Husband secretly stashing money away prompting re-evaluation of marriage

[marzipanet]

Last night I discovered my husband had stashed away a fairly large amount of cash in a drawer. He says he has done it by using 'cash back' for relatively small amounts while shopping over an 8 month period to save up for stereo equipment, which is plausible as I also found out recently that he has been looking into this and has even made offers on 2nd hand hifi stuff. He had not discussed this with me and when I found out I pointed out we are trying to save up for a home renovation and don't have any room in our house for it.

However I still feel suspicious as if he hadn't been found out and went ahead and purchased the equipment with the cash, how would he explain where the money for it came from? This makes me wonder if the money might have been intended for something else. Several years ago he saw a prostitute and it almost ended our marriage so I immediately jumped to the idea that he was going to use the money to pay for sex, but he emphatically denies this. I also wonder what else he might have lied to me about that I have never discovered. Also, I would never squirrel away money in secret or plan a major purchase of something that was entirely for my own enjoyment without consulting him, and I never lie to him.

Back story: We are older parents (in our mid 50s) with two really challenging kids aged 11 and 13. We no longer have sex, which I'm now fine with though we did used to have quite a passionate relationship (and as far as I'm aware it was meant to have originally dwindled due to erectile dysfunction, though the fact that he saw a prostitute does put that into question). Generally I feel like we are pretty close and care about each other a lot, and I have always assumed we would grow old together in a comfortable, companionable way. However, with this discovery of the lying and deception I wonder if I'd be happier apart from him as I feel our trust is broken, and he just seems to make really bad decisions sometimes, especially where money is concerned - and despite being in his 50s, he just seems to never have matured very much, and most of his friends right now are single guys in their 30s. He is an ok parent but not very sensitive or proactive, and overly authoritarian. I have friends who notice that our partnership is better than many, and certainly he does stuff around the house like all the laundry and quite a lot of cooking, but overall I am the one who mainly manages the kids, the household (including almost all the cleaning) and our finances, which does lead to some resentment on my part and leaves me exhausted with little time for 'self care'. We both work full time but I make about three times as much money as he does.

I am mainly afraid of the emotional consequences for the kids if we break up (the 13 y.o. in particular suffers from extreme anxiety and cannot handle any kind of insecurity/change), as well as the financial and emotional impact on all of us of having to set up two separate households, plus I'm worried that my life will become even more stressful as I will probably end up having an even heavier childcare / household management workload in the end, and my job is very demanding and stressful. On the other hand, if we separate then he can take the kids for entire weekends and I can have some time to myself! Or maybe I should just adjust my level of trust in him and stick with the current situation until the kids are older ... forget about renovating and just save as much money as possible and then separate and sell the house for two smaller homes in 8-10 years when we are closer to retirement and the kids are more independent. What would you do?

Looks like the respect and trust are long gone. I too am guilty of dragging a marriage for 20 odd years. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as they say, I wish I had the clarity of mind long back and end my marriage way before I did.
I now look back at the dilemmas I faced (the same you are battling with, it seems) and see that I simply tortured myself for the sake of an illusion.

But haven,t we had a few threads telling people to stash away some money of their own? He is savinfg up for somehting he wants...I donn,t see that as an issue.

@june2007

But haven,t we had a few threads telling people to stash away some money of their own? He is savinfg up for somehting he wants...I donn,t see that as an issue.

I think if you are in an abusive relationship and your SO is withholding money from you or being unfair about expenses that's one thing, but the fact that he is sneaking around to accumulate and hide the money for an unnecessary major purchase that he didn't discuss with me is a big issue. We are pinching pennies for a renovation and he is being deceptive by squirreling away money for something he doesn't need and that only he will enjoy. I offered to have separate bank accounts and we can each put in a fair amount to our joint account for bills and the kids etc and then manage our own personal money so he can save for things he wants but he declined ... not surprising as he is better off financially with the current arrangement since I make more than he does (and as long as he is fairly responsible with money I don't mind either as it would be down to me to do all the budgeting, figuring out who owes what, etc - I actually told him once to get his own bank account and gave him a deadline and he never did it, which is typical).

