DH and money

[Magicstars]

I'm sorry, this is going to be long because I want to get all the info down. Thanks to anyone who is able to read and respond. Dh and I have been married for six years and have one dd.

DH left his previous job in order to retrain this year. He worked hard to get to that point and I was/am in full support of this. He was unhappy at work and changed job every two years. I want him to be happy and was prepared to make sacrifices this year in order for him to retrain in a career that motivates him.

In September DH told me that his previous employer had mistakenly paid him for an additional month. I straight away asked him to let them know and pay it back before it got spent. It turns out that he didn't let them know, in fact he was paid for four months by them. When they realised they of course asked him to pay the money back.

The money had gone into our bills account and had been used. I didn't realise this was happening as both sets of parents (very generously) gave DH money to support him through his course. I thought it was this money being used to pay the bills etc. When I asked DH how things were so 'easy' financially he had told me not to worry, he had it all sorted. Stupidly I didn't ask any more questions and assumed it he was budgeting the money he had etc.

As I mentioned, DH was given money by my both sets of our parents. This was to cover his tuition fees, as well as assisting him to contribute to the mortgage etc.

Earlier this week I confessed to DH that I had bumped into a parked car that day and that I was extremely embarrassed and sorry about this. I had left my details on the car and told him we would be needing to make an insurance claim when the owner called. DH used this opportunity to confess to me that he had not paid his tuition fees and that the money he was given to do this had been spent on other things.

Last night, DH casually mentioned at bedtime that his former employer would be taking us to court, because of the debt he has not attempted to repay. Needless to say I was very angry and made him promise to ring them today, apologise and beg them to let us work out a repayment plan. I do not yet know the outcome of this phone call.

I have felt sick ever since as I have no idea how we can afford to pay back the £7000 total debt he has accumulated in recent months. The only savings we have are meant to be for dd. DH has no access to this money (I set the account up) and I strongly believe this is the only reason dd has any savings.

DH has just texted me to say he's gone for a pint with one of his workmates. He thinks it ok as his colleague is paying. I do not consider this reasonable, he should be home, working out how the f we are going to manage this, not out enjoying himself.

I am extremely disappointed and upset in DH. He says it's my fault also for letting the money get spent. I disagree that this is my responsibility. I know how much I earn and do not spend excessively. What would you do in my position?

There is more to this. Last year we finally paid a huge credit card debt he racked up. I made him promise never to get us into debt again, he has? £7k in under six months It's one thing after another.

I have no idea how to speak to him when he gets home. I feel nothing I say goes in. What should I do?

Anyone?

Your fault for 'letting the money get spent'?

Nice try, but this situation is all entirely his own fault.

He's clearly crap with money & somewhat unreliable, I'm really sorry.

U need to make sure he made the calls and take over bills for ever now . U should leave if no progress is made. Tell his parents e squandered their money and it isn't helping him to be handed money . He thinks it comes from the air. Take control of situation get cab or legal advice face it head on. If no progress leave . It will mess up ur whole future I'd not sorted out

How much is in the savings account?

U sleepwalked into it easily done . But not ur fault , you thought u were in a partnership with an adult . Clearly thia man cannot be trusted with money . Now u know for sure u need to plan repayments and legally how much is ur legal responsibility if he does not cooperate

He's financially irresponsible. You need to sit down with him, work out what you have, what you owe and how you're going to be able to sort it all out. Then you need to change the passwords on your bill account to protect it and get him to set up DDs for all the regular payments coming from his money, leaving him with the bare minimum in his own account.

Any loans should be taken out by him (I know if you're married then technically it's probably all joint anyway but he needs to stake responsibility for paying it back) and he needs to apologise for blaming you for this.

I know how easy it can be to let someone you trust take the reins financially, I never had a clue where we stood money wise until XH declared that we should hand over our keys to the mortgage company and go bankrupt. Sadly my DM died shortly afterwards so her inheritance dug us out of a hole, but I never forgave him for letting us get to that point when I thought he was so savvy and I was the dippy one, incapable of accessing our accounts online and watching every penny.

Hope you can get it sorted, but unless he changes his attitude you'll be back here again so protect yourself.

You need to sit him down & tell him to grow up, that he needs to find a way to pay off his old work and his tuition fees, and if that means giving up his uni course for a while, so be it.

