DP secret debt!

[RubyandMax]

Background: DP & I are unmarried, we've been together 12 years and have three children primary/preschool age.
We're both fairly low earners - DP is employed and earns about £20k and I have been self-employed for the last couple of years and am on track to make about £25k this year.
We rent a 3 bed house privately and would be unlikely to be able to be able to afford to buy a 3/4 bed house locally, though I have a Help to Buy ISA just in my name worth about £18k.
We have a joint bank account and personal accounts but (as far as I was aware!) all our money is joint/pooled.

So, getting to the point - I noticed recently DP had been secretive about banking on his phone. I pressed him about it and he admitted he had an overdraft on his personal account of about £1000. I was upset, but told him I had £1000 put aside for tax and we could use that to pay off the overdraft.

We are (I thought) pretty much debt free (a couple of hundred on store cards that we are quickly paying off) - this is important as some shared ownership houses are being built at the moment in our town and we should be in a very good position to buy one with a 50-75% share. This is the closest we have ever been to buying a house and it is something I have been working hard towards.

Anyway, so as we are discussing the overdraft I ask to look through DP's internet banking so we can work out why he has been overspending and look at a budget together. At this point he is forced to admit he actually has £8k debt! This is a huge, huge amount for us

I just feel so, so devastated, betrayed and lied to. I don't know where to go from here - whether I should try to help him fix it. Honestly I feel like just walking away at the moment and protecting my money and letting him sort it (or not) himself.

I'm just totally lost on how to move forward and would welcome any advice from people who have been here.

I would want to know what he has spent the £8k on. That’s a lot of money.

That's a lot of debt

Has he got a gambling/alcohol problem or is this historic debt that he has never told you about? 8k is a lot to spend on things you have never noticed.

So sorry that you are dealing with this. He is obviously a bit ashamed as he buried his head in the sand over this, good that you know the extent of it now before it gets worse.
You need to know how and why this debt has been run up. Is it interest on dodgy loans? If it gambling/ web cams or something equally dodgy he needs to admit a problem/ seek help and advice.
If you are unmarried it may be that you are not responsible for his personal debt but please check this.
If he has run up debt buying 'stuff' he needs to sell what he can to pay it off and reduce this AND look at his money management and budgeting.
Please think carefully about buying a home with your DP until he has fully addressed this problem and the impact on your plans and family. Also check any entitlements and see if he can do overtime etc. If he run up debt in a short timeframe you need to think whether you can live with that pressure and secrecy.
Give him a chance to sort it out. If you swoop in and save him it may happen again in the future as you would really be showing its okay to run up debt I will save you. 💐

I would walk away now, if you tie your finances to his you will be further dragged down with him. You are not responsible for the financial mess he has caused by his actions.

Do not help him try and fix it; this is his sole responsibility. H cannot bury his head in the sand but has to show you he can be financially responsible. He himself contacting Stepchange would be a good start. Do not do that for him either.

He doesn't drink and I don't think it is gambling.

The £8k is over 2 years. He said it started when we had a car accident and had to get a new car - he dealt with all the insurance stuff and told me at the time that it covered all the costs and paid for the new car but I think it didn't and for some reason he decided to get a secret loan to cover it

Then it was a few hundred each month on day to day expenses, treating us to a takeaway, petrol, birthday/Christmas presents. For example sometimes I might say to him "there's not much left in the joint account and DC1 wants to go on this Cub camp, it's a £50 deposit - do you have anything left in your personal account?" and he'd say yes of course he'll sort it - when in reality it was just debt.

He was just very cagey looking back about exactly what he earned - but I just assumed we were doing fine as he always put enough money into the joint account every month and seemed to have money left for his own spending. He'd have some subscription things and would often have amazon parcels of books and stuff arrive for him. I just never imagined he was spending money he didn't have on stuff we didn't need!

I just thought we were doing so well financially at the moment - the most comfortable we've ever been really! The joint account and my personal account have both been really healthy, have never even been overdrawn. He's just sat back and watched me pay for a £2k holiday for the summer - our first AI family holiday abroad - out of joint money and never said anything about us not actually being able to afford it

It's not ok is it OP, you work hard towards making life better for your family- he doesn't. Whatever excuse is used ultimately takeaways, amazon orders and subscriptions etc are just selfish purchases. Clearly he has become accustomed to you picking up the tab and enjoying the perks of your hard work.

All that aside you now know he is a practiced liar.

Bloody well done on making a success of self employment OP and accruing what you have towards a house. Not suggesting you 'should' do this but you have proven you can thrive on your own and that's invaluable, as a silver lining.

I’d be very cross as debt is not something I agree with bar a mortgage.

Is he getting mixed signals re spending though? If house ownership is the main goal then surely the holiday, takeaways etc should not be happening.

Not sure what the mixed signals would be - spending money you have on holidays and takeaways is very different to getting into debt.

Buying a house has only become a realistic possibility recently as these shared ownership houses are being built. Together we might be able to buy up to a 50%-75% share, but I think alone I could still buy a 25%-40% share.

Agree with PP - absolutely do not pay this debt off for him. He needs to pull his head out of his arse and get in top of the debt. Frittering always money on subscriptions, parcels, takeaways etc while lying to you about debt would be unforgivable to me.

He needs to make a budget, and work out how he can pay off this debt in the shortest amount of time. If it means he can’t have his little luxuries, well then tough, he should have thought of that before he pissed non existent money up the wall.

It’s one thing to get into debt because you are struggling for money to pay for necessities; it’s quite another to do it because you want to keep up with a lifestyle you clearly can’t afford, and On top of that to lie to your partner about it and let them keep spending assuming everything is fine.

