I lied to dh about out debt. He is angry and I am devestated and ashamed

[brokesparrrow]

Hello

Dh and I have some debt that needs clearing. It's been around for as long as we have lived together and peaked at the start of this year. It's credit cards and loans etc. All for stuff and holidays that we didn't need. It's a lot of money and our debt payments are about 25% of our take home pay. I 'look after' the money and bills etc, so he has never really seen the numbers, although he knows we are in a debt. We are both responsible but I feel as though I am more to blame as I am the one that looks after the money. We have both committed to changing our spending habits and for the past 6 months we have been paying it off more quickly.

dh asked me a couple of months ago how much we owed in total. I find it really hard to say and I stupidly lied and said that a figure that was about 40% less than the real total. I lied. My unjustified reasons for lying are -

I felt embarrassed and ashamed that I had let it get so bad
It's under control and plan is working so why worry him more?
He gets very stressy and worried

Fast forward to yesterday and he found out the true total. He was very angry with me for lying and said that I have broken his trust. I feel absolutely terrible, to the point where I called in sick today.

How can I regain his trust in me?

The debt was incurred by both of you, he chose not to shoulder the burden of facts and left all the oversight to you. There is no trust to regain here.

You could have a frank conversation where you say I should not have minimised the total but I need you to find a way to cope with the reality of our debt without overreacting so I feel more comfortable being honest with you.

Then, going forward, you can sit down together regularly and make sure you are doing what you need to in order to clear it. And he can do his part.

Is he responsible for any of this debt or is it all your doing, if it’s joint, it’s not your sole responsibility, it It’s all out in the open now, all you can do is talk it through, tell him why you kept the actual amount a secret and maybe schedule a time each month to go through the debt with him, so from now on he knows what’s going on.

You shouldn't have lied as the debt is both of your responsibility. I'm not surprised he's angry but I'm sure he'll get over it. Sit down and have a talk when things have cooled and just explain you panicked and didn't want to worry him.

Both of you should spend time looking through finances and look for a solution. Stepchange are really great for helping getting your debt under control. If it is becoming unmanageable, they can explore options and come up with an affordable payment plan for everyone.

Stop being so hard on yourself. You've been shouldering this on your own when it should have been a joint burden.

I assume you have given a fulsome apology for your lying.

I think you need to work out a solution to the the debt and ask for his input.

So maybe you have a monthly meeting where one of you goes through the accounts and you both sit and discuss spends, budget etc. I’m sure there’s a million apps for this. He needs to know this can’t/won’t happen again regarding the amount of debt you have.

Then I think you need to think hard and work out the reasons you lied to him. If you can share this with him, and resolve this then he can be assured that you won’t lie to him again.

So why were you embarrassed/ashamed? Was it because you had cocked up and couldn’t admit it. Is budgeting the thing that you are supposedly better at? Or did you pick it up because he didn’t want to?

Or does him getting stressy means he over reacts and gets shouty instead of staying calm. If you have a real reluctance to give bad news because of that, you both need to work at things.

Maybe this could be seem as an opportunity to improve your communication skills with each other when things get difficult.

You should be able to be 100% honest with each other. When you decided to clear the debt didn’t you sit down and agree a plan of any sort and allocate spending etc?

Not ideal but to be honest it sounds like he’s a bit lax, I can’t imagine having debt for years and not knowing the total and how much is being repayed etc
Apologise for lying of course but he hasn’t felt the weight of it all so far and needs to be more involved

How come he wasn’t part of the initial discussions on how to pay off the debt?

When you say you manage the money do you mean this debt had been increasing because you've been adding to it on family things but he didn't realise? For example taking a holiday for both of you, but your DH is unaware that this is paid for on credit and had assumed that because you are managing the debt for both of you that anything you spend is within your households means. Or has he been spending willy nilly not caring where the money is coming from and is now cross because you said you owed X but he's now found out it's Y?

I think you were wrong hiding it from him, but he seems like an arsehole for expecting you to shoulder 100% of the responsibility.

Op habe you taken this debt out without telling him? Is this why he’s never seen the numbers?

This is exactly what I wanted to say but probably worded better and with less swearing than I would have used.

It sounds like the whole situation is making you anxious, can we help with a plan?

I have sympathy with your DH. If I were him I’d now be wondering that if you can lie to him about this, what else could you be lying about? He asked you directly and you chose to lie, it’s not like you just didn’t disabuse him of a figure he came up with on his own without asking. He may have made different choices about his spending in the meantime if he’d known the true amount.

