Trust broken

[Trustisamust]

I'm a very black and white person I'll admit; always have been.

My question is once the trust has gone in a relationship is it really over?

For me trust is an absolute non-negotiable. Not just through lying necessarily, but through omission.

Yes, for me. I have a thread about my husband's infidelities. He lied by omission when he was unfaithful, he confessed one incident and minimised and gaslighted me for a year about the other four. The gaslighting was as cruel as the infidelity. Often I would be bent over crying asking if there was anything else as I just knew there was. He told me no over and over and my gut told me otherwise. I was never satisfied with his answer. I was in turmoil. How do you forgive this? Apparantely he lied to spare me the pain, he did not think I could handle knowing there was more than one incident. The lying traumatised me.

@Faith50 I agree. My partner disagrees (of course!) Basically he failed to tell me he was/is £4k in debt until I found a debt collection letter.

OP lies and secrets are awful.

@Faith50 He said he did it to "protect my MH" and "Because he couldn't deal with it at the time."

But now I feel I can't trust anything he says going forward.

It is wrong to be feeling like this?

Trust
You feel how you feel. It will take time to rebuild trust if you want to. You know how much you can tolerate. Listen to your inner voice.

@Faith50 Thank you for listening x

OP - it’s a little hard to comment without knowing more about your relationship and how it’s set up.
And I do believe that financial matters aren’t quite the same as issues of fidelity.
If you have been together for a while, live together, have joint mortgage and finances in general - then yes it’s an information one is expected to share.
But if you don’t have joint finances - than it can be considered private and if he didn’t want to share it - it’s his right.

Generally, it’s never good to be black and white in life. Life doesn’t work that way. As you age and experience more - you’ll hopefully realise that too.

@MMmomDD The issue is we need to get a mortgage before too long (still renting) and this may well not be possible as he now has a low credit score.

PS. I'm 40 btw so not young!

I would have a good think about what you want and whether you want to walk away now, or set up a plan and see if he can stick to it. You don't want a lifetime of working and saving hard for him to fritter it away. Only you know if he's worth it.

@Amdone123 He tells me he has set up a plan to pay back £100 per month.
I am returning to work ft after mat leave shortly so who knows how we are going to cover childcare. I earn around £1000k pm.

Ha ha not £1000k!!!! I wish! I meant £1000 pm!!

Trust
I can see why you are angry as your husband may well have scrapped your opportunity to buy a property. Surely your partner must have known this information would be disclosed to you.

I wish that for you, too !
I meant to add before that you are only young, you've got your whole life ahead of you. Obviously, if you have children, you need to work together, but he made the debt, so let him pay it. He needs to go without.

@Faith50 Exactly! We've been renting for seven years now - It's just not fair to expect to keep renting forever!
I have savings that we were going to use for a deposit and I was prepared to use those so why has he done this?

Trust is a big issue, something which I'm dealing with at the moment.
I'm swaying towards the fact that once it's gone, it's gone.
I think in your case, it depends why he got in debt and when it started. You obviously have a new baby (congratulations!) so was money tight due to extra expenses, you earning less? Does he earn a good wage? What did he spend the money on? I could maybe understand why he didn't want to tell you during your pregnancy.

@NotAgainNoMore He got into debt when he was in his last relationship prior to me - she was earning well herself but she took the piss basically and he fell for it. He told me that when he met me four years ago, but he also told me he was well on the way to paying it off.
He earns around £1700 pm working ft so more than me but we are not exactly rolling in it! He usually pays £800-£900 into my account per month. Everything (including a lot of the food) cones out of that - all bills etc. Rent is £900 pm.
He says he just buried his head which I don't really get - debt is never going to go away!

I'm now in month 10 of mat leave so having to draw down on my savings to make ends meet.

Before that I was on SMP and he was putting £900 into my account pm.

So, it's not a complete lie, maybe more a case of glossing over the facts. I dread to think how big the debt was originally, if this is 4 yrs on.
I don't think ordinarily a £3000 cc debt would unduly affect credit rating, he's earning a decent wage (obviously depends where you live) but having debt collectors get involved does affect it quite badly. Simply paying off the debt now won't improve his credit rating for quite a while. So, hold onto your savings.
Sounds like he's paying a reasonable amount into joint expenses. What are his own expenses like? Why couldn't he keep up with the payments?
I'd feel very bitter to be honest. He's messed up your future plans. Could you afford a mortgage based on your own earnings? Keep everything in your name?

@NotAgainNoMore The good thing is we are not married so he has no rights to my savings etc. We decided jointly that I would return to work four days a week which will mean I am coming out with around £1000 per month - nowhere near enough to get a mortgage in my own name.
I feel very let down.
He's not a young man at 45.
I feel his parents have always bailed him out and wonder if there is an over-reliance on this.
I was always raised to be as financially independent as possible.

Yes, me too OP. Live within your means. My exDP racked up £10K in debts before he met me. He is on a low income and no way could he pay them off. Had to do a debt relief order, which will stay on his file for many years.
We were not living together so although I was quite shocked, it didn't affect me directly. However, any plans we could have made in the future were off to a non-starter. In a way, he did me a favour. It's strengthened my resolve to stay independent.
Your DP is such an idiot for getting into this situation over a relatively small amount.
How do you see your future with him now? Do you think you can get over this? Maybe seek advice from an independent mortgage advisor so you know what's what.

If you have a child together and intend to get a mortgage together, then it may be best to just pay off his debt from your savings if at all possible? That way you can both move forward and it would improve his credit.

The real question here is.... is that the only debt he is hiding?

It is completely unacceptable for him to not have disclosed this information considering your mutual intentions for a future mortgage.

How long have you been together and when did you find out about the debt? It’s also pretty terrible you had to discover this in a letter rather than being told.

Really I’d be questioning his reliability.

For me, yes.

An ex that I was with for years that I adored emotionally cheated on me. I decided to give him another chance but I became this paranoid person who checked his phone records, checked if he had OLD profiles, asked him every day if he talked to someone he shouldn’t... it became exhausting and we finally ended it. I know I could never trust anyone again after they’d broken it, I wish I was built that way to do so but I just not