DH upset about MY overdraft

[Shefliesonherownwings]

DH and I have been together 6 years, married 3 and a half. Before DH and I met, I got into a fair amount of debt, with credit cards and a personal loan, totalling about 15k. I basically lived beyond my means in my 20s. I met DH at 29 and never really mentioned the extent of the debt even after we moved in together and got married. After we got married we focused on buying a house, saving the deposit and getting ourselves in the best financial position. I only ever paid off the minimum on the cards and felt pretty guilty I had all this debt and hadn't said anything to DH. In the end, I 'confessed' to him one drunken night. He was really good about it, didn't make me feel bad and together we came up with a plan to pay off my credit cards. Basically the money I had been putting towards the deposit every month instead went towards the credit cards. I know he was hurt I hadn't told him about it at the time which I totally understand. He also became a bit resentful that he was the only one contributing towards the house deposit, which again I understand.

A few months later we decided to move in with relatives to help with saving money for the house. At the same time, I took a new job that meant taking a pretty large paycut. DH and I both agreed i'd take it though because it meant getting back into the field I had qualified in, which I was desperate to do and it was good career progression in the long term. I continued to pay off the cards. I did however, end up increasing my overdraft slowly and living in it which DH wasn't aware of. I stayed in the job for a year and then found a new job at the beginning of last year that was much better paid. DH and I also consolidated both our debts (he also had some credit card debt, albeit much less than mine) into a loan making the repayments less. Once I had more disposable income I got out of my overdraft but I kept the limit at the larger amount.

Since we completed on the house a year ago, we've had a lot of work done to it, full rewire, plastering, new bathroom etc... and DH has contributed a lot more to this than me. He earns more than me and gets commission bonuses which goes towards the house. He has been adamant that we do not get any credit cards or loans so we have put a few things on finance jointly. If I have ever mentioned getting a credit card jointly or for myself, he immediately says no. He is very touchy about CCs and debt.

The issue currently is that since we bought the house, again, I have struggled to live within my means. I really don't know why, as on paper I have enough income to pay half the mortgage and bills, my personal outgoings and have some disposable left over. I am a spender though and I think I got used to have little outgoings and despite now paying a mortgage and bills I've spent in the same way. Slowly but surely again I have moved back into my overdraft, pretty much now living completely in it every month. I hate it, feel terrible I have got myself into this and have been trying to pay it off where I can but it's much harder now I have less disposable income.

The other added complication is I am pregnant, due to go on maternity leave next month. I will get 6 months full pay but then drop down to SMP for three months and DH and I need to be saving for the drop in pay. I plan to go back to work after SMP runs out.

I know we will have extra expenditure with the baby but I am planning to set aside the money I was spending on travelling into work (from outside London, into London) towards our savings and also towards getting out of my overdraft. DH wasn't aware of me being in my overdraft. Aside from the mortgage and finance agreements we don't have any other debt. I should mention that on occasion DH has mentioned that he is the main one contributing to savings and ow he put all the money into the deposit. I always say I am very grateful and i'm sorry about the debt but also that he earns a fair bit more than me so can afford to put more in now.

Last night DH and I were in the pub and I was checking my bank balance on my phone. DH saw and asked me if that was my bank balance and I said yes. He asked if that was my overdraft and again i said yes. He was shocked. He didn't say anything more and acted normally but on the drive home he didn't speak to me. He also went straight to bed when we got in and again didn't speak to me which is not normal for us. I know he is upset with me about this and will probably be in a mood today.

I know it's nowhere near ideal to have a large overdraft and live in it and I am terribly annoyed with myself for getting into this situation again. However, I feel annoyed that DH is in a mood with me about it and no doubt will lecture me at some point today and probably treat this as a betrayal. But it is MY overdraft, I don't ask him what his bank balance is or how much of his overdraft he is in, which I know he is, albeit less than me. Also, last time with my debt we were in a different situation with trying to get our debts down and improving our credit for the mortgage. That's not the case now and in my view there's a big difference between 15k credit card debt to 2k overdraft debt. I know I will be walking on eggshells today waiting for the lecture from DH and I already feel bad enough without the guilt from him about how much he contributes.

Should I have told him about being so much in my overdraft? I knew he wouldn't be happy because of how touchy he is about debt but I feel like it is my overdraft which I am working towards getting out of so he doesn't need to be in a mood with me about it and making me feel worse than I already do.

When you say pay your half of bills and mortgage, do you mean 50%, or do you pay a proportion of it in line with your salary? Id he earns more than you, he should be paying in more eg 60/40, or whatever

Joint or seperate bank accounts are neither here nor there but this point is important. You are married and about to start a family as a financial unit. Rather than have the lower and higher earners each paing 50% the bills should all be paid, work costs covered and then you both take an equal amount for leisure spending. Anything left over goes into savings.

Its not realistic for the lower earner in a marriage to expect to make the same financial contribution as the higher earner.

That said since you know you both have very different views on spending money you also need to agree what is reasonable between you and find a middle ground.

