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.

What are you going to do for childcare after you go back to work, OP?

It makes no sense to save into a savings account every month while paying interest on an overdraft.

Yes hopindown how disappointing the OP didn’t just get a thorough kicking and some posters showed some level of understanding. What is the world coming to.

Let's talk in practical terms -

Download your last 12 months of bank statements and go through them with a pen and calculator. Strip out essential costs (like bills) and come up with a total for your debt repayments and another total for non-essentials (coffees, takeaways, clothing that you didn't really need etc).

I'd suggest that you work out a proportion of your income that should go towards bills, and transfer that into a joint account which is set up solely for household expenditure. Then you both keep your own accounts for discretionary spending - and then you know exactly how much money you have left to play with.

In order to get control of your spending you need to understand where you are frittering the money away. Then once you know where it's going you can take steps to change your behaviour and get better at controlling your spending.

When you discuss this with him, you need to give him the confidence that you are genuinely going to address the root cause. Doing the above will show him that you are serious about this not happening again.

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! But the DH didn’t know about the debts then. He might very well have not wanted to have a baby if he’d known.

Op, you need to get on the moneysavingexpert website and look at the ‘debt free wannabe’ forum. You will find loads of support and advice there. £2k debt isn’t the big deal, it’s the deception and the fact it seems likely to happen again when you have a baby to spend on too.
You need to be contrite with your husband and prove you’re making real changes.

It is quite simple - 'I am a spender', live within your means and stop spending!

If I were him, I’d be furious. You are a liability and he can’t trust you.

Hopoindown31
It was always the way.
Someone who mismanages money, gets into debt, hides it from their partner until after they are legally married with their finances bound is law is obviously only in that position because her spouse (who is already paying more) isn't paying even more so she can spend enough money.

Only on MN.

OnGoldenPond
It's up to the couple how they set up their finances. Some may want a joint account and a big pot, others may want to pay into a joint account but what's left after is their own spends (with saving pots for household saves)

Of course, financing maternity leave is a household cost, but can you not see the issue with the OP repeatedly getting into debt, expecting her DH to pay more so she can service the debts etc? Maternity costs are a household costs but it's not a free pass to argue that DH should yet again keep funding a bottomless money pit to be frittered on whatever the OP wants to spend (undoubtedly it would be justified on here by some as "you had a baby and are on maternity leave for HIS child so why shouldn't you spend what you like out of the family pot")

In places this thread is full of gender contradictions: any man who was deceptive in his finances, was bailed out and went forward having a child knowing his secret finances would have his arse handed to him on here (and rightly so!).

If you were £100 into a £200 overdraft the day before payday, your attitude would be fine, but it’s £2k.

Given the ongoing problems you’ve had re money, and your history of hiding things, he’s justified in being annoyed.

Given you’re having a baby together and have to be responsible for another person, financially as well as physically, emotionally etc, I can see why he’s probably feeling sick with worry.

If I were you, I’d seriously be thinking about ways to make this up, clear the overdraft and get back on track. To show him you understand the consequences of your behaviour as much as anything. That might mean not taking the full 3 months of SMP for example, so you have less time on reduced income to save for (depends on childcare costs/arrangements). It might also mean selling some things and foregoing every luxury between now and going on maternity leave to start paying down the overdraft.

It’s fine to expect a higher earner to shoulder a bit more of the responsibilities, but you have to be equally responsible about your own finances if you expect that e.g. contribute the same proportion of your incomes and above al, else, keep your nose clean recent.

It sounds like he has been supportive in you changing roles (rightly so), and prioritising paying back the debt over saving for a deposit; it also seems he already contributes more to joint expenditure as he earns more, which is more than fair enough. Therefore I think he has the right to be annoyed, especially as you'll both be tightening on spending during maternity leave, when it seems like you haven't made much effort to change from being a 'spender'. Unless it has been on essentials and you've been too proud to ask him for help, you have been unreasonable not to tell him. He sounds like he has been supportive in the past, and if this was me I'd be furious. You need to decide what you can do together to get the overdraft cleared, but if you can't see why he is miffed then that's worrying. If he had been unsupportive in that past it would be understandable.

@daisypond

Sounds to me like the current debt is largely due to unfair split of bills and unequal disposable income. This needs to be addressed. If OP is spending way over a fair allocation of spending money then fair enough he has a right to be pissed off, but I suspect this is not the case or her debt would be far higher. So if money was being fairly distributed the debt wouldn't have built up.So no issues to affect the decision to have a baby.

