Husband drowning in debt leaving me with nothing. Really need advice!

[mummytwoh]

Hi,
I am looking for some advice. My husband and I have separate bank accounts. He is the main earner and I am a stay at home mum. I do however own a little side business but it is not bringing much in at the moment.
My husband has got into massive debt - massive. I found out about this last year and was completely devastated and felt really betrayed. I still don’t 100% understand how the debt came about and why he let it get as bad as it did but regardless I decided not to walk away from my marriage.
We have young children and for me to work outside the home we would be financially worse off due to childcare so unfortunately that’s not an option at the moment.

Almost half of my husbands income is going to pay off the debts each month which means there simply isn’t anything left after the rent - last month he was £130 short of rent which I managed to cover with our child benefit. However I have done the entire month with not one single penny and it isn’t the first time. I still feel my husband isn’t being as responsible for the finances as he could be - he’l do Silly things like pop to the shops and buy a £5 treat - a cake or something. It’s not a massive deal and he gets stroppy when I complain about it and says “so I work 6 days a week and can’t buy a cake” the fact is no, no he can’t buy a cake. I feel that absolutely every single penny needs to be accounted for and spent properly. All the £5s £3s spent of unessentials add up.

He is refusing to get any official help to reduce the monthly payments as his job requires strong finances and he could lose it / certainly his position if they were to find out what a mess he’s in.

I can’t claim any working tax credits or anything as his wage is over the threshold so I’m not entitled to absolutely anything.

I honestly don’t know what to do
Monday - Friday he works away so I have the children on my own. I literally have no money what so ever to live on. I do a weekly food shop using his credit card but the final week of the month that runs out too.

I don’t want to end my marriage because of finances, but I feel like I need to separate in order to be able to have some money, and also pay my own bills which are at the minute just being left.

Can anyone see a way out of this?
Obviously I don’t want him to lose his job or position at work, but we can’t continue like this forever and I don’t see what we can do to get on top of everything.
I don’t even have access to the accounts to go through it all and work out a budget.
I feel completely in the dark and am frustrated.

Every idea welcome.

Thank you xxxx

The problem here is not just the debt, but the spending that went into creating the debt. That money must have gone somewhere. Either you as a family are living well beyond your means or your husband is spending money on things that's he hiding from you.

Either way, if your husband is wasting money on non-essentials like cake then he hasn't learned his lesson and is at risk of running up more debt in the future.

I agree with everyone , and if you can get £5 from selling things, don’t give it to him. He gets 1000s a month and isn’t giving it to you. You need to stop trusting this guy.

How did he take the £5 you had?

As you have separate accounts, next time you sell something get the buyer to transfer the payment to your bank rather than paying in cash. Then move the money to savings account. And do not tell him that you have sold anything.

Credit card with 49% interest? Are you sure? That doesn't sound right.

the 49% interest on one of the cards is the only believable thing in that post ....

Many 'beginner' or bad credit cards have that interest rate, but if you pay it off in full every month, it could be a million percent and it wouldn't matter a jot as you'd never pay a penny in interest, but you'd improve your credit rating, gain purchase protection and possibly make it easier and cheaper to do things like hire cars.

He would be considered more open to bribery in the current situation than if he had taken steps to solve it with eg a debt management plan.

Why couldn't he get a second hand car for less than 10 grand. That's way too much for a car.

You need to sit down and work out where it's gone, what you owe and min payments. Then budget

Moneysavingexpert has some really good forums on it.

Could you offer babysitting on a fri / sat night ? It could cover you for food for the week ?

@Ta1kinPeace

We do not live in married quarters we are what is described as "married unaccompanied". We got married two years ago so up until this point quarters wasn't an option. When we did get married my husbands post didn't actually have quarters (many have been sold off now) so we would have had to privately rent anyway - with a small financial discount from the army due to their lack of housing on this particular base. Our children are settled in school and we decided it was best for them not to have the instability of moving home and school every 18-24 months so we would stay put. My mum also had cancer and I needed to be close to her not at the other side of the country. Not everyone lives in quarters. Financially now we are at the point where it will more than likely have to become and option. We are however making that a very last resort as my husband only has 18 months of service left and the above still stands.

Wages wise - yes he earns upwards of 35k. On paper his wage is great but when your rent is £1250 a month & loan repayments are £900 you are not left with anything.