You need some good financial advice asap. As money is an issue, I'd try the CAB first, you need to sort out a debt management plan, which a debt advisor will be able to help you.

Im not telling you how to live you life but he will always be like this and you and your daughter will never have financial stability as there will always be someone to bail him out. Question is how many tines can he do this before enough is enough?

Thanks for your replies. I am worried about the future of our relationship. I take marriage seriously but don't want to live unhappily constantly picking up the pieces after him. He can act like an over grown child and has this horrible entitled side to him.
He inherited a significant amount of money as a teenager (enough to buy a house with) & I think this is where his attitude stems from. His df is out of the country getting married this month so I can't speak to him about it. If I tell my DP's they would be horrified.

There is just short of 1k in dd's account. I was intending this for her future.

So sad and disappointed.

What do you get out of this relationship now?.

He is completely irresponsible in all aspects of life and is now doing nothing more than dragging you and by turn your child down with him. I am sorry to say that you married an entitled manchild and these types do not change.

My guess as well is that he has not bothered at all to speak to his former employers.

He has just sent you a text message to say that he will be in the pub with his mate; yet further avoidance on his part. I would not be home when he returns.

I also would be making plans to separate as of now, he has trampled on the marriage vows you made and has never taken you at all seriously. He should not be enabled any longer by anyone; he needs to be shown by you as well that there are indeed consequences for his actions.

"In September DH told me that his previous employer had mistakenly paid him for an additional month. I straight away asked him to let them know and pay it back before it got spent. It turns out that he didn't let them know, in fact he was paid for four months by them. When they realised they of course asked him to pay the money back.

The money had gone into our bills account and had been used. I didn't realise this was happening as both sets of parents (very generously) gave DH money to support him through his course".

Why did they give him money, did he tell them that he was broke?.

His parents were and remain stupid to further enable their son like this, small wonder he is so irresponsible with money. If he also inherited a fair sum as a teenager where has all that money gone?. That all got spent by him as well didn't it?. He will be forever in hock to someone and you cannot change such a spendthrift person.

All you can ultimately do with this bloke is to leave him.

He's a financial fuckwit. This is your life if you choose to stay with him. There will be another thing, and another.

If you do choose to stay with him them you need to extricate yourself from him financially as much as possible.

Get the house and bills put in your name only.

There is every possibility that at some point in the future he will lose you your home.

I am so tempted to tell him not to bother coming home tonight. I know he will spend the evening in the pub if I do, drinking away more money.
I also want him to come home and so I can get the facts out of him and work out how much we can afford to pay each month.
Thanks for the advice, I certainly will be taking full charge of all our finances from now on and do what I can to prevent him accessing the accounts, Much though I don't want to. If he complies with this then maybe he is willing to change. I don't know.
I need to consider if I can live like this. It certainly isn't how I foresaw our future. I will work though the debt thing first, it has changed the way I feel about him, though if I'm honest, I lost faith in him a long time ago. There are positives too. He is wonderful with dd, though hate the thought of her growing up weighed down by his issues, as I am.

Attila, our DPs gave him to money so that he could leave his job and go back to Uni to retrain in a new career.

Some of his inheritance went into a deposit for our home. He also spent a lot of it travelling, on booze and enjoying himself.

I was. Married to someone very similar. If there was £1 in his hand he would spend £2. Didn't see a problem in racking up debt, I paid it off twice. He didn't change. We split up.
His mother died recently, it then came out she had taken out a loan to pay off more debt he has run up. £20k, his dad paid it off.
He earns £90k.

From bitter experience, I would run like the wind.

After he left, I discovered he had taken the money out of our children's piggy banks.
He denied it, and has no remorse at all.

"Thanks for the advice, I certainly will be taking full charge of all our finances from now on and do what I can to prevent him accessing the accounts, Much though I don't want to. If he complies with this then maybe he is willing to change. I don't know.
I need to consider if I can live like this. It certainly isn't how I foresaw our future. I will work though the debt thing first, it has changed the way I feel about him, though if I'm honest, I lost faith in him a long time ago. There are positives too. He is wonderful with dd, though hate the thought of her growing up weighed down by his issues, as I am".

Policing any future spending of his will drive you half mad. Such men do not change!!!. I know this, I have such a relative and he has blown god knows how much money over the years. He keeps being bailed out as well by his stupid parents. BTW that money has all gone.

There are no positives here although you would like to think that there is. The alternative for you is still too bloody painful to contemplate properly but contemplate it you must.

