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.

Most of the posts on this thread are directed at you. If you could answer a few of them, that would be good. How long ago was all this? How much debt did you accumulate? Did the friend go bankrupt and was the debt she owed you written off? Was selling the London property your only option? Why didn't you return to work? Are you working now and building for your joint future? Are your kids still minors/in education? Do you want the marriage to continue? What are you expecting from your husband in terms of future support?

Probably. They're all the same these days!

OP - he must have really loved you to have supported you and forgiven you. But you sound very dismissive and like you don’t understand the gravity of all this. You need to show how serious you are taking this and the efforts you are prepared to make to in some way make it up to him. I would be working extra hours, going for promotions, being careful with my personal spending…

You definitely need couples therapy rather than just therapy for you. And you need to show you understand and regret the monumental mistake you made.

OP, you said that you’ve had therapy over the years to come to terms with your cock-up, but have you had couples therapy? If not, then I think you should arrange some asap. There is clearly a huge amount of resentment that has built up in your marriage and so many things that have gone unsaid.

Yes, your DH shouldn’t have spoken to you like that but it is understandable if there are huge unresolved issues in your marriage that have been bubbling away for years.

I’m confused. Doesn’t highly leveraged mean more debt than equity? If so, how could selling it repay the loan?

Im interested to know how much you loaned the friend, it must have been a massive amount to result in the house having to be sold.

This site can be so damaging for people. I hope OP is OK.

You must have lent them a great deal of money.
Did he have anything left from the sale of the house?

Op i really think you should close this down, there's only so many shitty sticks you can be hit with and my God you're had a fair few here, yes you were young weren't we all once, you made a mistake, haven't we all, god only knows your still paying the price,

I hope you and h can sort this out op, what you don't need is a bashing on here op,

How awful for you both. Personally, I can understand the seething resentment as sonething similar happened to me. However, we had counselling separately about it and eventually we couldn't stay together.

Obviously his language was abhorrent. Is he able to see that?

It'll probably take counselling for him to see if he can get over the money issue which can't be overlooked, especially as it was from his mother. Not only has he/you lost a fortune from the house sale, he may carry huge guilt about losing his mother's money.

You might also need to think about yourself and your ability to stay with someone who may never be able to move forward.

Yes it's awful, you must feel terrible, but you do deserve to move on and be happy. Resentment from your husband won't bring the money back.

Good luck.

I feel bad for you because you were obviously very naive and acting from a place of love and care. I can imagine a younger me making similar mistakes if I’d had the means. I really hope they’re still your friends 😬

This isn’t an argument about £1.

This is an argument about how you went behind his back and his advice when married and put him in a financial position where he lost an inheritance.

I’m surprised he didn’t leave you then to be honest.

I agree. Not many men would add their wife to the deeds of a house that they purchased before marriage. My husband hasn't and I don't expect him too.

How long ago was this loan, OP?

To be fair my DH added me to the deeds of the house he bought before marriage!

Say it was 80% leveraged and worth £100k she could’ve borrowed £20k and they felt they had no option but to sell the property to repay.

you can’t borrow that much on a personal loan, it wouldn’t have been anything like a house

for those saying they don’t know why he didn’t divorce her then, I imagine a divorce would’ve cost him significantly more than repaying the loan, and they had tiny children.

What on earth had she done to deserve being called lazy, deceitful and lacking in integrity? Her husband knew about the loan. She was, foolishly, trying to help her friend; so her heart was in the right place. Working instead of staying at home may have dose her more money than she was able to earn. At any rate, you don’t need to be so salivatingly shitty.

That property was not yours to give away to your friend who wasn't in a situation of never paying you back....you did wrong and need to sincerely apologise to your husband. To be honest I don't blame him for holding that resentment towards you.

I hope they are not still friends.

The friend treated op appallingly. I don't care what kind of crappy financial situation you are in, you dont accept a loan from a friend that has such severe consequences it results in them loosing a house.

And they haven't since even tried to pay op back.

The friend sounds awful and I think op would be a thousand times better off without such people in her life.

I see why he's pissed

Thanks! So it doesn’t mean it’s in negative equity then.

I agree not many people would divorce with a baby on the way over a poor financial decision.

It’s also all in hindsight – that this huge windfall would have actually taken place and the OP specifically scuppered that. The DH may well have sold him himself for many other reasons over the years.

I can understand the resentment, however, though the DH is ultimately responsibility for allowing it to grow uncontrolled.

Is that why you told us on this thread that you're having a Chinese takeaway for dinner tonight?

@Bunnycute23 · Today 15:01
I might have a Chinese tonight. I'm vegetarian. The place nearby does tofu. Its great.

This one's a bit special... 😊

How many years ago was this?

What actions did you take with your friend to try to recoup the money? Did you get any legal advise?

Have you gone back to work since having the baby?

I think OP is getting a particularly hard time here.

Yes, she made a bad decision. She knows this. She doesn’t need her nose rubbing in it here.

The husband put her name on the deeds to the property. Presumably he took legal advice at the time and was aware of the risks that came with doing so.

The fact the area has been gentrified since the property was sold, and the property would now be worth more, is a moot point. It was sold back then for whatever amount, not now. No point in crying over spilled milk.

OP could’ve gone back to work sooner while the DC were small, but presumably the husband would’ve had to pay towards childcare too? Not to mention that OP will have missed out on pension contributions etc while husband’s pot was still being topped up.

I’m not sure how long ago this was - but to pretend all was forgiven for what I’m reading to be several years, is deceitful on the husband’s part and any resentment he was harbouring should’ve been brought out into the open much sooner, instead of allowing OP to believe their relationship had moved on from it.

Regardless of the above, the language he used towards OP and the fact he’s refusing to speak to her is a dealbreaker in my opinion. An excellent father does not disrespect the mother of his children like this. A good husband does not call his wife a bitch.

If I were OP I’d be making plans to divorce him - he’s shown what he thinks of her and in my mind there’d be no moving on from that.