If you don't know where your money goes, keep a diary of every penny you spend for a few weeks - it can be quite illuminating.

Oh no you don't @Shefliesonherownwings (ironic username by the way). All that contrite posting is the typed equivalent to the words you gave your DH when he bailed you out. Only words. Platitudes

Come back here and say it out loud. What have you been frittering your money away on? Don't hide it form yourself with promises of good intent. You are still obfuscating.

If you want this post to be the beginning of a new financial habit then you will have to be 100% honest with yourself. Starting with what you spent the money on.

Do you still have any of it?
Was it all just 'stuff' for a quick spending fix?
If so how are you going to tackle the need for the next spending fix?
Be specific, be practical, be honest with yourself.

Most of all try working out why those 'things' were worth losing your DHs love and trust. Not if they were, that isn't your choice, only your DH gets to decide that!

The thing that stands out to me is that you don't know how to live within your means. You don't know where you're spending your money and why you consistently go into debt. Until you're honest with yourself about actually trying to fix this problem you'll continue to live like this.

The main problem though, is that you've shown your DH that you're not trustworthy. You've hidden this from him, knowing how much it would upset him.

So you have a lot to work on here. You say you contribute 50% here and there, but you KNOW that your DH is worried as hell that he's going to have to bail you out again. Surprise surprise.

I'd be hugely annoyed too. Relationship would be over if I found myself in his position OP, sorry.

If OP has less disposable income than DH the situation is unfair. They are married. They both work full time at the moment so OP is not slacking in contributing to the household income. Unequal earnings are due to many complicated factors and do not indicate one deserves more disposable income than the other.

Now OP has a baby her career is more likely to be adversely affected so it is more important to address this unfair distribution of household income.

Its not realistic for the lower earner in a marriage to expect to make the same financial contribution as the higher earner. She doesn't. He puts most money into their savings pot. How they work it out doesn't really matter. OP says she shoud have enough to cover 50% of the bills and she is not expected to put much into the savings.

It amounts to the same thing - or does if one of you doesn't have spending habit!

I'd also be furious OP. It's not just the money, it's the deception that would be a deal breaker for me. There was deception prior to marriage and then after being helped out to a better place, you've pissed money up the wall and got pregnant knowing fine well what your finances were like.
I would be feeling betrayed and resentful in his shoes. He knows he'll be paying more when you're on maternity leave, which is reasonable and as it should be, but it must feel awful to know that you can't trust your spouse to manage their money and you can't trust them to be honest.

That said, you need a reality check and some proper financial planning. Could you go to something like CAP courses and get some independent advice.

OnGoldenPond
They split the mortgage and bills 50/50, but he pays more into savings because he has a higher income. It sounds fairly reasonable.
Equally, if I was in his position I'd be really reluctant to take on even more financial responsibility when my spouse clearly has zero regard for our financial stability. You say her career will probably be most affected by having a child, normally I'd agree but in his shoes and with this situation I'd be very wary of being in a relationship with a spouse who wanted to give up work/go part time leaving me with an even bigger financial burden whilst they continue being poor with money (because the likelihood they'll be reckless and dishonest with money but they'd be taking from the family pot with the expectation that I keep it topped up for them to fritter away).

Can you give us an indication of how much both both you have left over after all bills have been paid? What do you plan on doing with the savings? Can you live comfortably within your means?

If you have plenty then hold your hands up and apologise. If things are really tight for you when he has plenty then work things out so you both have equal spending money. You're married, you're going to have a baby and any loving partner would want his partner to have the same and be comfortable.

However, if you're saving for something in particular and you're an extravagant spender then your husband is going to struggle to trust you and I would be really annoyed and worried if I were him.

If I have ever mentioned getting a credit card jointly or for myself, he immediately says no.

How many times have you mentioned it?! You sound like you have a serious spending problem.

Were you checking your bank balance on your phone in the pub last night, in the hope that he would see? It sounds like you have suddenly realised you’re on maternity leave next months so are panicking and need him to come and rescue you.

If I were your DH, I would feel so betrayed and would want to boot you out. But he’s trapped, because you’re pregnant.

What was the lower paid job you took?

At the same time, I took a new job that meant taking a pretty large paycut. DH and I both agreed i'd take it though because it meant getting back into the field I had qualified in, which I was desperate to do and it was good career progression in the long term.

This implies you wanted a lower paid job and you persuaded your DH that it was a good idea (whilst you carry on spending), has that actually helped your career?

For me, this is constant deceit is like you have an affair. You’d be toast

She doesn't

No I realise that, I was making the general point. Once you become a financial unit it makes more sense to classify all the money in one unit and focus on sharing the spending/saving money.

But where couples have very different approaches to money management they also need to find a compromise that each can tolerate.

It's understandable he is annoyed, really.

OP, you need to apologise and then work on this together. How do you feel about giving all control of money to your DH and having him give you an "allowance" each week? Because that may be a way to break your spending habits.

DH would pay all essentials and just give you "spending money", say £20 a week (depending on your income etc). You get it in cash and that has to cover coffees, magazines, whatever it is you're impulse buying (obviously you may need extra for clothes if you're pregnant and getting bigger, but maybe you run it past him each time or something).

