can I justify this, despite it not being great

[Lindapsi]

Hi,

Dh and I are currently going through some financial issues - debt etc. It is solvable, however my dh suffers terribly with his mental health and struggles with the weight of it all. Because of this, I manage the finances etc.

I am in the process of reorganising our debt to make it more affordable and one of the options is that I can consolidate some of the more expensive debts, via a loan from my bank ( HSBC). This will save me about £200 per month due to the much lower interest.

Dh has developed this thing about us 'never applying for anything again'. I totally agree that accruing more debt can NEVER happen, however I don't see an issue in moving debt to make it cheaper. When I have tried to discuss this with him before be has become very anxious and stressed.

Whilst I would prefer totally honesty, I am very tempted to just take the loan and consolidate these debts. It would be in my name and the payment would leave my account so he would never know. He NEVER asks to see the 'money' and is quite happy for me to deal with it.

It's not easy for me to lie, however I think that this is for the greater good! WWYD?

Get advice from someone like CAP or Step change. It will be free advice- don't pay.
They'll check that the plan you have is a sensible one, that it isn't riskier to have one big debt than several smaller ones.

Tell DH you're following the advice. Don't tell him the details as that will enhance his anxiety. Don't lie, as that will enhance his anxiety when he finds out.

Would he agree to seeing one of the advisers PP mentioned with you? It might be less anxiety inducing once he has spoken to someone who can help you work out the best way forward? I don't think lying and hiding what you are doing with a joint debt is the way forward

Consolidation is fine as long as the rate on the consolidation loan is lower than the current debts and you don't then continue to rack up more debt. How much debt are you talking about?

Consolidation can work if you close the lines of credit you ran up in the first place and are really honest about how you got into the debt in the first place and fix that.
Otherwise you will end up with a loan and lots of debt as well

Dont lie to DH, tell him what your doing, explain current payments, new payments, interest rates on current debt and new loan and how long it will be until I a cleared. If he's not happy ask him for an alternative plan to resolve it all.

You don't have to lie to him, just consolidate the debt and tell him when it's done. Maybe you could draw up a table with the numbers to show how much you were paying before vs now and present it to him at the same time. Good luck!

My goodness, that's very brave and loving of you to consider putting joint debts into your sole name. I know that this may feel like a good solution to "hide" the loan, but it really isn't in the long term and could help push your husand further into mental health issues as he may start to think he's pushed it all onto you.
Instead I would ask him some very simple questions and see what his answers are:
1 - Are you happy for me to sort the issue out so we get out of debt as soon as possible and we have the least stress?
If yes then
2a - Do you want to know what I'm going to do
If no then
2b - Do you want to be involved in fixing this?

Sometimes it's far simpler to help somone with anxiety and/or depression to give them the option to not worry at all by not having to care OR to let them be
involved in fixing the issue.
It really depends on what his mental health is like, what sets him off etc... but to be honest, if you remove all control of this from him I would think that might cause an episode. (Control doesn't mean him fixing it, it can be him 'outsourcing' it to you to fix).