WWYD

[keepitasecret]

I don't know what to do, I'll try and make it brief -
My OH and I have been together 6 years and have a toddler. We are living in my (small) flat and we're planning on moving in the new year putting both of us on the mortgage.

In the past 2 days he's received letters and been incredibly secretive, I've just taken a peak and they are solicitors letter with final demands. He's totally lied to me, I knew nothing of what appear to be pay day loans he's failed to pay back. My heads all over the place. we won't be able to get a mortgage on just my salary (I'm PT and have actually been made redundant so it'll be all on him) they only total £800 but why would he lie? What would you do? He was made bankrupt years before he met me, so I know he has had money issues prior to us getting together but as far as I was made aware he was past that.

I'm so upset and worried about our future now.
Any help/advise will be very much appreciated.

The problem sounds like it stems from poor money management and habit. He hid it from you because he knows he’s made poor choices and is worried about what you’ll think - quite rightly, particularly if you are taking about a move.

Personally I’d be making a decision about whether to work through this with him or not. As you have a child together, you might like to find out why he needs payday loans in the first place and why he can’t pay them back. Brace yourself, more debt may be revealed. Your partner may need some form of counselling and support from his bank to work out a consolidation loan and repayment plan (if he can get one).
Problem is that if his history with money is not great and he still makes errors with his finances, this habit could take a while to break and hold you back from your life goals in the meantime.

What would I do? Well it’s just my opinion but I’d find out the depth of the problem; aim for consolidation of debt; pay it off as quickly as I could and delay the move for a year or two until finances had recovered. That’s if I loved him and he was a good partner and dad in all other respect. Following this I would probably take control of finances, but that’s just me :)

If it was me I would ask him straight with a view to your plans for getting a house together ‘how are your finances’? I am certain that even for a joint mortgage the bank might be sceptical anyway about lending to someone with a bad credit history so by telling you now it’s saving embarrassment later. If he denies that anything is wrong then you know he has lied to your face. You then need to decide if you are prepared to livywith someone like that or confront hywith what you know and see where it goes from there. Good luck xx

Same thing happened with my partner. Asked him outright about a 700£ loan for golf clubs (he told me he part ex’d His others when I asked him how he afforded them). Lied to my face even though I had the proof in front of me from a letter saying he hadn’t paid. He finally admitted after being very angry at me over fuck all. Asked him if they here was anything else he was hiding he said no.

The next morning I found out about his over draft and two more loans bringing it to thousands.

Broke up over it, got back together 6 months later and exactly a year after the initial lie he did the exact same thing and put me through it all over again.

Be careful, and make sure you find out if there is any other debt before making a massive commitment together for your own sanity. 🌸

Don’t commit to him and don’t get a joint mortgage yet. He needs to resolve the debt issue before you move into a joint property. You may find that he can’t get a mortgage if he has debts against his credit rating.

If someone lied to me about something that affects not only my future, but our childs future and plans to become financially connected to each other, I would absolutely not consider pushing forward for a mortgage together.

Also even if you get a mortgage together and it's all hunky dory, if he has a tendency to lie about his debts then you need to consider his as having any joint finances will also affect your own credit rating, not just his.

You need to make absolutely sure he is willing to be fully open and honest about everything in future. I would explain all this and confront him about it and tell him this affects your lives hugely and that you will not move forward with him if he lies to you again.

If you want to make it work, I would also try not to react (too) angrily- although you have every right to. If he is going to feel like he can be honest with you in future he's more likely to do so if you are first and foremost calm and understanding... But still angry enough to make him see how absolutely unacceptable it is to lie about something as important as this.

Easier said than done though!

£800 is what you’ve found out about. It’s likely to be a lot more. Do you have a deposit for the new house? I’d be very wary of putting my name on anything with a man who has hidden debt he can’t pay off, particularly one who’d been made bankrupt in the past (this will probably affect your ability to get a decent mortgage too).

It’s such a betrayal, you poor thing.

You need to find out the full extent of the debt, as others have said, there will be more. I dont think you can make a decision about your future until you know the full debt.

He’s been bankrupt so he obviously has huge money management issues. If you do decide to stay with him, I’d want full openess with all finances. So you must have access to all bank accounts etc, so you can see what’s going on.

My Dh has always been dreadful with money. He didn’t ever lie to me but I could see very early in our relationship that he’s very much a spender, where as I’m not. So before we married I insisted we had joint accounts for everything and that we talk about finances openly, and frequently. If he hadn’t agreed to this arrangement I’m not sure I could have married him as I’d have been constantly worried he was spending too much, and that’s no way to live!

I just wanted to add that learning how to handle money is not something they routinely teach and that for the future something like this might be beneficial
www.futurelearn.com/courses/managing-my-money-young-adults

I know it’s for young adults but it is the only free one I could see

Do not move, put that on the back burners for a while, at the moment the flat is in your name so you aren't financially exposed, however if you share joint bank accounts it may effect your credit score through the financial relationship/association.

A relationship is built on honesty and trust, he's betrayed this, time for a very frank and grown up conversation but do be prepared as other PPs have said, to discover more, hopefully you won't, but you might.

My ExH did this. It's one of the reasons we split up. I wouldn't mind betting what you've found is the tip of the iceberg. 3 times my ExH increased the mortgage to cover overdrafts and credit cards. Each time he swore that was the end of it.

After the second time I took his cards off him (he asked me to take over the finances). He just got into online banking and internet loans etc. £50,000 of debt later he had to go through a debt management agency to sort it out as the bank threatened to cancel the mortgage payments as his (unauthorised) overdraft was so big.

After I left him it took 7 years for my own credit to recover.

The lies will only continue.