Cancel the gym membership and go for walks instead. Can you cut back on car repayments by buying a second hand one next time? Look at your phone contract, can you get a better deal?

Basically you need to change your spending mindset. Currently it sounds like your thought process is "I want that, I'll buy it". You need to shift that so it becomes "What do I need, and what's the most economical way to achieve that?" (buy less, buy second-hand etc). Make saving your goal, and don't let it get forgotten every time you see something you want.

It's not just that you didn't tell him about £2k, which is a lot of debt.
It's also that you hadn't planned on telling him then. Would you have told him when it got to £4k, £10k...?
No, because there would never be a point that it suddenly seemed the right amount, until it was too much to tell.
You'd always be thinking that next month, you'll reduce it a little, and then something will come up and you'll think "next month, because this is too good to miss."

Spending can be an addiction. And the more you spend the more you feel the need to spend. You won't get out of debt while your reaction is just "I'm a spender, oh well." You have to come to a point where you know it's a problem for you, and you want to be helped.

I have a friend who found similar with her husband. She loved him very much and tried to help, but he just kept spending until she couldn't live with the debt any more and they were divorced. It effected the children badly because she was always having to deny them things because they didn't have the money because it was all going on debt management, and they lost the house etc.

I can be a spender. I realised at one point that I was beginning to spend too much on silly things and I asked dh to just look through the bank statements and ask me about what I'd spent. Just knowing I have to justify it to him, as well as myself, made me think much more carefully when it came down to it. if I found myself taking cash out to hide that I was spending it on something, I could realise it was wrong.

OP my ex did this to me - revealed secret debt and then let me bear the brunt of living expenses while he attempted to repay the debt. I was supportive in that I agreed we would work towards paying off the debt together but if I’m honest I could never really trust him after that. Particularly since he was never really totally open with me about how much he still had to pay off. It was the beginning of the end.

You do sound particularly entitled. “It’s MY overdraft.” Yes - but your DH is paying more of everything so you can service debt so it does affect him.

You should be ashamed OP, you are not even particularly sorry, you just expect him to pick up the bills while you fritter cash.

To me, the obvious things that should go are the gym membership and car finance. Do you need two cars? It’s unheard of in my world, but perhaps you live somewhere rural.

YABVVVVU. It’s not just the debt it’s the deceit. He can’t trust you to be honest with him. Imagine if this was the other way round. There’d be a collective MN chorus of “deal-breaker” and “LTB”

OP doesn't say explicitly but I expect she is not withdrawing cash from the savings account so that is not available to her.

The problem is the whole approach to money in their marriage is not to see it on a pooled basis. They should be agreeing contributions to household bills and savings that leave each with equal disposable income. I suspect this is not happening at the moment.

Yes OP should have been open about her problems in living within her disposable income. But this should have been part of a discussion about making it more fair. I suspect her previous debt situation meant she felt unable to ask for this discussion.

Also they are having a baby TOGETHER! Her maternity leave should be funded by both of them! As should any drop in earnings resulting from a joint decision for OP to work part time to care for their child or other issues such as missing out on promotions due to her status as a mother.

Hope your chat with him goes well and you feel resolved. If he earns way more than you it’s not fair that you contribute the same. Which is why a joint account can help. Everything in one pot and the same amount of personal spending after.

Your update is encouraging, OP. It's good that you're owning this issue.

I'd recommend that you and DH go on a marriage course. It's clear that you have very different attitudes to money, and this will cause conflict between you until you discuss it properly and resolve it.

I thought this thread would be entirely reasonable in concluding that OP Wasim the wrong, but no, typical Mumsnet with some posters trying to argue that OP's financial situation is some how unfair on her. Wow.

You need to have a conversation about equal personal spending money, or at least a personal allowance that is sufficient to pay for your reasonable outgoings.
You need to discuss the level of what is reasonable with dh. E.g. Massages might not be agreed as essentials each month but a visit to the hairdressers might be. And some for unforeseen excesses. This needs to be negotiated depending on income, house essentials and savings goals.

That 2k might not be unreasonable, depending on what it's been spent on, but what it's unreasonable is the deceit, especially given you know your dh's attitude to debt and the fact he's bailed you out in the past. Your spending decisions have a direct impact on him. You need to communicate and establish new agreements but in the meantime you need to apologise for abusing his trust.

I admire you for still being around after that pasting OP.

Remember when you are talking that the anger he feels comes from fear - fear that he can't control his own living situation because you are secretly pissing money away. Put yourself in his shoes when you're talking.

Maybe this is a conversation for another day, but both of you paying half of everything is not going to work when you are on ML and it is much easier to pool resources and pay out of joint ones when this happens. Otherwise you're going to head back into debt pretty quickly.

You have lied about debt your whole relationship. Of course he has a right to be pissed off.
I couldnt put up with that myself.
Stop lieing...

Why does almost every other poster on this thread see the OP's maternity leave as her problem alone to sort out and fund? They made this baby together!