Just found out he is £30k in debt.

[ClearHisDebt]

NC as I don’t want anyone in RL to know..

Woke up this morning after a really weird dream, DH had a CCJ against him from some work he had done. He said he was juggling two jobs and it meant they weren’t up to standard. I woke up but then nodded back off and the dream continued but turned out to be a scam.

However, something just didn’t sit right, so I decided to check his credit file.

No CCJ, but £30k of debt over loans and credit cards over the last 3 years!

He is keeping up with payments, and there doesn’t appear to be any missed, but a few of these are pay day loans which I think are being paid and renewed.

Going forward, I want to help him get a plan together so I need to make him aware that I have checked. We have no joint accounts, we are only recently married, although together 10 years.

Next year, I will likely be taking a year unpaid to pursue my career which the following year will increase my income now by around £8k, so long term, is the best thing to do.

There are 10 loans and 10 credit cards.

I am loosely aware of Dave Ramsey and snowballing, but would you suggest I take on the lowest 5 as my contribution and he focus on the next 5? Do I start with lowest and him with highest? I could use my savings to clear £10k of it, but that would wipe me out completely and I am trying to build it up for next year if I do need to be without an income.

Any advice?

Marrying someone who has huge debts and hasn't told you about them is far more immoral. If he hadn't done that she wouldn't have to check out his financial status.

If you read the relevant posts you'd realise my comments were made about the suggestion that you should fraudulently misrepresent yourself to a credit agency to gain access to a credit record you aren't entitled to. The OP snooped on a shared computer, that's for her own conscience.

But the suggestion was made by another poster that you should illegally impersonate someone to Experian to run a credit check - where does this lie on your moral compass?

I meant marrying someone when you have huge debts and you haven't told that person about them is far more immoral.

(I guess I've found out the Edit function isn't available for long!)

I am a solicitor and I despair about women like you - luckily I am not in family law but I work in an area that means I see the wreckage. You are sleepwalking into disaster. You should get to a solicitor and find out if you can save your house if you kick him out now. Men like that are endless trouble. Perhaps if he'd told you'd have been able to make some economies. I can see you scrimping and saving for years after marrying a man who didn't have enough guts to tell you about the loan and who could swan off with half your house as soon as you've help him pay his debts off. Think on this.

You had a dream because your subconscious was desperately trying to send you a warning. There would have been clues to this debt that you blocked out of your conscious mind.

You have chosen a man just like your ex-husband again. This is not a co-incidence. You are also busily planning how to fix this for him - you know scrimping and saving and thinking of using 10,000 pounds of your own money to bail him out, while he's not bothered about it all. For the love of all that's holy, get yourself to a solicitor and don't take on any of his debts or spend your savings on this dishonest man. Just have a cry and get yourself off for some legal advice. Men are not a project you take on to fix and you especially don't try to fix one that has lied to you by omission on a spectacular scale.

Yes, a second failed marriage is sad. But a second failed marriage without your house, without your savings and year of scrimping ahead and behind you is much worse. Money isn't everything but it does make being unhappy a bit more bearable and it give you options.

Do you know how I got so cynical? Thirty years of seeing things like this happen to trusting people who took on other people's debts, went guarantor and so on. It never ends well. I have seen somebody hand over every asset they had to avoid bankruptcy because of family dealings. One of my own friends had a great job, and had paid off her house and car when she met a man 17 years ago. She sunk money into his business including a family inheritance and carried him for years and he was always in some financial scrape or other. He died suddenly and she was not the beneficiary of the will - after 17 years together he'd never got round to updating it and his family inherited everything. His family is running the business into the ground and she will be lucky to get any money repaid. She has no superannuation and is mortgaged to the hilt. She will be working till well past her anticipated retirement age and she is in a fastpaced job where youth is an advantage. She is sad, tired and broke and it all could have been avoided. His family, needless to say, are determined to hold on to the money at all costs.

This is such a wise and at the same time depressing post.

If your marriage is short, you might be able to save yourself from being liable for anything in his name.

How long did you live together continuously before marriage? This is important because this overall time is considered the length of the marriage.

If its less than five years total, it's deemed a short marriage and with no dependent kids you have a good chance of walking away with exactly what you came in to the marriage with.

Regardless of whether you want to continue the relationship, legally divorcing would be a smart move at this point.

His debts are not your problem to deal with, so leave them entirely alone.
Not your business, and definitely not your responsibility.

