Please help, I'm in serious trouble

[trouble20]

I'll try to make sense here but I'm really panicking and need help.

About six years ago dh was suddenly sacked and we had to claim benefits for about two months before he got another job. As I was working part time I received a considerable amount in tax credits (hadn't had them before).

Dh got a new job but the tax credit kept being paid and I didn't inform them for a few months as I really needed the money. I know this was wrong.

Today dh has had £700 taken from his wages as DEA. He thinks it's a mistake and it can't be right but I know that it's probably around 8000 in total as I had a letter about it a few years ago.

I cannot tell him. I know he'll find out when he speaks to DWp but I truly can't tell him.
He is quite controlling with money, I don't work so he transfers money every two weeks to pay for groceries but I don't have access to money or any of my own.

He earns good money but £700 a month will cripple us, is there any way to reduce this amount?
Sorry if I'm not making sense but I'm seriously scared.

Op, I have no advice but just want to wish you well.

Reading through the replies it is clear that most people have no idea what it is like living on the breadline. Fingers crossed things get easier in the future for u x

You definitely need to get a job op. Why don’t you have a job - your kids are 14 and 12? Plenty of jobs including retail do non weekend hours. I can understand being upset about hiding things to the extent bayliffs are at the door - that’s not financial abuse.

@MrsLCSofLichfield

People need to stop banging on about fraud, it is not contributing anything helpful here. As a PP said, if HMRC suspected fraud they would have asked both claimants to attend a recorded interview under caution back at the time they identified the overpayment, and then made a decision on whether or not to prosecute. This hasn't happened here. They are recovering an overpayment, which as far as they are concerned is due to claimant error (not that it would make any difference if it was official error).

Exactly!

Genuinely OP, get a job and then leave him. There are relationships where being a SAHP doesn't create a dangerous power imbalance, sadly this isn't one of them.

Your fear of him is clear from every sentence.

[quote kurtney]@AliceMcK I agree, something doesn't add up here. OP is getting £600 a month (plus child benefit) and some of that stuff won't be every month (i.e dog groomer/school trips/presents). Lots of people manage on that for a lot less.

It's all well and good saying her husband should be giving her more as he's on £60k a year but we have no idea what he's paying out and OP has run up debts and not told him before. We don't know if she's being financially abused or whether her DH has to be like this because she's bad with money.

Sorry but only giving you £600 per month out of 63k to pay all the bills

She's not paying 'all the bills'. Who's paying the mortgage, council tax, gas and electric, car tax/insurance? Pet insurance? Do they have holidays? Loans for other stuff like cars? Did they agree to put some money in a savings account? We don't know. This is only the OP's side of the story. [/quote]
I meant all those bills, not all the bills. I typed on the go and clearly missed that.

Chill out @kurtney

But I do still think that giving your wife only £7200 per year when you earn £63,000 is utterly woeful.

@Jenasaurus

just working on some assumptions of where the money is going

3700 take home

-600 - you
-700 - tx credit repayment
-1200 - rent (assuming average 3 bed place for yourself and 2 children)
350 - running a car (assuming he has one - insurance, petrol etc)
his phone - 30
his clothes - 50
dentist/other health eg opticians etc - 50
lunches while at work (£3 a day) - 60 a month
does he belong to a gym?
Presents - £100

£3140 spent leaving 570 0ver

Agree and it gives the op more than he has to himself. There could a,so be money going into savings.

-600 - you
Council tax 250
Utilities, 150
Debt repayments 300 (op said she’s lots of debt, assume he’s paying that)
-1200 - rent (assuming average 3 bed place for yourself and 2 children)
350 - running his car (assuming he has one - insurance, petrol, tax, repairs etc) or commute costs
250 running her car exc petrol, which she pays for.
his phone - 30
lunches while at work (£3 a day) - 60 a month
Toiletries, hair cuts, clothes, shoes etc, 80

Approx 3400. 300 spare, spent on savings, occasional socialising etc. Ultimately he may have a lot less than her.

If OP can get a job but hasn't, how is her partner giving her only £600 a month financial abuse? Genuine question..

I am saddened at some of the posts on a thread in Money Matters where a frightened OP is posting for support

@User628384

If OP can get a job but hasn't, how is her partner giving her only £600 a month financial abuse? Genuine question..

Her skills are in retail work and he has refused to permit her to work weekends. Also he takes home £3500 per month and she is paying many core expenditure items from £600 whilst he retains large sums and she gets into debt for necessities. Not allowing her to work weekends is also coercive control. It's all very controlled by him.

You talk a lot about "managing" why should OP be managing on £40 a week food shopping and cheap this and that when her husband earns 63k a year?

