My partner lies to me about his debt etc

[mummysept22]

Otherwise he is the most lovely, loyal husband and I know he will be a great dad to our child.

He is rubbish with money. I knew he was in debt when we got together 4.5 years ago and he never used to discuss it at all- he's very much a bury his head in the sand type guy. I have sat him down and worked things out with him so many times! I used to be terrible too and worked hard to get myself out of debt so I know a lot about it. But he never follows through with the plan. And is in the same situation. Loads of debts, defaulted and paying minimum £5 a month to some of them.

We sat down a few nights ago to sort things out again, we are expecting a child in September. We will have pots of money for each shared budget in a joint account. Then our own spending money. I have offered to combine our money and help him pay off his debts whilst we save. I earn slightly more than him, but obviously this will change when we have the baby, so I don't mind.

I asked him if he was completely honest. Today I opened a letter (I know- wrong!) and he has missed two payments. I knew there were more and he fessed up to two more before I would tell him what debt this was.
I think I know what your answers will be and I am scared.
But what should I do with him?! He says it will be different this time because our money is in a joint account now. And he will cut his cards up once we've paid them off.
Help!

My DH was like this. We had bailiffs and CCJ letters. It took 5 years to sort. He made a voluntary debt repayment plan brokered by a charity who supports people with large debts. They handled all the companies and he paid them a fixed payment each month, like a mortgage. We weren’t married at the time, but living together. Both of our wages went into my account. I paid all the household bills, food, meals out everything. We agreed on a pocket money budget for each of us.

That was 15 years ago and we still do this now. It sounds bonkers but for us it works. He’s useless with money, I’m much better so we work as a team. It takes the constant arguing and secrecy away. Not everyone’s ideal but works for us.

I wish you all the best. I would not get a joint account wirh him. I was blocked on a mortgage for having a joint account with a relative who had a poor credit score - even if the joint account itself never went in the red.

The only way is if he pays a certain amount into your personal account and you save for the both of you. He also needs to be totally transparent about his spending and earnings. Otherwise you might have issues with bailiffs coming round.

@Namenic we don't have any financial ties, I explained in a previous post how we manage our money- we use a revolut account which is a single name account that we both have access to (via an app on our phones)- you can create 'vaults' for each budget so we know where we are (fuel, groceries, dog etc). It has worked well for us in the past we just fell out of thé habit of topping the account up. But now we have set budgets for everything. He will manage his own pocket money but I know how much he has. He has deleted all credit cards from Apple Pay and has cut thé physical cards up. All the savings are in my NS&I or S&S ISA.

My SIL gave DB envelopes with spending money and petrol money, she handled everything else.
He just could not budget at all.

Get a credit check on him (with his permission) using Credit Karma or MSE Credit Club, they have free access to Equifax. This should detail all outstanding accounts. Get statements from all those companies so you know exactly where he stands and then make your decisions.

Welcome to constant debt! He should cut his cards up now...immediately.

@Agadorsparticus @Bogeyes yeah we have done all those things. 😊

Keep your money separate and leave.
Do not take anything out on finance that you couldn't afford if you were single and on your own.

I was in this position for years. At one point I really thought he'd turned a corner, we were saving to buy a house. I ended up taking out a loan to pay of some of his debts because I wanted us to work. car finance was in my name because he couldn't get it, and we needed a car. I even managed the money, he transferred the majority of his pay to me at the beginning of the month. Turned out he hadn't changed at all, was lying about how much he actually got paid, had high interest credit cards and payday loans.

We're separated now, but financially I struggle

Wow great update OP!! So lovely to see both you and him taking advice and acting upon it. Think how great it'll be when all the debt is gone!
Best of luck for the future!

Is he in an iva or dro? £400 seems low for repayments if he’s earning 50k