As for the car 🤷‍♀️ completely agree. He bought it 6 years ago when he started earning decent money & I was furious.

@LIZS the car is now 6 years old and he still drives it. He's looked into selling it and now it's worth 2k. He plans to sell it when he gets deployed as it will have no use for 6 months, but is worried about having nothing to re buy something when he returns. He does need something as he's based up north and we live in the south.

@Dancingtothemusicoftime

Thank you for your reply.
I don't think I've posted about this before, I probably posted something when I first found out about the debt as I didn't know if I was going to leave him but not about debt help as far as I remember.

I do know where he works and have the welfare numbers etc - thank you though.
I spoke to him tonight and was begging him to seek help. His downfall is going to be his pride. He will not go through work to get help of any kind. I'm worried about his mental health & think he's in desperate need of support in a few areas, but he won't take it, & says I don't understand his role at work and it would finish his career. He will be going to Afghanistan and I'm aware of the extra finances. They will be a massive help.
There are so many soldiers taking their lives at the moment, my husband dealt with another one just this week. I don't understand the military I'm not in it and don't pretend to understand the kind of stress that his role brings. However I'm constantly told the help is available through welfare and the military is better at accepting and dealing with mental health and finances that it used to be. However it seems knowone is accessing the help - and there must be a reason for that.

I will definitely call the families federation- not something I've been aware of so thank you. Talking anonymously and getting the facts & hopefully some advice on where he would really stand if he got an IVA etc would be helpful.

@achoocashew unfortunately yes I'm very sure about the interest. That is my card - it's an Aqua card. They are a terrible company who are forever increasing their interest 😡

@BarbaraofSevillle yes, that's why I got the card in the first place. I had never had a credit card - ironically I don't believe in credit, & have always lived within my means. It was getting paid off monthly and my credit rating is now strong. I'm trying to find a card to transfer the money over to now however although my credit rating now says good, the rates available to me are still really high - maybe because of my lack of earnings, or the debts in my husbands name / our address perhaps. There's not loads on it and even though the interest is disgusting it's the least of our debts

He needs to get a second job to clear the debts.

He is talking bullshit.

It is the opposite way around with disclosing finance. They want to know if you are in financial difficulty so that you are not susceptible to bribery. There is loads of support for both mental health issues and finance issues from the military. It is literally the best place you could possibly work if you get sick - physical or mental.

Also married unaccompanied tends to describe overseas postings where you can't take your family. He is not in such a draft if he is in the UK. Also I would question what he said about the private housing where there are no quarters. I have always understood there is a generous allowance for such things.

Anyway - he doesn't sounds trustworthy.

@Coronapop he has a second job. It's keeping our heads above water (kind of) but it's not clearing any debt

Whilst the debt is a huge issue, the biggest problem us the lying and lack of disclosure. He keeps knocking you down by telling you that you couldn't understand the military or how his job works and the pressure that he is under. He doesn't want you to be a partner to him at all.

Honestly, if he will not sit down and openly discuss this with you, with bank statements, credit card bills and full disclosure, your marriage is dead. He is financially and emotionally abusing you. He is manipulating you by subtly threatening suicide, he is leaving you without any money, financial security and no means of earning any money. When you do manage to scrape together a few quid by selling your children's things, he takes it from you.

I don't think you can see how bad this is. I can't imagine the constant stress and worry you must be under.

This guy isn't going to look after you or your children. He isn't going to protect or prioritise your needs in any way. You will be broke and scared your whole marriage. you will never have money on your purse to treat your Mum to afternoon tea or take your children to the pictures.

I hope you can find the strength to get out of this. You deserve so much better than being treated like an idiot by the man who is supposed to be your partner.v

@cantbeb0thered thanks for your reply.

Yes I am aware that they want to know about financial difficulties- he is too. He is also however not willing to share it at the moment, which I believe is his problem. As a soldier the help available for mental health & finances is there and it isn't frowned upon like it was 10 even 5 years ago. Every single day my husband is dealing with such issues that his soldiers are having. However he is an officer, and as an officer the situation is quite different and the standards they are held to are different.

