End of my tether

[Foolishlady]

Ok I generally wouldn't post here cos (no offence ladies and I don't want to put everyone's back up before I start) I sometimes think the boards' sa but quick to recommend breaking up when children are involved - but I'm getting unhappier in my relationship and I don't know what to do. My dh is a good man but he's horrendous with money. We're about to get a house and found out yesterday that we may be refused a mortgage because he has let one of his loans go into serious default. I was printing out our joint savings account this morning and saw that despite jointly saving 800e a month we have less money than last year as he is constantly taking money out. He has more outgoings than me but he is really not on a bad salary at all. I just can't face constantly bailing him out, never being able to trust him with money..,this has been constant since we got married. I work hard and have been lucky enough for my parents to have given some money towards our deposit but some of this is going to be used to pay his debts - and this will never stop. I am maybe too far on the other side in terms of frugality, are we destined to be unhappy? But we have a lovely 21 month old who loves seeing his parents together. Relationship not amazing other than this, we still have a laugh together, but have v different family background and political views, and have had sex less than 10 times in 2.5 years. Some of this is him but recently I've just stopped fancying him. What do I do?

Please think about this some more OP.
I know that houses prices have rocketed recently but here in SW London they have stabilised and are dropping. My sis just had to buy her partner out at the top price. Lucky him.
You have to get your finances under control before you take on this joint commitment.

I am seriously concerned for you here.

Quick question, if he wasn't dreadful would money, would yours be a happy marriage?

I'm not sure. There's still the sex problem, for example

It's very difficult to fancy someone you don't respect and can't trust, so I suspect the sex issue is a side effect of his impecuniousness.

Sorry but I really think your priorities are all wrong. Sex really is the glue that keeps a relationship going when the going gets tough.

You think you know the extent of the debt but I'll bet you don't have the first idea about it. He's just put down what he thinks will be discovered.

You are committing your money and YOUR MOTHERS to someone with a proven bad track record with debt and a liar to boot.

Have you been honest with your mother about the situation and if so is she still happy to throw give her money away?

Are you really ready to take on a life's worth of debt? This situation will only get worse and is potentially something that you will never, ever escape. You are going to blight your future with this man.

My ex was a gambler, endless loans etc. The only saving grace of my marriage was that the house was mine, and he had not contributed 1 cent to it, so it stayed mine, and that we had no joint debts, because I refused to sign up for them because he was an arse. We had a joint account, to which he had no access, apart from a paying in book.

You need to shut all your joint accounts down and reorganise your finances as of yesterday to protect yourself. You also need to have the money you put into the house ring-fenced(if you really are going ahead with this - which is honestly mind blowing.)

You are basically giving him access to a huge asset, which he can then run up yet more debt against.

You have less money in your savings that last year despite paying in more than £800 a month.

That is £9,600 he has spent. PLUS the interest. PLUS the extra that the account is now down by. PLUS whatever he hasn't been paying on his loan so it has got to the stage where he is defaulting.

You honestly think he has wasted £10k on wine, take aways & coffees?

Do not get a mortgage with this man. You will be out on your ear and more in debt for which you are equally liable with in a couple of years.

If you are determined to stay with him you need to sit down and go through every account he has and find out exactly what he has spent it all on i the last year.

Give your parents their money back. It is safer there for you if you need in the future and why the hell should their hard earned cash go to clear this man's debts?

Just to clarify not all of that was taken by him for him! At least

So he lied to you, stole wedding money and money from your savings and now is prob going to play merry with money your parents gave you - and yet you still want to stay with him for the sake of your son. Words fail me. What would your parents say if they found out what their son in law is really up to. If you refuse to leave him then please return your parents money - I totally agree with Magoria.

Well it was but it included 3000e car repairs, car tax, money for a project of his and in last 3 weeks almost 2000e to pay childcare bills etc - which I thought was coming out of current account

My mum knows he's crap with money, I told them. They also v much believe in marriage & are absolutely desperate for us to get a house. So think they're trusting in me to control it. My other sister's husband is even worse, and they went to mum& dad cap in hand which I have never done.

What a mess.

why so desperate to get a house? You need to tell your parents the truth. And buying a house with someone so appalling with money is never going to end well. You will end up with a destroyed credit rating and nothing.

Why do you stay with him? - please don't trot out for the sake of my son - because this is not a good environment to parent in is it.

What did he spend his current account money on instead of car and childcare?

OP: What is the sex problem?

Don't just stay with him to please your family.

