Lies, drinking and debt

[UnicornAndSparkles]

First time poster. Please forgive ramblings.

I've recently found out my husband has been lying to me. He inadvertently left some cigarettes lying around and so the "secret" smoking was obvious. He knew I had a problem with it; my grandparents both died of lung cancer through smoking and we have a 3yr old LB who needs to be set a good example. Anyway, I ask if he has anything else he wants to tell me. He reveals he thinks he is an alcoholic. Now I'm his wife of 7 years, I know he is an alcoholic. No suprise, but huge relief that he had admitted it and is getting help. We will get through it together. So far, ok. Then he reveals he is in £12k worth of debt. I am stunned and appalled. He works full time and earns a lot of money. I work PT and also earn a very good salary. Between us we bring in well over 100k and are hugely fortunate to do so. We have a manageable mortgage and are able to put a chunk into a savings account every month as well as enjoying luxuries; a couple of holidays a year etc. We are incredibly lucky to be earning what we do and I am baffled as to why he thinks he needs more money. I was off work for a year after having DS and DH says it was then that he took out the loan, as effectively he was paying for all the essentials - the mortgage, bills and insurance. He earnt enough to do so though! Again, hugely lucky, in my eyes. My mat pay covered all extras; holiday, new clothes, baby classes, general "coffee fund". I am really funny about debt. I absolutly appreciate that debt is a necessary evil for most. But we are not the majority, we are hugely fortunate in our levels of earnings. He just doesn't see this. I absolutly hate the thought of being in debt and so instantly wanted to pay it off from my savings, or at the very least have him stop contributing to the joint savings and repay the debt much quicker. He has refused and is saying he will pay it off, himself, over the next 2 years. This level of repayment brings me out in a cold sweat. 2 years of debt when we can repay it instantly?! I dont get it. I dont trust him with money at all and seemingly have good reason not to. I've worked hard and saved all my life and realise how privileged we are to earn what we do, yet he spends money like it grows on trees and thinks he "deserves" a big fat salary. I HATE this attitude. Teachers and social workers deserve a big fat salary too but they dont get it! He works hard but he is lucky to be earning what he does. He buys big expensive gifts for me and our son which are lovely, but I would happily have a bunch of five pound roses and him a colouring book instead. I tell him this all the time but he has "expensive taste" and would always come home with a bottle of champagne on a friday night, when I had aldi cava in the wine rack! I know a large amount of that debt would have been spent on alcohol. It's an expensive habit.

How do I resolve this?! The lying to me, me not trusting him and the compete and utter differences in how we manage finances? I feel like I want to see all his financial details -we have always said its "our" money- but I don't want to be a controlling witch about it.

Ugh

You can't control or manage your husband. You can't control his drinking, his money mismanagement or the fact that he lies.

You can get support for yourself and work out if this is how you want to live your life. We can't change other people but, once we change how we react to them, change often follows.

Why are you and he together at all now?. He sounds utterly irresponsible and he is an alcoholic to boot (you are already aware of this). The 3cs re alcoholism apply equally here too:-
You did not cause this
You cannot control this
You cannot cure this

(so your thoughts about "we" getting through that together is a triumph of hope over experience. He does not want your help or support and you are too close to the situation to be of any real use to him anyway).

This is really a disaster of a relationship and the person I feel the most for in all this frankly is your child. You have been firefighting all the crises here and all this is built on sand. If he can lie about this so readily and to your face, then what else apart is there to find out about?. Do you really still want to remain with such a person?.

Re your comment:-
" I absolutly hate the thought of being in debt and so instantly wanted to pay it off from my savings, or at the very least have him stop contributing to the joint savings and repay the debt much quicker. He has refused and is saying he will pay it off, himself, over the next 2 years."

You may be married to him but you are again trying (and failing) to enable him by offering to pay it off from your savings. Why did you suggest such a course of action at all?. He was right to refuse your offer, he should indeed have this consequence for his actions and poor choices.

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?. Did you ever envisage your life turning out like this is now?.

What do you want to teach your child about relationships and what is he learning here?. Is this really the role model of a relationship the two of you want to be showing him?. You have a choice here re this man; your child does not.

The only thing you can change is how you react to him. Nothing else.

It does sound like you love each other so it would be a shame if this can't be resolved.

Ok so he's come clean about his lies, he needs to understand that he must make change now otherwise it will be over.

You are fortunate to have the security of a higher income. However, you and your DH are on different pages for finance. I am with you on the debt values, I split up with my partner over his money issues as I felt there was no future with a man who was irresponsible with money and made me worry about that. Since your DH is a smoker and drinker, there is a prospect that in the future he will not be a well man. He may not be able to bring in a high salary that covers the lifestyle. You may find yourself footing all the bills. You should not use your savings for his debts. It means you are sponsoring his poor choices in life, and eroding your future protection.

You should explain how much money worries you. You need full access to his bank accounts to see incomings/ outgoings, and monitor these. He may have a gambling habit or other issues that has caused debts. This is not a matter of control, but an issue of your family future protection. This is about capital building because no one knows what the future holds. You, as the sensible spouse, must try to nest build and create assets for a rainy day. That rainy day may never arrive but as someone who doesn't like debt, it should be a priority for you. 10-15 years ago when I was fit and well I settled my mortgage, and never got into debt thanks to a high income job and some property investing. Now I find myself ill with genetic conditions that limit work opportunities. However, mortgage-free and with savings interest, we manage ok. If I had been irresponsible, life would be a terrible struggle now. I never expected to get ill as I am not a drinker or smoker, so it shows that can happen to anyone!