I’m unclear about why you’re ashamed you’d let it get so bad. Do you mean because you didn’t prioritise it enough earlier in your relationship so you both allowed it to accumulate (in which case you’re probably giving yourself a hard time there unnecessarily)? Or because you’ve been lying in other ways, and adding to it without your husband’s knowledge until quite recently?

I think all you can do now is be absolutely honest with your husband, sit down together with all the paperwork and figures so he can see nothing is being hidden. But you do have to be prepared that he may not be able to trust you again, and that’s his prerogative. This isn’t about the debt, it’s about the lie. No matter how logical you feel your justification for your actions, you’ve kept knowledge of the true state of your marital finances from him - treating him in quite a patronising, “let’s not trouble his pretty head about it” kind of way - even when he actively wanted to know the situation, and that’s not great.

Was it though? She says it’s their debt, they are both responsible, but she also says he didn’t know the numbers, which indicates he wasn’t told. And as such it wasn’t a joint decision.

Id say it’s his turn to manage the money. Swap places.

We have been together for in excess of thirty years , we have had some humdinger debt, but we have cleared it, point is DH always knew the state of play and that is half the battle. We are now very comfortable and know where we are financially.

I am out this evening, what I spend will appear on the JA app, but if I decided that I was springing for dinner with the girls (recent inheritance) I would tell him when I came and he would laugh and roll his eyes and say and I need to know why…

So in short, the answer is truth and clarity.

Well this is why you shouldn't let someone deal with your finances. Unless he doesn't have the mental capacity he needs to step up and deal with his spending.

The lying is stupid and you need to work on your communication and shame around debt.

I personally deal with our household finances. It's an area I have a lot of knowledge in. But my DH still knows how much our investments are worth, how much we borrow and what we are spending.

Maybe a once a month have a "meeting" (sit at the dining table) to look over expenditure and debts.

This👆

It's under control and plan is working so why worry him more?
He gets very stressy and worried

This sounds like you're trying to shield a grown man from (financial) reality to spare his feelings. You are equal partners, no need for you assume all the responsibility for your finances. This sounds like the reverse of the old "Don't worry your pretty little head over it"! Time to put a stop to this.

You're being much too hard on yourself here. You obviously shouldn't have lied about the amount of your (mutual) debt, but you've been shouldering all the anxiety over your finances for too long.

Set aside time for the two of you to discuss all your finances. Go over your debt reduction strategy with him; get his input. Sounds like you are on the right track, but he needs to get on board and be an active participant.

I also agree with the above.
It shouldnt be all on your shoulders. I feel for you because Ive been in similar situation in past where DH has had his head in the sand and Ive been left to manage everything so it felt like it was all my fault and responsibilty -
took me a while to realise it wasnt, he is also responsible for household budgeting and spending and its not fair on one person to carry everything whilst other one pretends its nothing to do wih them and then blame their OH .

This is good advice!
I wish you all the best.

Joint debt and you were able to pretend it was almost half the real total and he no idea you were lying?

I’d tell him to get to fuck with having a go at you, and bullshit about trust!

Him being a pathetic child is the issue here - doesn’t know what the debt is himself, and gets all stressy? He needs to grow the fuck up.

Sure it was wrong of you to lie, though I understand why you did.

You should be able to tell him those reasons, give a fairly light sorry, and get a light apology back from him that his pathetic was put you in that position.

Time for him to start adulting.

I would focus on a plan for moving forward as partners in managing your finances. You probably need a monthly meeting where the two of you go over all the accounts and make any adjustments to the debt repayment plan together.

You still need to have designated jobs in terms of paying bills and managing transfers, but you solve this by agreeing to make decision making collaborative.

I suggest you be more open with him in future. He is a grown man so you should not hide your true financial position. Hopefully over time he will trust you again.

You've both run up the debt so you're both responsible for it. But if one of you takes on the responsibility of paying down the outstanding amount, then really it's up to them to keep on top of it or, alternatively, be straight and say they need help. Why should you be stressed and scared just to avoid stressing and scaring your husband? However, I agree with you that you were wrong to lie and give him a false impression. I'd be cross too if I were him but it would probably be more out of fear and disappointment of finding us not in the position I was thinking we were.
It's done now. Just show/tell him what you've written here. Write your plan together so he knows how much you're paying off and when you'll be clear, and more forward treating each other as equals in the relationship. It really isn't the end of the world.
I'm pretty sure I read practically the exact same story on another thread a few weeks ago so it's more common than you think. And well done for tackling the debt and making leeway in paying it off. It's not easy.