
B) £7k overspend on some work we did to our house which (to be fair) was out of our hands as got ripped off by rogue builder

What I cannot get my head around is why anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together would not shop around for better deal, tell his fucking wife about the severity of the situation or just borrow the amount we really needed I.e £7k

How can the decision to get into debt to this extent not be jointly discussed?????? I am SO angry!

His motive for not telling me was that he wanted to stop me from worrying. WTF?! What about if he dies tomorrow? Or gets hit by bus and loses legs and can't work?! We'd be in danger of losing house.

He does earn a good salary but in past 6 months has started own business so paying most of his salary in dividends so until he has 12 months + trading history we are lumped with a huge debt that he can't renegotiate.

Is there anything that can be done??

I just cannot believe that anyone would be so stupid. 15.4% fucking percent!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have told him that first call needs to be to his business IFA in the morning to try and get advice and then 2nd call is to loan provider to see if it can be overpaid at least to try and get it cleared a bit quicker

If anyone else has any advice would be truly grateful :(

How did you think the £7K overspending your house improvements had been settled? A year seems a long time for you to have buried your head in the sand about that debt.

And presumably the cc debt and small loans were at a higher interest rate?

He told me that he was borrowing the £7k - he didn't tell me about the rest of it.

The interest rates might have been higher for credit cards but surely would have been lower for loans???

Fwiw I check my bank balance at least twice a week and know exactly what I owe on my credit card.

How do you get over such stupidity?

My exH's financial stupidity contributed to the break-up of our marriage. His financial IQ is probably lower than that of a child. It can be very stressful.

He hasn't got into debt by taking out this loan though, has he. He's just consolidated his debt into one place rather than having the outstanding amount to the builders and some dotted around everywhere else on credit cards.

15.4% sounds high, but not as high as the interest rates on many credit cards. Were his cards on higher rates? It will cost you a lot to pay back, but that is the nature of borrowing money. At least this puts an end date to the credit - if he were able to pay smaller payments on his credit cards then it would take much longer, and probably cost more to pay back!

Maybe he didn't talk to you about it because he was worried about your over reaction.

He does not need to wait 12 months to pay a dividend and he can have a loan from the company (some tax rules you will need to check) - if spare cash is in the business you could use some

I'd be less concerned about the stupidity and more concerned about the deception and disregard of you having any say in the matter. If he lies to you about this, what else is he not telling you?

I suppose it depends on the context. We sit down regularly and discuss savings, pensions etc. even though we both have our own accounts. What's changed is not the debt - you must have known about that (or at least most of it) but that he didn't go into detail re: the repayment. If we have a debt that needs to be repayed e.g. shortfall on the endowement then we discuss it and agree who will pay what percentage and when. I don't think you can moan about the 7k for building work if you haven't offered to pay some of it; who did you think would pay it?