If he refuses to cooperate, I would have serious consideration to your future marriage. It should be a joint effort of shared disclosure, and if you don't have that, then you have to wonder what foundation your marriage is stood on.

Thank you to those who have given proactive advice.

I'm with him because I love him. He loves me and we have a child together. He is not perfect by any means but I'm not about to give up on our relationship when he is at his all time lowest, and getting help with his addiction.

I think that you need to set your own boundaries. If you enable his behaviour nothing will change. I’m surprised that you say you are ok with living with an alcoholic when you have a small child. I have been in your shoes and I am adamant I should have been much tougher with my own boundaries. It would have saved a lot of heartache for all of us. Decide what you (your child) can deem acceptable and what you can’t. (Secrets/ drinking/ lies) Let him know those boundaries. Tell him you won’t be living with them broken. If he does them again then he has made a choice. At that point you need to stick to those boundaries. You need to enact what you say . Whether you love him or not, your first loyalty is to your son who does not have a choice. He needs protecting; especially from the effects of drinking.

Of course you should know all the financial details. Why would you think that's controlling? You seriously need to be much more involved if you are in the dark about your finances.

If I were you, I would be making several ultimatums. First, he gets into treatment for his drinking. Secondly, you go to marriage counselling, and lastly, you get a financial advisor who can educate your husband about his spending. Your relationship needs lots of help if it's going to survive.

He loves spending money, and he loves booze.

Good luck.

with him because I love him. He loves me and we have a child together. He is not perfect by any means but I'm not about to give up on our relationship when he is at his all time lowest"

No-one is perfect but neither is he your project to rescue and or save from his own risky behaviours. You cannot rescue and or save someone; acting as either a rescuer and or saviour in a relationship simply does not work.

What is there to love about this man?. What do you love about him?
Love is just not enough always and your own boundaries need urgent revising upwards. You are playing roles in this overall dysfunctional relationship as well and I am wondering also if you are confusing love with codependency (codependent partners and alcoholism go hand in hand). He loves you also because you actively enable him re his alcoholism, try to enable him by wanting to solve his debt problem and otherwise facilitate his life firefighting and otherwise rescuing as you go. It really does make me wonder what you yourself learnt about relationships when you were growing up.

What are you teaching your son about relationships here; is this the model you really want to be teaching him?.

Not wanting to give up on this either is the sunken costs fallacy and that basically causes otherwise good people to keep on making poor relationship decisions.

What help is he getting with his addiction?. Who arranged this or was this done mainly because you told him that he needed help?. If he is wanting to seek help because of you then such assistance could well fail.

People do have vastly differing attitudes to debt. When I was a stupid young student I just thought of the 2000 overdraft limit as 'zero' and the actual zero was meaningless. I had expensive tastes. Debt was just a cost item ('only' £300 a month for my credit card, I used to think!!) 10 years later I'd got myself £30,000 in debt and had hidden it from my DP. Idiot. Nowadays I'm like you - utterly allergic to debt and won't take it on at all. I know I'm lucky to have that choice and many don't. Maybe I won't one day.

My DP is much more pragmatic and will happily use 0% purchase deals. I just don't want to be indebted to anybody except the mortgage provider (realistically not going to be paying off the mortgage before retirement).

How interlinked are your finances OP? Your DH is probably being unrealistic and flouncy and angry with himself at the moment, wanting to appear to you as able to make the problem just go away, but it won't without your help. Absolutely right that you're about to start on a cava year not a champagne year. I don't think clearing the debt for him is the right choice but he needs to end the secrecy around money and work with you over the next two years. I certainly managed to clear that much debt in a year once, so it's not impossible, and the journey would teach him a positive lesson. Working with you (and you working with him) is the only way he'll actually pay off the debt and end the lies.

You're grown-ups; you can solve problems together. Life isn't always simple. People screw up. It happens. There was a screw-up and now the thing needs untangling. Just get on with it and put the past in the past. Work together as a team.

Do some analytics over your financial transactions together and work out how much is going on posh wine. Get geeky with budgeting (I use YNAB, which was very effective at stopping me from over-spending and teaching me the value of money; I no longer have 'expensive tastes'). Encourage DH to become part of the family 'finance team', managing your common resources. If the alcoholism counselling starts to work and he manages to cut down the drinking then you can channel money not spent on wine onto pushing down the debt faster. Once he sees you're making progress together you should make more and more progress together; you both just have to get it in motion towards a happy place. Good luck.

PS I realise I'm preaching to the choir somewhat!

PPS I don't think it's true that people can't change. But they have to want to change, and they have to see the means of effecting the change as a positive process in itself. Your DH has to realise that he needs you and needs your help. And that requires humility.

It’s more than £12k

I honestly think you need to see it for yourself. He’s still hiding something I suspect .

You’re treating him like a child OP. Worrying about secret smoking. Glad he’s feeding up about drinking (what difference does acknowledging it make? Are you going to give him gold stars and brownie points? You’re not his mum. The debt thing I couldn’t even get my head round it was so confusing. You both sound in a mental mire. I hope you find some clarity. Stop “parenting” him.

fessing up about alcohol

footchewer thank you, really helpful advice. We've talked. I feel a lot more positive about the situation as he is taking active steps, on his own, without me prompting, to fix this addiction and all that comes with it. I think we'll be ok.

Great news that you've talked constructively. Fingers crossed and .

To PP who speculate that the debt could be larger than 12k or who question what there is to love in this man: we can't get a comprehensive understanding of someone's life or marriage from a couple of forum posts. You're clearly trying to help, and you might turn out to be right, and I will have to apologise to you if you are, but none of us actually knows these people, and there seems to me to be a danger of taking a 'guilty until proven innocent' position.

@OP mumsnetters are always here if you need us.