Think I need to cancel my wedding

[RaspberryRiceCakes]

Ok so have names changed just for this as don't want it connected to other posts.

DP and I are getting married in August this year. We have been together for 12 years, have 1 DC ages 2, and we own our home jointly.

For years he has been a bit secretive about money, got a bit weird if I asked how much money he had left over after bills etc. We have a joint account and we pay equal amounts into it so not like he doesn't pay his way, but he just whacks everything else on a credit card...coffee, petrol, food shop etc. It builds up and up until it's out of control. I eventually find out about it, we figure a way to pay it off and then he promises to be better with his money, cancel the card etc. He has pretty average credit despite debt years ago but he can only get high interest rate credit cards also so the payments are usually very high. I on the other hand have very good credit.

This cycle continues over and over and we now have an 18k loan which is a consolidation of a number of his credit cards/finance and some other unfortunate large spends when we were short of cash because he took a large pay cut -another thread entirely-. He now has a better paid job again and we are doing ok financially. I thought this was it though and all the debt was just this one manageable monthly payment. We had a very frank conversation months ago after the last lot of credit card debt was discovered. We discussed remortgaging later in the year and take some equity out of the house to get rid of it. However I have since found out he has 2 credit cards each with 1K+ on (he told me he only had about £300 on 1, and last month he took out an 8.5k loan!!! He has at least paid off the credit cards as the payment on the loan is much less than the credit cards, but I don't know how he was planning on explaining the extra 6k. He has also booked us a holiday for next year which he doesn't know I've seen the paperwork for. That still leaves 4k. I also don't know how he was planning on explaining the loan when we came to remortgage.

I first got suspicious because he started spending money on clothes, not expensive really but I know he wouldn't have much spare cash. He also gave me his card details to pay for something for the wedding which he said was his credit card (that we would pay off with the money we were waiting for) but they were in fact is debit card details, this was £500 and I know he definitely wouldn't have that much spare.

Our wedding is costing under 3k and we have had money gifted to help with this anyway so no financial pressure there. There's less than 1K left to pay.

I have confronted him about it last night and he has done his usual deny deny deny. I haven't shown my hand yet on how I know 100% (bank statement) but I've told him something has shown up on my credit report as he is a linked associate. Still deny deny deny. He's stated he was 'just looking' and applied for one but cancelled it before he received any money as the rate was different after he'd gone through the application.

We didn't speak for the rest of the night and this morning has been frosty. He's gone out for a bit and I've sent him a long text basically saying I'm not angry about the actual loan, I'm angry about the denial. That he must thing I'm a right mug, I'm insulted he things I'm so dumb. I said I'm not prepared to enter a marriage based on lies and he's basically text back saying, we'll make sure you do it today and text everyone to let them know. So he's calling my bluff.

Still complete and utter denial 🤷‍♀️ like, HE is the dumb one isn't he?? What do I do? I really don't want to end things, I love him very much and things are good in every other aspect. But I just don't get why he takes me for such a mug when it comes to money/hidden debt.

(Also large debt can seriously effect my job...I've applied for a new job internally and will have to go through more strict vetting if I get it, and large debt can apparently leave you open to bribes so I would probably fail it )

Sorry for the extremely long post.

If you do stay together and get married I would look at remortgage and using the excess £ to pay off the debts to reduce the monthly payments

I really wouldn’t do this. So you remortgage and pay off his debts. He then gets into debt again so you remortgage again, and again? You’ll end up with no equity left in the house while he merrily spends money he doesn’t have. I wouldn’t marry him as he shows no signs at wanting to change.

This is so difficult. You’ve told him the lies are a deal breaker and yet he continues to lie. It’s awful.

Have you shown him the proof yet?

HE is actually the controlling one - he is controlling your entire life due to his bad money management and debt. And then when you try to deal with it, he calls that 'controlling' to stop you.

And that to the lying and lack of respect for you, and you have someone it would be very, very foolish to marry. Can you imagine how much worse he will be when he has you legally lumbered with him.

I also hate to say it, but if it is a civil service job you are going for, the existence of the loan will make a huge difference, because as you say, even if you are making the payments, the very existence of a large debt leaves you too vulnerable to bribery for them to risk it.

There is no way this man is a suitable husband, and I believe you can do much better in your life without him in it at all

I don’t have much to add on the marriage advice, but came on to say that if it’s developed vetting for the civil service, they’re actually ok about debt. But they need you to be totally transparent about it (and about all your sexual proclivities and drug use - developed vetting is such fun!). So it’s not the debt that will hinder your career but the lying.

For me the lying would be a bigger issue for the marriage as well.

Currently its only legally his problem , if you marry it becomes yours.
What is he spending the money on? I don't know how you can be so sure its not gambling/drinking etc- you don't know him as well as you think because he has repeatedly lied to you.
You need to sit down and spell it out that 1) you can't get married to him and 2) unless he commits to sorting out his problem (both current debt and inability to spend money) the relationship is at risk . there are charities etc who can help

Are you sure he's not surprising you with a honeymoon?

He has booked a family holiday next year which I'm presuming he's going to surprise me with at the wedding (best hope I can get the annual leave approved
🙄)

Definitely definitely not gambling. Can't stress that enough. And the new clothes are because he put weight on and all his summer clothes are now too tight not because of another woman 😂 I know people are saying I don't know him or what he's up to, what else can be like about etc but these are 2 things I can say for certain. I would bet you my house if I didn't need the equity to pay off the debt 🙄

We recently changed banks so I don't know about what he was spending money on before as it was all on his phone, so no paper statements and I hadn't checked for a while. But because of the switch he's not known we would receive paper statements so has tried to hide it and done a very bad job. The spends are like 10 quid here, 20 quid there, it all adds up. He offers to pay for coffee/lunch/takeaway if we have it.