The problem here seems to be DH is very touchy about OP's previous debt so she felt unable to have a discussion about the unfairness of their financial situation. She should have been open with him from the start but I can see why she found this difficult.

Time to have a full and frank discussion about money and arrive at a solution which is fair for everyone.

I feel differently to pretty much everyone on this thread. I live in my overdraft and so do many of my friends. I don't feel bad about it and I don't expect my husband to give a shit. I have a great credit score, I recently bought a house, and I can pay for the children's lives. We don't see this as an issue, basically. We have had debt problems in the past- not mine, but we repaid all of that through debt management plans and now have just a couple of small payments left a month. There are no bad letters, no worries in the middle of the night.

Collectively the entire nation is in debt, the average household debt is over £15,000 in the UK (not mortgages which is still a debt but not morally 'bad' according to MN!). On MN there are a lot of relatively well off people, and a lot of judgey people, so between them they make out no-one else is in debt or uses their overdraft, but there's nothing more moral about paying a bank a mortgage interest payment than paying to use your overdraft! Their experience is not the majority in the UK.

I would love not to use my overdraft but I prefer to use up all my salary each month including having a slightly higher standard of living than if I were scrimping and saving. I earn a decent wage so am free to make this choice.

I would be pissed off if someone wasn't managing their debt, getting letters, defaulting, ruining our joint credit score, but I wouldn't be pissed off they were £2000 into their overdraft. .

I can never understand the MN attitude that when people are married and one earns way more than the other, they both pay the same towards the household bills. How is that supposed to work? Do you think Melania Trump pays half the household bills? Do you think The Duchess of Cambridge pays half the household bills? Do you think Princess Anne's husband pays half the mortgage?

When a man marries a woman who earns less, he supports her. When a woman marries a lower earning man, she pays more.

How on earth can a hairdresser fund half the lifestyle of a hedge fund manager?

This attitude to debt is hugely unhelpful to women who by and large take the main financial hit when kids come along - and all the time their DH is supported by the silent majority who thinks she deserves it.

I would go through the last six months to a year of bank statements and identity where the money is going.

Put it into simple headings like house bills, car bills, luxury direct debits like the gym, savings, cash withdrawn, luxury food like Costa or lunches for work or meals out and spending like clothes

Doing this will help you identify where your money is going, what you can cut back on and if you aren’t spending a lot on extras then maybe you are putting too much into the joint pots.

Also I would look at cutting back on expenses and making a bit of extra cash look at the make £10 a day thread on the money board and on money saving expert for ideas

Dear Wife is upset at MY divorce papers
presumably they would be your divorce papers too...

OP, he bailed you out the second time when you moved in with his family to save money.

Regardless, yes, you shouldn't be paying 50% if he's the higher earner - unless your base salaries are equal and his bonuses aren't predictable. Work out a split that's proportionate.

Childcare costs will also be his - so put together a budget of all your shared expenses and agree how much you're each putting in to meet these, before looking at personal costs from personal funds.

Also look at what you're spending on groceries - who's doing most of that shopping, and is the bill being skewed by one person's love of e.g. steak? Look back over your bank statements and see if you've been spending more here that's not been accounted for in the expenses split.

Do the spreadsheet together, based on current spending, and see how it looks. You'll then be able to agree together how you can reduce expenses - together. Yes, if you're living on £5 lattes you can do something about that, but it may be that by paying 50% when earning, say, 40% that your inadvertently subsidising his gym..?

So lay it all out - knowledge is power - and make a plan.

I agree with *Annasgirl

If you are earning less - you should contribute less. The reason a lower earned is still entitled to 50% in a divorce (as mentioned by a much earlier poster) is that money is not the only contribution to building and home and a life.

I’d like to know how in this 50/50 split the DH is going to help with the childcare and working p/t to allow op to work to her equivalent potential too.

Having said all of the above - OP you know you are wrong to have deceived your husband. Your debt is his debt. Work it out and go on some of the courses suggested above. In his position I would be distraught.

Well if you were a bloke you'd have been called a cocklodger by now

YABU. I think he's been more than fair and patient, you need to live within your means and stop taking the piss out of him. He's taken a massive risk marrying and having a child with a woman who hides debt, so give him the respect he deserves. Stop using your cards, take cash out each week and when it's gone it's gone. Prioritise clearing your current debt before maternity pay starts. Then you won't have to worry about it.

I think YABU, why would you not tell him?
I wouldn’t want to move in with someone who is in that much debt (sorry) so I can see why he would be angry.

I’m in a relationship with someone who is in debt and possibly running up more, I wouldn’t want to live with him whilst he owes money as I am debt free and work hard not to get myself into debt, he just pays of the minimum each month as well as adding to it. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I owed that much money and by marrying someone you are kind of taking on that debt. If you were to die he would be left to pay it off?

