Argument over a £1

[ForGentleBeaker]

Years ago my best friend and her husband ran into severe financial difficulties and were going to lose their home. I was pregnant, hormonal, emotional, my head was all over the place, and I desperately wanted to help them.
At that time I had no money but we owned a property in an absolute rundown part of London - my husband purchased it with a gift from his parents and I was added to the deeds after we were married.
Long story short, my attempt to help my friend went awry, and my husband had to sell the property. The property is worth an absolute fortune now. The whole area has undergone gentrification, and we missed out on the crazy London property boom.

My husband doesn't ever want to discuss and I had thought we had put it behind us. I have immense guilt.

Last week, whilst grocery shopping with him, I exchange a premium product for a store brand, and he went ballistic. He started mumbling about why I was saving pennies when I happlynlissed away so much trying to help my friend.

In the car, I was called a jumped up bitch, and he spent the journey home ranting at me for making him sell the property; being a SAHM when the children were younger; spending money; and diminishing his role and magnifying mine.

He is refusing to speak to me because he doesnt want to listen to the verbal diarrhea coming out of my mouth - his words.

I don't know where we go from here. We have 3 children, and he is an excellent father, and husband, till now. It seems he has been harbouring this resent towards me but there is nothing I can do.

If you had leant your friend your own money that you had in savings then that would have been one thing. But to borrow money (with presumably interest to pay back) to then give to a friend who was in a financially precarious situation just seems like absolute madness. It doesn't seem like a formal contract was drawn up between you and friend for repayments, how did you ever think this was going to work? Have you taken steps to get money back from them? To maximise your earning potential to even begin to repay the money? To be honest if my partner had done this the relationship would have been over. But given your relationship continued I suppose you both have to decide where you go from here. He needs to accept it and move on or end the relationship. To keep living with the anger and resentment isn't really an option I don't think, and it seems things have come to a head.

He doesn’t have to forgive. But they can’t carrying on living with resentment. So he should forgive or leave. That’s what I’m saying.

Wow you messed up big time op and as a result you’re all feeling the consequences. I’d be resentful if I were your husband as well. You’re bad decision making set your family back years. I don’t think I could ever forgive you for that. Sorry I’m with your husband on this.

I don’t blame him resenting the unfairness of the situation. It’s been life changing for all of you. You were able to be a SAHM and he obviously feels he got the rough end of the stick as the consequences for you are a result of your own actions. For him, it’s also as a result of your actions. There is nothing you can do but though he went about it all the wrong way can see why he’d be triggered by penny pinching now when he’s harbouring ‘if only’ and ‘told you so’. You seem quite dismissive ala what’s done is done - but sounds like your kindness (if a large sum verging on possible recklessness) in trying to help your ‘friend’ (a real friend imho would never ask you for a large sum of £s in the first place) was a turning point/sliding doors moment. You could and should get a job if not already to at least relieve some of his having to make up for the impact alone. It’s a really sad situation. Your ‘friend’ has a lot to answer for too. Not right you and DH should have been put in that position.

Why should HE leave? By all means tell her the marriage is over, but if anyone's leaving it, it should be her.

Why not?

It’s a major issue and clearly troubling him. Perhaps because he’s got his head around it or because he’s now facing financial uncertainty.

How can you have a marriage where one side can unilaterally ban certain topics while expecting the marriage to continue as was? Strange notion!

slightly off topic but I wonder if your friend feels a massive amount of guilt for this. Doesn’t sound like she’s making any effort to try and pay it back?

I would never take a large sum of money from a friend knowing they had to borrow the money to try and resolve my situation.

I too would have left you for playing dice with the family's financial security.

You really gave your friend money, the property was repossessed, his job is potentially at risk, you don't work outside the home and now as a family you are having to cut back. It's all linked and collapsing inwards. All you did although with good intentions is kick your friend's can further down the road.

But I'm very cautious with money. No one would come before mine and my DCs financial security.

Is there any way you can get a job?

Is friend still in the picture, why hasn't op pushed for this to be paid, as it was so long ago, yes op said friends lost everything back then but what about now all these years later, even setting up a DD back then say £ 100 a month would of been better than nothing

Yes, that's what I want to know

I'm guessing that the house he had to sell has increased in value by multiple hundreds of thousands of pounds. Maybe a million or more.

And you pissed it all away doing something he advised you not to do.

I don't think I could get past what you did to me and our children's future, if it were me. He now has worries and pressures he never woudl have had, if it weren't for your ridiculous behaviour - borrowing money to lend a friend! Madness.