This doesn’t sound like a very healthy relationship, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the money. Dh has no idea how much money I have saved and I have no idea how much he has (we also have joint savings). And he also has cash stored in random places around the house, because sometimes people pay him in cash and we never go to an actual bank, so it just piles up. I would never assume he was using it on sex workers. But this doesn’t sound like a very happy relationship for you.

You lost me at prostitute.
Get rid.
I don’t imagine he will have stopped paying for sex.
I appreciate it’s difficult with your children - but they’ll manage and you can have weekends off - hurrah!!!

I am doing exactly the same thing and have been since engagement, many years ago. I married at 30 but had spent the previous 11 years living alone. We were both keen on full equality, including in careers and finances so we both worked part time. We had an agreed amount each month that we kept in our personal accounts for spends. I used to skim some of mine into cash and stash it (more cunningly than in a drawer) then occasionally turn it into other untraceable assets (gold being a good choice).

I am still in my marriage but as my 40s drag on I am looking longingly at the single life again. I have a very full set of hobbies and friends and I skim, knowing that if I decide enough is enough I can walk away with a sum of cash that is solely mine and mine alone. I accrued it with money that was known of and agreed on, I just chose not to spend it on coffees and lunches at work.

You need to take his behaviour as a whole. I have a good stash of cash, but I am fully engaged in my marriage and still working hard at it. Is he doing the same? Having the cash doesn't necessarily mean checked out on its own, but it can mean he is at least entertaining leaving. Even more so if he is not great with money normally.

You're not even having sex, you have the ick, call time on this nightmare. You're in your fifties, you still have time to live and find true love

Certainly tell a solicitor what you've told us and get a professional opinion. You earn 3x what he does but right now you're married and so it all goes into the joint pot to be divvied up on divorce, including your pension. It may be that a split sooner rather than later (assuming you will be earning the same levels for a few more years yet) is financially in your interest...

Or maybe I should just adjust my level of trust in him and stick with the current situation until the kids are older ... forget about renovating and just save as much money as possible and then separate and sell the house for two smaller homes in 8-10 years when we are closer to retirement and the kids are more independent.

The problem with playing the waiting game, is you're assuming things will continue as they are - but he is totally capable of sabotaging that. You don't know what he's actually been planning to do with the the money he's stashing - it might be the stereo, it might be something else entirely. He could easily fuck you over financially while you wait it out.

It's not actually the safer course to stay, because he's the unpredictable factor and when you're close to retirement age, you'll have no time to recover financially if he fucks everything up.

"He says he has done it by using 'cash back' for relatively small amounts while shopping"

This is a classic punter trick I'm afraid.

If it's him who's chosen to make your marriage sexless then I'd suspect he's got a kink that he's ashamed of and he's getting it fulfilled professionally.

If he's keeping it sufficiently discreet and you're okay with staying until the kids are adults, I'd say go for it - you'll be less financially exposed that way, as you're the higher earning spouse. If the kids are grown then there'll be no spousal maintenance and presumably your current house will have sufficient equity to be split equally and both of you rehoused to your needs.

Don't ask, don't tell, don't go looking for evidence of him cheating. Because you know he is, so what would be the point?

Make sure you're spending an equal amount of money and time on your own hobbies, and feel free to discreetly get your sexual needs met elsewhere too.

You earn three times as much as him and he is the one squirreling away money and visiting prostitutes?

Think about it.

Hi OP, I just want to point out there is no way he could accumulate that kind of money in the time frame given via cashback unless he had a huge spending habit. I use cashback sites all the time & in this year I have only earnt £400. His story doesn’t add up.

