I will try to make this concise without missing out anything significant.
I am in therapy due to PTSD issues from childhood.
I have been married 12 years to an older man who in trying to ‘help’ me has in the past ‘taken over’ the joint finances. This has included taking away my joint bank card and taking out loans (in his name but which impact our joint finances) without consulting me. I asked him not to take out any more loans without consulting me.
My therapist has encouraged us to work together as adults rather than him treating me like a child, and to allow me to have responsibility with him in managing the finances, rather than him ’taking care of everything’ so that I am included in decision making. He agreed to this and as part of allowing me access to the joint account I fond that he has taken another loan to consolidate debts and pay off a bank overdraft. I was upset because he didn’t talk to me before doing this. I would rather have found other ways to pay off the overdraft – obeying / reducing food / entertainment etc.
As part of granting me access to the online bank account, he got aggressive: accusing me of 'standing over him' and meaning he couldn’t concentrate / remember passwords etc. I was simply standing in the same room.
He started shouting and saying it was all my fault and that I had incurred debts. I responded by saying that had I been given access to the finances and known what was going on, I could have been more responsible in my spending. I didn’t know he was funding it all with loans.
He seems to have an attitude of wanting to ‘spoil me’ on one hand, which means him saying yes to some purchases I want, while secretly not being able to afford it, and hiding the real situation from me.
This leads to me feeling powerless, resentful and depressed. I am conscious I am probably repeating learned patterns from childhood by being with him in the first place. I find him mean spirited, aggressive, hard and argumentative. However, my therapist thinks he loves me and I am merely protecting feelings from a family member onto him. I do trust her so I am confused.
The other day (before I found to about the £6k loan), I withdrew almost all of my savings to pay for some dental work he needed. This means that I am unable to spend £400 on a plane ticket to go to visit relatives abroad in January, which I badly wanted to do, as one of my elderly relatives is unwell and I fear might not be here much longer.
Yesterday after all this, I was reduced to hiding in the bathroom for 30 mins and sobbing my heart out (silently so not to upset DS), then drying my eyes, reapplying my make-up and trying to continue as if everything was OK. I feel alone and broken hearted. This was not how I imagined marriage or any partnership to be. It took all of my energy not to argue back at him but I stayed calm and repeated that whatever mistakes have been made in the past I want to move forward as an equal.
I just don’t agree with his approach to money management which is very much ‘quick fix’ orientated – I.e. Get a loan, rather than thinking ahead and resolving to live differently to find a lasting solution.
I have in the past repaid an overdraft by severely restricting luxuries and yet he thinks it’s find to drink half a bottle of wine a day and keep on going to the cinema / getting takeaways just because he has ‘sorted things’ - by getting us into yet more debt. I don’t want to be in this situation but feel trapped. I work part time and my solicitor has said I couldn’t afford to leave him and because of my mental health issues in the past I might not get custody of my son – although she was presenting a worst case scenario.
Thank you if you have read this far and I would really appreciate some advice – especially from someone who has been in a similar situation.