Hi, I am not sure if men are supposed to post on here, however when I look back, most of the positive advice I have ever received has come from women!
I really didn’t think that I would be in this position at the grand old age of almost 47 but here I am. Apologies for the long post but I am hoping it will be therapeutic!
To say that things have gone pear shaped for us (wife and I) over the last 5 years would be a massive understatement but the time has come for me to do what I can to get back to a more secure position.
In 2016 we were both working full time. I was a headteacher in a secondary school and my wife a full-time primary school teacher. We have two children who are both still at school. Things were comfortable and we had a fairly decent life. We were both prone to running up our credit cards a bit but nothing that was ever unmanageable and we also had car finance etc. We probably owed about 20K at that point but on a joint salary of about £115k is was all good.
We had long dreamed of starting our own business. We had a plan and had spent years discussing and dreaming about it. In 2016 we inherited 20k and decided to take the plunge. The nature of the business is quite specific so I am not going to go into details on here out of fear of being identified. At the start it went well and we were quickly almost matching our previous income, however a set of circumstances and some bad luck quickly plotted against us and things started to slide. Our income started to plummet and we were working harder and harder for less and less reward. We were both committed and tried to weather the storm, however things went from bad to worse and we had to cease trading in 2019.
For almost 3 years we had plugged to gap with credit cards, loans and overdrafts. It was a case of pure desperation, along with an unwillingness to admit that we were flogging a dead horse. By the end of it I had about 65K of personal debt and I estimate that my wife had around 25k.
The strain of what happened almost destroyed us and we separated for 5 months at the end of 2019. It felt like a bereavement and were basically punishing each other for what had happened, playing the blame game etc. Both of us suffered in terms of our mental health and my wife is still medication. At the start of the 2020 lockdown we realised that we both wanted to give our marriage another go and moved back in together.
I have managed to get a job as a deputy headteacher in a secondary school. I might not be the Headteacher anymore but it’s a well-paid job (70k) and I feel fortunate. My wife has also returned to full time teaching. Things are still very difficult and we are waiting to start a course of marriage guidance. My wife refuses to talk about the finances and currently our finances are totally separate. We both pay money into a joint account for our mortgage and utilities, but apart from that there is no collaboration. I have tried to raise this many times as I want us to tackle our debts together, but at the moment this isn’t going to happen.
I have managed to pay my debts down a little to just under 55K. I estimate that my wife still has around 25K BUT she has just inherited just under 26K so I suppose she is ‘debt neutral’. I have no access to this money and it’s been made clear that she isn’t willing to enter into any discussions about how it used. I will tackle this during our counselling sessions, but for now I have to just focus on what I can do, i.e. paying my own debts down.
I will do the full SOA soon, but in a nutshell, I take home around £3550 per month. I pay £700 into our joint account for my share of the mortgage and bills. I have non-debt related direct debits – phone, insurance for £300 and I tend to pay for most of our food at about £300 a month. My minimum debt payments are £1100 and I pay £225 a month for my car lease, which leaves me with about £925 that I can use as additional payments. I have been trying to use as much of this as I can to reduce some of the debt.
I would welcome any support and advice from anyone who has been in this situation. I would ask that you don’t simply recommend that my wife and I work collaboratively on our finances – I know that would be the best option and it is certainly my preference. At the moment I just need to do what I can do without adding any further pressure to our marriage. I am hoping that our counselling will help with this.