Mmm... tricky one. On the one hand you really do need to get your spending under control, live within your means and be open with your DH. On the other hand, the contributions to mortgage and bills should be split proportionally according to income and each partner should have the same amount of spending money. The rest can be put into savings or the house.

But I think you do have a spending problem as you were in 15k debt before you married (which you definitely should have told him about).
You definitely need to take some of the advice on here about how to get spending under control but you also need to sit down with DH and discuss a fairer split of contributions towards mortgage and bills etc. I don't think you should be paying 50:50 and especially not with a baby on the way.

So he's paid he deposit, and the bulk of the renovations?

Yet if you split, you'll likely get half of everything?

I'd be livid as well. You've taken the piss.

@OnGoldenPond - to me the issue appears to be that the OP (in her own words) is a ‘spender’ who ‘lives beyond her means’ . She has ‘enough money on paper’ but despite now having ‘bills and a mortgage’ still ‘spends in the same way I did ‘ when her outgoings were lower.

Her husband earns more, saves more and had paid for more. He has helped her pay off a £15k debt and enabled her to take a salary decrease to further her career yet she tells us keeps spending as if she,still,has lowmoutgoings. She knows it’s wrong. She says ‘I hate it and feel terrible about it’.

Let’s not go blaming the partner when the she is the financially irresponsible party.

Annasgirl
I think couples have to work out a financial situation that works for them, so people deciding set splits etc are being ridiculous just like people who suggest a couple must have one joint family account.
There are many valid ways for a couple to organise finances, but none of them involve dishonesty, being reckless with money and hiding debt.

Nearlyalmost50
I'd care if my husband was living in his overdraft. When we chose to legally tie our affairs together then his finances became by business and versa. If he was using his overdraft a little then it wouldn't bother me, but if his attitude was " I don't give a shit because everyone else does it" then I'd be questioning our future.

Equally you say the average debt is £15,000 and then make a silly comment about mortgagee not counting (when it's fairly obvious why an affordable mortgage over 30 years that's often less than rent isn't the same as spending on credit cards).
I would imagine things like car finance probably inflate that figure too so it's a bit much to argue that somehow excuses living day to day in an overdraft

I'm not one for expensive cars or larger finance packages, but if someone buys a £15,000 car on finance, makes the payments every month over several years and has money at the end of the month then there's no way that's remotely comparable to living daily life in an overdraft due to shit spending habits.

There's a big difference between someone choosing to use a financial product they can afford in an appropriate timeframe and someone who is so reckless with money they expect others to prop their daily living expenses up.

I don't think enough information has been given to simply write off the OP as spendthrift. That could be the answer, but OP, you also want to think about:

What is the difference in your incomes?

Who buys the food shopping?

Who buys things for the house, the baby?

It could be that all his money goes on him, but a lot of yours goes on the house?

But obviously you need to think about whether you actually need the things you are buying. You can't be buying new household items all the time from joint funds because you 'need' them, when in reality you just fancied a change and the items you have are perfectly serviceable.

On the other hand, you shouldn't be living with threadbare towels, bedding etc because your DH isn't bothered about new ones. Generalising hugely of course - not all women are obsessed with home decoration and sometimes it is the man who's going out spending money on cushions, but just for illustration.

Similarly when you start spending on baby things. Obviously anything for the baby is a joint cost, but what you buy has to be reasonable. A new baby is not an opportunity to go out and spend willy nilly, although that's how a spender would probably see having a baby - an opportunity to go out and buy stuff for the baby.

Ideally you should be covering all joint costs, including everything for the baby out of joint income. Plus joint savings for pensions, emergencies like loss of income, and annual and irregular expenses like Christmas, holidays, insurances, car repairs, broken washing machine etc.

Then you should split what you have left 50/50 and spend this on a 'when it's gone, it's gone' basis - this to cover things like clothes, work lunches, nights out with friends, beauty treatments, hobbies, etc etc.

But it's hard to make a judgement as no figures have been given. If their income is low, a £2k overdraft is a massive burden. If they both bring in £5k per month, not so much. Plus there's also the issue that the OP doesn't seem to know where her money goes, so getting a handle on this will be a great help to the process.

I would be furious too, after you both working so hard to get out of debt. At the end of the day an overdraft is a form of lending you it is costing you money. Overdrafts are reviewed on a yearly basis and can be take away by the bank at any time, where would you be then? Your account would be in a minus and anything that went in would go towards paying it back