When we married my DH was crap with money, too. BUT he never hid money gifts and never defaulted on a loan though. Just stupid spending like your DH's coffees, takeaways, drinks etc. I'm afraid the hiding of money and loan default would be a deal breaker for me. My financial and credit worthiness mean too much to me to be dragged down. There's just too much to lose.

BUT, if you want to stay in an otherwise happy marriage ask yourself this: Does he acknowledge that he is financially irresponsible and does he want to change that? If not, leave because it's a no win situation and you will eventually lose everything. If so, is he willing to hand you his chequebook, credit cards, & debit cards and is he willing for you to change passwords on and/or close accounts so that he has no access to money? Is he willing to live totally on a reasonable weekly cash allowance and go without funds if he over spends? Because that's what DH had to do to stop his foolish spending & to learn to live within our means. But it worked. As a matter of fact now he handles all the family finances, bill paying, etc and is actually better at saving now than I am!

OP please have a think about what jump has said. Although the money was for 'legitimate' expenses, these should have come from the current account. Assuming your budgeting is correct, there should have been enough money in the current account to pay for them. If not then he has been twittering away money from the current account which is really what the savings have been paying for.

I had an ex who was appalling with money. taking out 25% interest loans to buy non essentials and generally just spending more than he could afford. Prior to us buying a house, I sat him down and went through his bank statements. He was pretty horrified when he realised how much he'd been spending on nothing in particular and careful management of his finances put a stop to it. only after outside involvement though.

please nip this in the bud now. you deserve more than your pils life...

PS. 'projects' that cost money are luxuries if your outgoings exceed what's coming in. Also, DH and I earn good salaries but still pootle about in a £2.5k fiesta as no need to change it. £3k just on repairs is yet another sign of your dh living beyond his means.

God, I would love to turn his attitude to money management around. He's just so resistant, and resistant to any measure I propose to protect the additional monies I'm putting into the house. If we're married, can I protect anyway? Can't afford mortgage on my own!

He's resistant to you protecting the extra money you are putting into house. I'd sure like to see you extricate yourself from him. You say you will lose money if you pull out of house purchase? Consider it a lesson learned. If you stay with him, you will lose much, much more.

If you can't convince him to change, then you MUST divorce him to protect your own financial future. It's what a friend's mother had to do when she discovered her husband had a gambling addiction. They had been married over 50 years, built up a successful business the sale of which was to be their retirement next egg, and had a lovely home. Out of the wreckage she was only able to save the house. He's still gambling, they still live in the same house (now in her name only), but at least she can no longer be held liable for his debts.

Your DH being stupidly foolish with money is just the same as a gambling addiction. He's 'gambling' that money will magically appear to cover his debt!!

This is your PILs life all over again. Your DHs attitude to money is too entrenched and you will never get him to alter his ways (partly now because you have bailed him out before now). What you have tried to date simply has not worked and you will likely become as miserable as his mother is now.

OP - to an outsider it seems an awful and unsustainable situation. Of course he's resistant to you protecting the money, he's treating you like a cash cow.

I think either you need to take complete control of the finances or consider splitting. A good man would be working for his family, not for himself.

He's stolen wedding-money meant for both of you. He's taken out a loan for his father against your wishes and has decided to default on it. He's taken out that 800 a month set aside in "savings" so there is less than you started out with. He's resistant to you ring-fencing the deposit being contributed by you and your mother (in the UK that's known as a Deed of Trust), and the resultant mortgage will result in you over-stretching ourselves.

This house-purchase is going to leave you in terrible danger.

Worst-case scenario is that the mortgage-payments become unsustainable, you both slide further into debt and the house has to be sold and you come out with a great deal less than you went in with. If anything.

My father was just as irresponsible in financial matters as yours is. At one point Mum worked three jobs just to keep their heads above water. He left eventually, into the arms of a woman twenty years younger than Mum and was a much higher earner. Dad justified his behaviour because he said Mum was controlling over money matters, and than they hadn't had a "normal married life" for a very long time. I doubt she had the physical energy for sex and who the hell would want intimate relations with a man they had little respect for, needed to work herself into the ground and was compelled to act as a mother to when she already had three children?

That could be your life in the long-term if you're not sensible now.

he's resistant - of course he is - he wants free access to yours and your mothers money - much as he felt entitled to free and secret access to wedding gifts.

he couldn't really make it any clearer what kind of man he is.

please wake up.

You say he's bad with money, different with money, a spender, financially illiterate...

Can I give you another word for him?

THIEF.

I'm serious.

He is stealing your / your family money.