And you can never undo it. You will never earn enough to make it up, and even if your feckless friend paid back the original amount (she won't), that is a drop in the ocean compared to what the house is worth now.

Me too.

and the op needs to be working every possible hour to pay back what she took.

I agree with this, harsh as it is. You don’t sound truly remorseful, and even in your opening post you are making excuses ‘pregnant, hormonal, emotional, head all over the place’. Your husband has every right to be furious about it, and has probably tried to suppress his feelings for the sake of his marriage and family.
If this were the other way around, you would have next to no support and would be told you should have ‘ltb’ years ago.

This.

She'll never earn what the house is worth now. It will be multiple hundreds of thousands of pounds. At least.

I completely agree. I'd find it very, very hard to forgive. We're talking a lot of money here. Now we all know money isn't the be all & end all, bit we all also know it makes life much easier & he wouldn't be this stressed about job insecurity of you had a property worth a small fortune to fall back on.

If this was me, I'd have been absolutely bloody resentful & would, deep down, never forgive you. It was also a gift from his parents - so you ruining their hard work.

Similarly my sister & her husband got themselves into financial trouble by putting their heads in the sand. My parents bailed them out, thinking it would stop the repossession & they could sell, making a little profit. They were wrong- the bank took it all AND the house was repossessed anyway.

I love my sister, as does my brother, but he'll still occasionally mention how they never got it back, or tried to pay it back. They did divorce with 3 kids & my sister had to drag herself up again, but he & I are still of the opinion that they should both have attempted to pay it back in some way over the last 20 years. Parents are gone now, but again it wasn't mentioned in the will, so lost to history.

This shit runs deep in people & will always affect how they see that person. If it's your partner, it's probably unforgiveable.

PP have asked why didn't you work. I too think you should have been grafting with everything you had in you to pay back in some way. NEVER lend money.

It sounds as though it was a huge amount of money, and he lost a house he'd been able to buy thanks to his parents (so it wasn't yours to sell), and he's lost out on the profit that he would have made had he kept the house. I would be utterly LIVID in his shoes.

but if he leaves, she gets EVEN MORE of his hard earned.

That's probably why he stays? They both need therapy, individually and together. She needs to genuinely apologise to him and promise not to be such an arse ever again.

And she needs to work more than full time to build up their savings, and build up his trust.

He needs to promise not to verbally abuse her. But, absent her earning money to help out? i wouldn't blame him for bringing it up every time they need to, say, buy a new washing machine or something. It would be annoying, and wrong, but i wouldn't blame him for that.

and, of course, if she doesn't like living with a man who is resentful she pissed away a big chunk of money, she could leave?

I know.

it’s a fucking disaster. Why the fuck she did it I will never understand. That’s one of those in a marriage where 1 plus no equals no.

And this is why I’ve never bought into the MN mantra that “all money/assets must be family money” in a marriage”

Bills should be taken care of jointly in a shared account but each partner should always ring fence some money for themselves and this includes money that has been inherited.

It your parents leave you money or a house then that money/property is for you and your DC (if appropriate). Do not share it with a DH/DW or put them on the deeds. Obviously when men do this, MN screams “financial abuse” (when women do it, it’s fine but that’s the usual MN double standards) but this sad tale is exactly the reason some money should be kept separately. OP’s rank stupidity has cost her DH and their DC’s financial security. I’d wager she made her foolish loan as she subconsciously thought the London flat would always be a back up, as it proved to be, albeit at huge cost to her DH and their marriage. If she didn’t know about it and couldn’t access the proceeds from its sale then the story would be different.

I assume the DH stuck around for the kids (it doesn’t sound as if OP makes good choices or feels like working is for her) so that was for the best, and now years of resentment have bubbled over.

You don't even sound vaguely remorseful! Your husband sounds like he is really struggling and I don't blame him.

I hope you're working full time now?

I hope you are also trying to recoup some of this money from your friend. How much are we talking? £2k, £10k? £25k, £50k? More?

It's important to know if the friend went into bankruptcy and the debt owed to the OP was included in the bankruptcy. If this is the case, the debt will have been written off and/or paid off to OP as so many pence in the £ (although it's highly unlikely any unsecured creditors see a penny). There will be no further legal obligation owed by the friend to the OP (although clearly a moral one).

the next time we get a "he won't marry me after 6 kids and I'm a SAHM" or "he left me after 25 years and 2 kids and we'Re not married i have nowhere to live"

we should point them at this thread and show why some men are reluctant to tie themselves and their wealth/assets to someone else.

Night shifts?
Evening shifts?
Weekends?

She sounds like a very lazy, selfish and entitled person

There’s no need for the performative Wow! Get a grip.