Oof. I have actually married a man who fritters away money and has tended to get himself into unnecessary debt. But he is honest about it (now) and we have arranged things so that there's a sort of financial firewall between us. It works for us because he accepts this is his big failing and is willing to work on it; I couldn't have done it if he snuck around and was convinced he was in the right.

My ex was rubbish with money, kept it well hidden until he couldn't any longer. Luckily he couldn't get any credit cards as his history was so bad, but had massive old debts that had followed him to mine when he moved in, threatened with bailiffs etc.

It's the lying that's the worst - lie after lie & the hiding things from you. I even watched with my own eyes my ex hide a tax return cheque of over £1000 inside a book (he didn't know I knew what it was, the envelope was thin, I'd seen it) and then later I saw him check it was still there. He never told me about it. I also saw him registering on an online poker website - could he be racking up debts on something like that?

He also lied about sexting/meeting other women but thats a story for another thread.

Get rid now and save yourself further years of stress, uncertainty and debt. Hope you are ok.

This kind of financial deception is up there with infidelity, you can't be in a relationship with someone like this, especially if he can't even accept what he is doing is wrong.

I know Horse, he loves DC with all his heart and I just can't believe he hasn't thought about the long term effect on them. He always says he wants DC to have a better upbringing than he did. But by doing this he is going to right way to ensure they don't.

Not yet Little but I will if it comes to it to get him to face up to it.

I ended my marriage when I discovered he had lied massively about money /debt /his wage.
No regrets at all.
You do your dc a disservice by staying imo.

Dragged down by his mess won't do your mh any good which will reflect on your life - dc don't need you so stressed.

I think you know already, don't do it - you will be liable for the debt when/if your relationship ends. Good luck - be strong

You've mummied him by paying off his debts before, so he carries on getting into more debt.

That's reminded me Mums he got into debt with HMRC from years ago regarding failure to complete self assessment tax return, and lied about that like it was for something else, and had to have a huge amount of money deducted from his wages for a YEAR to pay it off. We struggled so much through that time because of the extra deductions and he wasn't even honest about what it was for.

He doesn't like being caught out so his initial knee jerk reaction is always very defensive, calling my bluff etc but once he's had chance to calm down and think about it all, he does change his tune.

With all due respect to you, you already have one child who's dependent on you and you don't need a man child, you need an equal and supportive partner. He's acting like a spoilt teen not a grown man.

Do you believe that money which could've re-furbed your bathroom has simply been frittered on a new shirt here and lunches there?

As brutal as it might sound, you really need to protect yourself and your DC because he's let you down before.

His knee jerk reaction isn’t just defensive. It is manipulative and abusive. In taking the softly approach and sorting it out as a team you have given him the message over and over that it is ok to treat you in this way. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s banking on your future inheritance to fix all of this. Which it won’t. He’s going to bring you down.

Does he earn good money op?

He's on about 25k and earns commission on top but not much at the moment.

Do you believe that money which could've re-furbed your bathroom has simply been frittered on a new shirt here and lunches there?

And not entirely no, I do know where some of it has gone, large unexpected expenses etc, and he booked us 2 holidays with the last loan too, annual car insurance to reduce monthly spends, things like that. I can account for most of the previous loan and some of it was frittered away, but the new loan I am unsure what he was intending to spend it on.

Being bad with money is one thing, the denial and lying is quite another. He sounds quite immature with the lying, denial, calling your bluff, trying to make you seem controlling. Yours is not an equal partnership and it’s no basis for starting married life.

Have you ever called his bluff when he reacts like this? Or do you always give him time to calm down? I wonder what he’d do if you said “Fine, I’ll start making arrangements to cancel the wedding”?

You haven't failed! This is his problem and you need to stop bailing him out. As previous posters have said: once you marry him they will become your debts too.

My ex and I ended up with IVAs. He criticised me for buying the children clothes on the Next card but he had a secret credit card that he used for frivolous items and soon ran up another £1400 on it. It took longer to pay off the debts via an IVA than the marriage lasted. I was still paying off our wedding after he'd been gone years! The divorce flagged up that he's since run up a few more thousand on credit cards. He hasn't learnt at all.

The lies have destroyed your trust. Please don't marry him as your life will be spent anxiously worrying about his lies and money.

He was on about £29k about 18 months ago and he were doing well, no debt or credit cards, he then took a stupid pay drop to £18k with promise of loads of commission to tip it up, didn't like that job, so moved again to a job with 16k salary and more promises of commission again, he's then got this job which is £25K and does actually have the chance of good commission once he's on his feet with it all. He will stay here for a while now as they're a very good company and treat their employees very Well.

Following from last post, the 2 pay drops meant we were obviously short on cash so some of the deb was to cover the short fall.

I'm going to go against the grain here, and say stick with him if you're sure you want to. I have debt I have kept from my oh for a long time; I'm eventually paying it off bit by bit, but the reason I haven't told him is because I don't want him to be worried sick. Perhaps your oh is the same.

Why is he paying for holidays without discussion with you?

I have a friend who lost her home as her husband was overspending. No gambling or anything dodgy but flash holidays, big nights out but not earning enough to live like that.

Sad how many others have gone through this as well thank you all for replying. You're all right I need to cancel.

Feel like he will just be like 'good' if I said I'd cancelled. Not very good with the whole bluff calling thing to be honest, I'm too chicken.