Your part in this is whether or not you choose to stay married to a man who has lied to you every single day you have known him, a man who has so grossly betrayed your trust. You part is to look after your own wellbeing, both financial and emotional. You need legal advice; an annulment or divorce; and some hard graft in therapy before you date again. A priority will be to examine why you keep choosing financially abusive men.

THIS ^

Plus everything @Gingercreams said above.
Especially this:

I can see you scrimping and saving for years after marrying a man who didn't have enough guts to tell you about the loan and who could swan off with half your house as soon as you've help him pay his debts off. Think on this.

I hope you really, really think about all this. And act on it.

Why on earth do women stay with men like this? His debts are not your responsibility. Get rid & get your life back.

I can see you scrimping and saving for years after marrying a man who didn't have enough guts to tell you about the loan and who could swan off with half your house as soon as you've help him pay his debts off.

Depressing & true. And not far from my own situation (tho I hope for a more positive future!)

But certainly my abusive ex held me & our DC in a financial stranglehold for most of 2 decades & it'll be a slow process if I ever get out of it.

And yes, he got a sizeable settlement (I had to borrow) so I could secure the house.

We were married 5 months when the first of the debt surfaced. Stayed together for another 10 years

@ClearHisDebt I hope you're ok. How did the talk go?

Good I think. All cards bar one have gone, 3 of the loans are credit agreements covering insurance payments, (Public liability, van and tracker subscription)

Ive told him to gather all his statements and paper work together so it can all be checked. He has shown that all are being paid, slightly above minimum payment and once the next one has cleared he will use that payment as extra on another.

Didn't tell me as I’m a worrier, things have been better this year and hasn’t had a renew one of the pay day loans for a while. He has tried to consolidate but can’t due to poor credit, can’t really move balances to one card as the credit limits are low.

He is going to get all paperwork printed off this weekend and I’ve told him he needs to redo his payment plan to pay the highest interest first. Obviously there’s more conversation to be had and I will be checking his payments every couple of months.

Sounds like a mature and supportive relationship, apart from him lying/omitting the loans in the first place.

Whilst I do not think you should bail him out at all the interest on Pay Day loans is extortionate, if you can get an official letter written up with a payment plan detailed on it so that if things go wrong you can take him to small claims then I might consider it for those. He could even still pay the 'interest' but stick it in a house fund instead

This. No way would i be entangled with a chronic debtor.

Also being self employed is no excuse. If the business is foundering he needs to get a regular job, not take payday loans.

Yes, you are very wrong.

No. Debts are his alone if not a joint product.

That sounds reasonably positive OP. If any of his existing credit cards are showing balance transfer offers, he could try asking for a higher credit limit to accommodate a balance transfer from elsewhere as they'll likely do this based on his recent relationship with him, not his credit file.

When you talk further, ask him to not keep things to himself in future. What industry was/is he in? I think a lot of the harsh replies are overlooking the fact that, during covid, many industries shut down overnight and due to the nature of how it all works, many people weren't entitled to any help and literally lost their income for well over a year.

DP was in this position as he works in live events, where just about everyone is freelance. He didn't qualify for any of the furlough or SEISS payments because he was PAYE for one of his main clients during the qualifying period but then went freelance - they were assessing people on their income/work nearly 2 years before covid and many people were in completely different positions. Luckily he managed to get work in another industry but not everyone did.

You have to divorce him. Now with hope. Or when you're skint and worn down.

He is a joiner, and at the time was in a contact with a care home group. He came home from work one day, to the next not knowing what the fuck was going on. He was expected to be there for another 6 months or so, the care home subsequently closed, and materials and tools that were left there in the lock up were gone. He wasn’t allowed to retrieve them due to restrictions and then they understandably had to move things etc, but as they were mid refurbishment and covid they had to close themselves. Tools left were not of high value individually and eventually had to be replaced. Unfortunately for him it was a case of anything left if your own responsibility.

The SEISS grant was a farce for us as well as many others. We weren’t entitled to any help from Universal Credit either.

On return to work, he had endless calls from people wanting work to be done and spent endless amounts of hours quoting on jobs, people weren’t happy at the prices of things being more expensive than pre covid and many times he had to go back and let people know prices were changing on a daily basis. Some jobs were almost double than pre covid quotes. It was a very shit time.

That doesn’t however excuse him for not being open about it, and it is something we have spoken about.

That doesn’t however excuse him for not being open about it, and it is something we have spoken about.

It's a huge deceit OP. I'd feel so much trust is gone.

How are you feeling now? What are the ext steps?

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