It depends a lot what their other bills are.
And OP has no idea. If they live in an expensive area then rent and bills alone might eat up a huge proportion of that.
OP should definitely have more knowledge of their financial matters, but it's not clear whether she doesn't because her husband won't tell her or because she's not bothered to find out.

This may well be a financially abusive relationship. But none of us can say she's being deprived of money without knowing how much spare income there is. OP was working 6 years ago - why is she not working now?

Not allowing her to work weekends is also coercive control. It's all very controlled by him.
Op said husband doesn’t want her to work at weekends, maybe if he’s out at work all week he would like to spend time with his wife. I would prefer a partner not to work a weekend either.
I’m with some of the others on this.
It’s unclear what came first the debt, that led to ops finances being controlled, or financial control leading to debt.
And the op might just be worried because her husband has just found out she’s racked up further debt.
It isn’t clear enough for people to be wading in with coercive control and financial abuse.

OP is also getting child benefit on top of the £300 a fortnight from her husband. That's another £70.30 a fortnight.

Omg this happend to me a dea from my wages for a dept from 2001.. I have rang them and waiting for the money to be refunded and start deducting a sensible agreed amount. I had no warning seems unlawful

Even if it was the case that he did not allow her to work weekends (more likely he would like her to be off work so they can spend time as a family) I'm sure in the amount of years her children have been at school or in childcare there would have been many an appropriate role for her to apply for.

OP asked for help with a situation she had got them into. I don't think it's right that there is post after post of people trying to convince her that her partner is controlling and financially abusive when we only know a very small snippet of what's going on.

“ I don't think it's right that there is post after post of people trying to convince her that her partner is controlling and financially abusive when we only know a very small snippet of what's going on.”

Are you new here?

That is what happens. Some people try and give advice but being aware we have partial information don’t leap to conclusions

Others decide by extrapolating, or projecting, or just make shit up and the bloke is an abusive bastard.

Try and calm down, it will sort itself out. They can’t take money you haven’t got. Tell him before he finds out another way he presumably benefited as well.
Ring them up yourself to try and find out what is actually going on, you haven’t received a letter but perhaps he has and he hasn’t told you.

To posters saying that many of us are extrapolating info that is not there and making things up - please read OP's post at 15.32 today where she confirms that deep down she knows her husband is financially abusive. In previous post she also advised he gets angry when she asks for money.
Posters are genuinely concerned for OP.

£300 per 2 weeks for all that, that’s £600 per month and he earns £60k.

That’s absolutely ridiculous and you need to stand up for yourself. No one could manage on that, you’d be better off on benefits and you need to tell him this and be very clear.

If it is the tax credits then be absolutely brazen about it and turn it back on him and his miserly ways with money. Explain that you were forced to put off telling the tax credit office as it was the first time in your marriage that you could actually buy yourself and the children any clothes etc. Stand up to him and blame him, he is to blame for his shockingly poor treatment of you with money and keeping you in such poverty. Get a spine and stand up to him, stop cowering about ‘your’ mistake, he has forced you into this behaviour, just shove it back on him big time, say you have had enough and cannot live like this any longer.

Do you actually want to live like this any longer.

Finally why was it all your responsibility to advise the tax credit office, if he is so concerned about money why didn’t he let them know he was back in work, why is it all your fault. Did he ask you and you lie to him?? This is the only reason why I could see he could be cross but even then it is because of his ridiculously controlling behaviour. Why have you not got a joint bank account, this is not the dark ages.

Your husband is abusing you. You are in an abusive relationship. I'm sorry. There are places that will help you. Coercion and financial abuse are against the law.

Is this a real situation? I am finding it hard to believe that a DH who gives you so little, gets angry if you ask for money, doesn’t want you working at weekends when you work in retail, forces you to buy clothes via a catalogue and get in debt because you are too scared to ask him for clothes can really be a nice husband in anyway at all let alone in all other areas!

For all the posters saying it’s unclear what has caused the coercive control: the coercive control has caused it.

It is very clear that OP has debts because she has no access to money not the other way round.

Whilst I don’t doubt that OP is in a controlling relationship from what has been posted. However I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions on the monthly payment being stingy/abusive. On the face of it £600 does seem a bit paltry against an income of £63k per annum but the OPs DH will be paying the higher tax rate on £23k of his income plus company pension contributions. Depending on where in the country OP is living there is a big difference in house prices and he could be paying a rather large mortgage if in London/South East. Maybe he also pays for holidays/car loans/private dental treatment/vets fees etc. Difficult to judge the £600 op receives without additional info.

@TatianaBis

It is very clear that OP has debts because she has no access to money not the other way round.

Not meaning this in a bitchy way but it’s possible the OP and DH are living beyond their means, lots of people are.