In regards to housing - married unaccompanied is also the term for when you live separately. It doesn't have to mean when they have an overseas posting - maybe that's how the term originally came about, I don't know. Certainly now it doesn't mean that. At the time he was at a small specialist until with no quarters. I'm not completely in the dark in that area that was definitely true. As I've also said the choice to live apart was in a big part mine, due to wanting to be close to my mum as she battled cancer & to give our children stability. He's not trying to keep me away from quarters or anything like that. It's quite common to live separately now days. We have many friends that also decided that was the best option. Some for career reasons a lot for the schooling and stability.

In the short term yes me moving into hatters would financially make the difference. However as he is also leaving the Army in the near future I do not want to move everyone temporarily, when when it's time for us to leave military life my hipster are unable to return to the school they are in and we are starting again anyway. It's probably going to have to be that way but I'm making it my last resort. I have a great support network & a life where I live and do not want to give that up, I also still need to be close to my mum. Moving to where he's based in the middle of know where when he is about to be deployed and I don't drive so will not have the independence I do now is my worse nightmare.
At present I am looking for ways to get out of this mess without uprooting my family and isolating myself.

OP a lot of your post makes no sense. My DB is in the army (and has been for 20 years). For his last 2 postings he and his family have been in privately rented accom, but the military sources it and pays for it, with DB only having to make a small contribution to rent. It certainly seems to me that DB’s salary is almost all disposable income because the army takes care of so much. Also, I could count on one hand the number of times he’s been sent away at short notice. Sure he is often on stand by, but it rarely amounts to anything. If you were living on base you’d have a very supportive community at your finger tips ready to help you, so it perplexes me further that your DH has actively avoided this option. I know this is a MN cliche, but are you sure he doesn’t have another life?

Why haven’t you got access to the accounts OP?

X posted. He’s an officer? I was thinking he was a high ranking soldier. If he’s an officer he’s going to be on well over £35k (possibly over 50% more). And he’s talking a pile of Nonsense to you.Yes he has to work hard, yes it’s stressful, but he honestly isn’t being regularly pulled away at short notice, he is totally making that up.

Hi OP. You mentioned that your husband didn't want to disclose his debt problem to his employers. You said he could lose his job as it requires strong finances.

I am in a similar sort of role, and can tell you that this isn't strictly true. In fact, the position that he's in now (massive debt which he hasn't disclosed to his employer) actually makes him more vulnerable to blackmail etc and this in and of itself can be a barrier to maintaining your security clearance.

The employer won't mind too much about his debt (so long as it hasn't come about through things like gambling problems or criminal activity), but they will mind that things are so precarious that he's had to take a second job and even then things are ropey. He needs to make a disclosure to the security department. They can help and it's the safest thing to do under the circumstances.

Your clearance doesn't last forever, and in the current situation, if he goes for renewal and hasn't disclosed the position he's in, then he might have a problem.

I don't want to scare you; just wanted to explain a bit about how it works.

Best of luck, OP.

You’re being taken for a mug op.
Wouldn’t surprise me if he had another family.
Regardless I wouldn’t let his debt bring me and my family down, I’d fuck him of.

I should have name changed to respond to this thread.

I am also an officer in the military. And honestly I really don't know what you mean when you say held to different standards? I know officers who have had mental health problems. No one thinks any less of them. Granted I don't know any who have got themselves into massive debt but I wouldn't expect to have that info from colleagues.

Back to the standards comment - we have diffeeenr expectations in terms of the work we do day to day but I expect the same military standards of juniors, seniors and officers and in my expertise when people do let standards slip then these people are just as likely to le officers. But having mental health problems isn't letting standards slip.

It sounds like he is in the army as they tend to talk like this about officers and standards. Winds me up.

Moving on. He is an officer. If he has been in a while he must be st least a major which means he is on £51k + a year. He also gets 2x return travel home each month in his pay. He must be taking home one excess of £3k per month. If he is a lt col then £4K a month.

My next question would be why are you renting and haven't bought??? He could have got help to buy for a deposit From the military and your mortgage would probably be slot cheaper than rent.

I assume if he is leaving in the next few years then he is near his pension ? If he is due a lump sum then how unfortunate it is going to get sucked up by debt.

If he is still a captain then his pay is still in the £40k region. Honestly I think he is probably living outside his means on camp. Maybe going out a few times w week with his colleagues. Probably spending several hundreds a month doing that.

I once had someone tell me that the children of officers should behave in a certain way. What he fuck. We are not royalty. Just regular people.