No, he is not wonderful with DD as he is a spendthrift and he has also lied to you as her mum repeatedly. Is he really the role model you want her to grow up with?. Sod that, both you and she deserve better.

You know as well that your DDs money would be gone as well if he had any access whatsoever to it!.

Where has all his money gone?. You do not know do you?. He's blown his tuition fees, his teenage inheritance, the money that his ex employers paid him in error to name but three lots of cash. And on what?. He will leave you high and dry if not totally bankrupt emotionally and financially.

You have no faith in him now and faith is not easily restored. What if he does this again, he has shown no willingness to you to change but is sitting in the pub. More avoidance on his part to face facts and reality.

Do not use your DD as an excuse to stay with this man. You have a choice re this man, your DD does not.

I really feel for you.

Your DH has no sense of responsibility and right now he is hiding in the pub. That's really awful.

I'd love to see some positive angle here and I think there have been times on MN when I've read of people being able to turn this situation around. Maybe one of those posters will see this and share the experience.

But...to be honest, and I'm sorry, I don't think this is a positive situation. To get out of debt and to have a stable marriage and family life without repeated episodes like this would mean your DH has to change very very much indeed. Examples of people changing fundamentally are incredibly rare, so please bear that in mind.

If your marriage is to continue then I don't think there is any option other than you taking complete financial control. But the problem there is that it means that your DH continues not to face up to responsibility and you end up treating him - financially - like a child. Not a great dynamic in a marriage where you are hoping for a partnership of equals but it would hopefully keep you out of crippling debt.

My only suggestion is separation - even if it is not intended to be permanent. The shock of you acting assertively and people like your parents knowing the reason why might be the only possible move that could bring him to his senses. You have said you feel nothing you say goes in. So it will have to be your actions instead. So far he's not had to experience any real consequence for any of his stupid decisions and behaviour with money - so if you want a last try at keeping the family together I think you have to let him see that stakes are sky high. I don't think telling him will get through either - I think you have to show him.

On a last and sad note - I think you should do what you can to check and see if your DH has other debts he hasn't admitted to yet. As far as I understand as long as you are married, you have responsibility for any of his debts too. It is a few years ago but a friend had to go for some form of financial separation even before the divorce came through because her ex was an addicted gambler and she needed to insulate herself from him very fast.

Cross posted.

Bloody hell, he must have done a heck of a lot of travelling, hedonism and boozing then to blow all that cash. And he's likely still blowing it all on more hedonism and booze.

He will bleed you dry. Importantly as well he has shown you no real remorse whatsoever. He seems to still want to avoid both fact and reality and will still spend like there is no tomorrow. He will bankrupt you in the end.

He is home now. First accused me of telling dd 'not to like him anymore' because she wouldn't go to him. I would never try to turn her against him, besides she is too young for that.
He has also told me he has worked it all out and can't I just let it go so we can enjoy our weekend ?
I am exasperated.
I know what you are all saying is true.

So basically he wants you to STFU. Nice. He just wants this brushed under the carpet and forgotten about. Like you did with the huge credit card bill last time.

What's that saying... Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

I'm inclined to agree with Hawthorn, I'd be telling him that "he has worked it all out" just doesn't cut it, he needs to leave and come back when he can account for every single penny of that money, the money from your parents and his ex-employers, and provide a detailed plan of how he's going to pay it back and pay his tuition fees whilst still financially supporting his daughter.

Fuck supporting him thru uni, that'd be out the window for me now.

Am I right in thinking he's spent over 7k in a few months? Are you sure he doesn't have a drug, gambling, prostitute, porn chat line addiction?

it has changed the way I feel about him, though if I'm honest, I lost faith in him a long time ago.

I would tell him this straight. The situation is far more serious than he seems to be aware of both financially and in terms of your marriage.

So where has all the money gone?

Unless his parents bail him out, he's going to have to get a job to pay off the ex-employer by the sound of it. And as he's spent his tuition fees he would have to get a loan now to cover them - a loan which will no doubt increase given his profligacy, and weigh the family down.

Personally I would say no more uni until he's repayed his employer and replaced the money his parents gave him for fees.

But then I would probably say no more him, I couldn't live with such an idiot, then how much money he wastes is up to him.

He's worked it all out? Can he tell you his detailed solution then so you can stop worrying and enjoy the weekend?