I wonder what he would have done when he ran out of overdraft facilities.
If you think he might have done more devious things, then get rid of him now.
My wife's ex-husband was just like this; she saved like mad whilst he borrowed like mad. Then he started forging her signature to get her money. He ended up in jail.
If you think he isn't capable of doing that, then maybe give him a second chance; take over all the finances and give him pocket money. He will find that very emasculating, but it could be your only way out of this mess.

What I'm finding so hard to get my head around is that it was so unnecessary! It's not like we'd even have been living a very different lifestyle without all these extras Things like - the kids do 1:1 swimming lessons at a private school, but they could just as easily done group lessons at the council pool for 1/3 price. We could have done a Eurocamp holiday instead of AI for half the price. Spent a bit less at Christmas.

It was just money being frittered away for no reason. It feels like maybe he felt uncomfortable that I was earning more and wanted to keep up/compete? I saved all year for Christmas out of my earnings and paid for some nice trips this year that we haven't done before like panto and ice skating - so he felt like he needed to pay for some meals out from his personal account instead of from the joint (or not at all!).

I'm angry as well that over this two years he has made no effort to find a better paid job or a second job to pay this off. He works a pretty easy 9-5 office job a 5 minute walk from home while I am working by 7.30am and finish between 6pm-9pm every day. He said a month or so ago he was going to look for new job that pays better, but has he applied for anything yet? No, hasn't seen the right one yet

I suppose it depends on whether or not this is a one off or he's always done it. If a one off parting over it seems a bit extreme. Certainly don't pay it for him. I doubt if you are liable in any way. If paying it in large chunks is not possible, I think it can be paid back by an amount he can afford. Hopefully if a one off he would have learnt from it.

I think this debt is a one off - but saying that he had very poor credit when we met and over the course of the relationship it has really improved as we always pay everything off on time. So he probably wouldn't have been able to get an £8k bank loan in the past.

However he does have form for lying, especially recently - over the last 6 months we have had issues with him having an inappropriately close friendship with a female colleague (although he has promised nothing physical has happened and I chose to believe that). Actually the discussion about him finding a new job arose as he couldn't seem to stop messaging her if they continue working together.

Actually the discussion about him finding a new job arose as he couldn't seem to stop messaging her if they continue working together

That's worrying.

I haven’t read the full thread but he sounds exactly like my ex-I used to explicitly ask have you taken out a loan or credit card, because he seemed to have spare money when we needed house/family stuff and he always said no but he had taken outa £3000 loan without telling me. He leeched off me for years and now we have been separated for 5 years, he has only ever paid about £400 in child support. My advice is to run as fast as you can and do not tie yourself up financially with him-I only survived because of my parents otherwise God knows where me and my dds would have ended up.

Have you checked that he is telling you the truth about the debt and not that it’s been use to fund something else affair, gambling etc?

I've briefly looked through his accounts and nothing like affairs/gambling jumped out but I was very upset at the time - I need to go back and look through properly.

I'm going to ask him to move into our daughter's bedroom for the time being I think and she can move in with me, to give me and bit of time and space to think.

However he does have form for lying, especially recently - over the last 6 months we have had issues with him having an inappropriately close friendship with a female colleague

Hells no. Let him be a teen on someone else’s time and dime.

You can’t keep hoping that he will be responsible for his actions. It’s time to let go before the inevitable next time.

Probably best to see how things pan out in the short term, and in the meantime make sure you keep a firm control overall on your own finances, and still get him paying his way. If he's got form for lying that's yet another thing on top isn't it? Just be prepared for what might come, but with the business with colleague as well, in the long term, you very well might not want to be with him. I doubt it's a good idea to jointly buy property with him, as he seems irresponsible, however much you want to buy. Could you manage renting financially on your own?

Oh yes nothing more attractive than a lying avoidant partner who gets close to a woman at work. As a well organised, motivated and successful woman with savings I think you need to see why you are accepting this man.

You clearly are worth more

You can’t keep hoping that he will be responsible for his actions. It’s time to let go before the inevitable next time.
On one hand I really feel this, but on the other the thought of disrupting the kids is so hard!

He is a very good dad, calm and interested in them, very hands on and does 50% of the sick days and night wakings and parents evenings. He does his share round the house. When we had a rough patch about 5-6 years ago (also related to work/money/financial responsibility but not debt) lots of my friends urged me not to leave as I would never find someone who was so equal around the house. I decided at that point that he was never going to be ambitious or a big financial provider but so long as he worked and did his bit I would accept that. Lies and debts are something else though.

It is a lack of taking responsibility - when I met him he was living like a student still in his 30s. He's telling me now that the debt issues and the whole fall out from the girl at work has made him realise how much he wants to spend his life with me and commit to me and the kids and provide for us but I just feel like surely he made that decision 10 years ago when we chose to have a baby together? I did

Him not wanting to get married has been a bit of an issue for us for years, but at least now I am grateful I'm not married to him!

I'd not marry or think about taking on a mortgage with him I'm afraid.

What do you get out of this relationship now?.

Women in poor relationships often write the good dad comment when they can think of nothing else positive to write about their man.

He has debt problems and there have been other women. Would you still want your children to model what you have seen with him in their lives. No. You should want better for yourself and your children. I think your friends I’ll advised you all those years ago too.

He may do 50% with the house and kids, but you work longer hours than him. If he was working longer hours I expect he'd expect you to do more than 50%.

Lying is the bigger issue here though.