I have been a user for a while but am have a new name for this post. I need a sounding board but am not ready to discuss with anyone who knows my husband and me.
Basically, my husband has been pretty deceitful about money for some time. None of it is major (he's not sitting on a stockpile of cash and not telling me, he's not gambling....nothing like that). But it's really upset me.
He is the primary earner for our family. I am the primary carer for our children (and am re-training). We both agreed to this set-up. The idea was/is that I manage the money, as I am financially more sensible than him. We have joint and individual bank accounts. He manages his individual account and credit card. From time to time he does something stupid, like not paying an important bill or putting too much on a credit card. I thought I was aware of when this has happened but it turns out I'm not. He's lied about stupid things, like telling me a major bill was much less than it was and paying for it on his credit card. It turns out this type of thing has happened several times.
In addition, he has been dipping in and out of an account that is meant to just be for essential bills and lying about that. I don't log into that account often, as there should be no need. I logged in today to find card purchases and bank transfers going back some time. We should have a surplus in that account - I make sure we have a little extra going in each month as a 'just in case' buffer and we'd agreed to over-pay on the mortgage with it (hence me logging in). That surplus is gone.
One part of the 'dipping' I knew about. It was a stupid bill he'd let rack up. I was cross about that but thought we'd discussed it, dealt with it and he was being honest. The rest I didn't know about and he's directly lied to me about it. Money is tight at the minute so we've discussed it a lot recently. One day he made several purchases using the debit card for this account but when I asked him about how he'd covered things that day he claimed he hadn't spent anything. (Helping a friend and claimed the friend covered him as a thank you).
Digging a little deeper some of the lies seem to go back 2 to 3 years. The most recent was only about a week ago. It is the lies, rather than the money that bother me. He absolutely knows how I feel about being lied to - it's a big deal to me. I feel as though it's a similar level of deceitfulness that comes with having an affair (no evidence of this!). Am I over-reacting? I can't look at him right now!