The saving money thing I wouldn’t have a a problem with but the fact he’s visited a prostittue I do , I say without judgement roo as my partner I caught messaging them last summer and like you it almost destroyed us and we seperated for 6 months , I just think you need to dig really deep for evidence of prostittues, emails ,history , call logs etc , if he’s still seeing them then leave as hell not change but if it’s genuinely for. A stereo I’d be less worried

Sorry but I would say he was using this money for sex. It’s very common for punters to do this as they need cash but looks clean as it’s not on the bank statements as withdrawals. Very shady.

What do you get out of this relationship now?. You must be getting something out of it otherwise why are you and he together at all?.

If there is no trust, there is really no relationship.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here from you two?. Is this really the model you want to show them?. You’re both showing them this frankly dreadful model.

I would also think he is using this money for sex too, he is a punter. He is not getting all this cash through the use of cash back schemes. His story does not add up.

Do not stay in such a marriage for the children’s sake, they are not going to say thanks mum to you for doing that to them. They will despise you and when they do leave home they will not want to visit you all that often.

His doing the cooking and laundry take far less time overall than what you’re doing re the household. There is a definitive start and finish time for those tasks.

Your children are picking up on all the vibes, both spoken and unspoken between you and their dad, they probably wonder of you why you are still putting him before them. He is no parent to them, let alone an ok one. Women in poor relationships write the good dad comment or variations of it when they have nothing else positive to write about their man.

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?.

If your friends also think your partnership is better than many then I would think you have been very economical with the truth to them and to your own self. Do not be afraid of the unknown and moving on with your life.

I think the OP means cashback from shops when making purchases on a debit card not cashback sites. I have a little used account that I direct cashback from online cashback site shopping.

Another vote for this being hooker money. 100%.
You don't do cash back (it's at supermarkets everyone not cash back sites) to buy a new stereo. Hes got a kink or feels emasculated (total shit but some men need 20 year olds telling them how amazing they are to get it up) or doesn't fancy you or resents feeling like a loser and this evens the score in his mind.

I see you offered to change the financial setup. He declined. Why did you offer? Surely you tell him? But of course if you divorce the whole lot gets split 50/50. It might not be a bad idea to set up trusts for your children - you shouldn't be bankrolling his hooker habit.

If you want to check put a tracker on his car. It's incredibly easy to pop out for the shopping and be in and out of a massage parlour/brothel in less than an hour and these places are everywhere. I was sitting at the lights in Notting hill (the not good bit) and noticed a small alley with a sign for Thai massage. Then saw men who are delivery riders for dominos coming out. Looking shifty but pleased with themselves. I one million percent guarantee their wives all think they are working their entire shift. Many men choose jobs where they are very mobile and unaccountable time wise for this very reason.

So today he received an email from Google as he had location services turned on - he gets sent a report once a year showing everywhere he's been when he's had his phone on him (the address, business location if applicable, last date visited and the number of times visited). I logged into the timeline and was astonished to find that every single location where he had stopped for the last 12+ months was legit. I don't think there's any way he could have edited/manipulated the list.

He is a total hifi addict and a bit of a shopping addict in general, though now that we have kids he doesn't actually buy stuff, he just spends a lot of time looking online at things like cars, phones, hifi equipment, etc. (it's like his hobby). He was not happy to have had to sell all his hifi gear when the kids were little, but we were downsizing due to our financial circumstances and had no room for it, and needed the money - and it wasn't getting used (we sold a lot of stuff at the time, not just his hifi, and the whole experience was really difficult). So I think he feels resentful and now that things are better financially he wants a proper system (and the small set of speakers that we do have does get used more now). He knows that I am against spending money on hifi stuff now (but in the future for sure we can have a nice set up with new tv etc - after the reno). The one thing that still gives me pause is how he was going to explain where the money came from when he actually bought something - I'm wondering if he was going to buy something more expensive and say it cost less so he could persuade me it was a good deal and then take less money then he actually needed from our bank account. I'm going to ask him an open ended question about that to see what he says.

As for what kind of a dad and husband he is - I don't sugar coat things with friends and family, and those closest to me know I feel that I do way more than my share, but a lot of women are married to men who never do any housework at all. Unfortunately I think the bar is generally set pretty low for men since it is so common these days for women to be the ones who hold everything together.

As for the prostitute situation, as far as I know it happened a few times when I was away on vacation with the kids 5 years ago and he couldn't get the time off. I found out about it about a year later (strange email addresses were popping up in our google calendar event invites, and then I did some digging and figured it out). I read him the riot act and was ready to split up, but then we went through a period where the kids were really difficult and I was struggling to handle it and it made me feel that if I was mostly parenting them on my own day to day it would jeopardise my mental health (I do realise though that their difficulties could well have been triggered by picking up on our stress). After that happened I kept track of where he was going etc and he knew I was very distrustful of him, but by the time I found out I think it hadn't actually happened again for a year, and I've never had any reason to suspect it was happening again until now.

If you'd asked me a week ago, I would have said we have a good partnership but that it needs to be more equitable. I do delegate stuff to him if he doesn't take the initiative himself but I would prefer that he just step up without my nagging. This has now brought up trust issues again, and I know many will think I'm probably being naive but I don't actually think the money was for sex since there is no evidence of him going to any unusual places (he takes his phone with him everywhere he goes, and would never leave it in the car).

So I'm thinking about where we go from here. I think we need to sit down and have an honest and rational talk about some outstanding questions regarding my recent discovery, about equity in our relationship, and in particular the message we are sending to the kids with our interactions with each other and with them. I think we need to acknowledge the nature of our sexless marriage and say that if we stay together and either one of us ends up feeling the need for physical intimacy, we need to discuss it rather than sneak around. We need to let go of resentment and recrimination and see if we can move forward and be truthful and caring in our dealings with each other. My concern is that he is not really a talker - he comes from a family that buries things and is a bit dysfunctional (he is the most well adjusted of his siblings), but it feels like it is worth a try ...

are you saying the guy doesn't have his own bank account?!
That's ridiculous! Why have you enabled this for so long?

You both should have organised your finances at least when the kids came along....a proportional amount into the joint bills/family expenses account.
Then some aside for savings.....and then make sure you both have at least an equal amount of 'spends' to use on whatever you like.

I also found out recently that he has been looking into this and has even made offers on 2nd hand hifi stuff. He had not discussed this with me and when I found out I pointed out we are trying to save up for a home renovation and don't have any room in our house for it

You actually come across as rather controlling and financially abusive.
You earn more and therefore you decide how/where the money gets spent???
He saved some money to buy something that he can enjoy - and you tell him he can't cos there's 'no room' for it??!!
Hifi's don't exactly take up that much space.....and i bet there's been plenty of space for the kids xmas gifts......

There's no reason he should have to save every single penny for refurbing a house that apparently doesn't have enough space for a hifi....

It doesn't sound like either of you are actually in love with each other - but you've decided that it's better to drag it out for the 'children's sake'....don't use the children as an excuse.
They'd be better off with two separated, happy parents/households than one unhappy, miserable one.

I think he was saving for a prostitute. I don’t think the stereo excuse is genuine. Sorry. Why not just say to you “I want to buy a new stereo” and then you both sort it out. It seems very deceitful.

I actually don't think he was seeing hookers - cash makes sense if he was keeping an eye on Hunter/Spock as there will be some great bargains on old school hifi out there.

But this is not a good relationship at all. Sexless, he's 'not allowed' the one thing he really wants because he 'can't afford' it. I actually feel rather sorry for him. Let him go, and find someone who loves him. Everyone needs love, affection and respect. Not just a coworker. You're not well suited at all.

Gumtree/Shpock I mean! Bossy Apple autocorrect.

I stopped reading when you mentioned prostitute. I don't know why people put up with cheating and lied and then wonder why they have trust issues. You must think very little of yourself which is sad x

Thanks all for your comments, mostly they’ve been pretty helpful. My husband and I have started to talk through and hopefully can find a solution that works for our family.