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.

Lazy - because SAHP while her husband shouldered her debt with his investment property while still working to support a family of five.

How do you know that her working would have been financially viable with childcare costs?

Deceitful - because it sounds like they discussed it and then she went ahead and did it anyway. If a husband did this to his wife, everyone on this thread would be absolutely ripping into him.

Deceitful would be if she did it without him knowing. Which you do not know.

Lacking in integrity - because she has misinformed everyone with her thread title. I think that is symptomatic of her whole attitude. She is very dismissive of what she has done. She is very selective with the information she gives, as is her prerogative, because it paints her in a increasingly poor light.

She said her DH has refused to talk about it since it happened and it is the first time he has raised an angry word about it. She is allowed to title the thread with the triggering event.

All largely fictionalised insults.

I missed my typo, sorry. I meant to say that working may have cost more than staying at home; childcare isn’t cheap for three kids.

Given that she told him, I wouldn’t call it deceitful. Bloody-minded, maybe. Pig-headed…strong-willed… determined, etc. Deceitful suggests that she did it without his knowledge. Although, she may well have done. Her posts are light on detail, so we have no idea.

Yeah… not sure what the thread title is about. Maybe she’s in denial of the bigger picture. She’s had therapy and sounds like she has moved on. She thought it was behind them. Her husband, clearly, hasn’t moved on from it at all. I would need to meditate to the point of becoming enlightened, personally, to get over something like this but if he can’t get over it, he needs to get a divorce. Berating her at this late stage of the day is not on. Plus, it’s just not healthy to hold on to so much negativity. I know people whose inability to let things go has lead to breakdowns.

But we don’t know what she did. We have very little detail.

And as I replied, the OP did take the responsibility to get herself help. She got herself into treatment.

I'll be very clear that there's no way of knowing whether this applies to OP, but it also wouldn't be the first time someone has self diagnosed themselves with this and that in order to avoid responsibility for whatever it is

So that’s completely fictionalised in this case then.

Love how you have not questioned "incredibly stupid". It's nice to know we agree on that.

Also, she could have a couple of nights or weekends etc. Additionally, we don't know if she was pregnant with her first or third. More poor decisions potentially

Well, we all behave differently. If I'd done what she had, I'd have explored every avenue possible, even if there was little chance of clawing back ££, but so i could say to my husband that I tried.

You don’t know what she’s done to support her husband. You have no idea.

I'm fairly sure if OP had actually done something to make it better, she'd have said as much.

OP why are you avoiding answering many of the questions?

What have you actually done to try to salvage this? Have you worked? Who decided you should be a stay at home mum? Have you even tried to recoup the money from these so-called friends?

Or have you avoided all of these by saying your depressed and have anxiety.

You are literally adding snippets of information.

How much money did your husband pay back on your behalf? How much does he think he has lost in total after the housing boom etc?

I think you posted expecting some backlash but mainly expecting people to say oh he was bang out of order for his language and still holding resentment - but the majority of people on here -myself included - think you got away lightly, despite you thinking you've been hard done by as it's taken a lot out of you emotionally. The first post was...I was hormonal, emotional etc and one of the last ones was all about how it had affected you mentally and your worry about its effects in the kids. No where did you take into account your husband's feelings.

I think he should see this thread and finally take the stand to get rid of you and ensure you don't take half of his current assets.

I guess you'll slope off into the abyss or if you do post continue to be vague, not give much detail or ignore the effects on him.

@WhyAmISoReal - "... If my partner called me a bitch in the way OP's has, I would leave. I am surprised that so many people think this is acceptable..."

Would you still find it unacceptable if you'd cost your husband and children tens of £1000s, or hundreds of £1000s, or a million or millions?

I suppose you would as it would give you an excuse to escape your responsibilty for the financial mess you singlehandedly created against your husband's wishes

I'm sorry but "jumped up bitch" might be very mild in the circumstances

Well she hasn't said much has she. That's the point, most of her posts have showed little to no info about the effects on him yet she has managed to include how it's affected her.

Think she expected some sort of pity party.

She hasn’t said much of anything.

I would love to know how you managed to get such a huge loan in your name. And you say you told your DH? How did that go down at the time? You just completely ignored his wishes?

The OP is gaslighting at its finest. I would burst a blood vessel if my husband were to characterise what happened today in the way @ForGentleBeaker has done!

A fairer way of posting would have been:

“Many years ago I took out a significant loan against my husband’s wishes to help a frown in difficulty. The friend defaulted on the payments and this resulted in my husband having to sell an investment property to clear my debts.

Roll on several years, and we now find ourselves in financial difficulties as my husband’s job is at risk. The investment property would have been worth many times what he paid for it at the time.

We have had a huge argument about this poor decision on my part today and about the fact that I gave up work when my children were born so my husband has been the sole breadwinner for years. He clearly still has a lot of resentment about what happened. How can we move forward from this together?”

The fact this isn’t how the OP posted and that she feels she is the wronged party here speaks volumes!

You didn’t write ‘incredibly stupid’ in that post. Yes, I do think it was a very ill-thought-out, which I think we can assume OP is aware of.

Also, she could have a couple of nights or weekends etc.

How do you know if that was viable?

Additionally, we don't know if she was pregnant with her first or third. More poor decisions potentially

Again, fictional until you actually know the answer. You can try to continue to make up information to make the situation sounds as bad as you can manage, but that doesn’t make any of it true or relevant.

Just because she hasn’t given the information, it doesn’t give posters the justification to make up the facts. You don’t know them, you are guessing. And that’s the only fact there is.

To be fair she didn’t say here that he was wrong in saying she chose to STAH and spends too easily.
and going only aspect of her financial nous we know is a woefully idiotic one we can fairly safely assume she hasn’t been much of a financial support.

Ah, you’re ’fairly sure’. I didn’t know that’s how we established facts.

I wonder if there is anything a woman could do that would make you speak against her in a divorce. I suspect you all women are helpless maidens being taken advantage of by cruel men.

she’s messed up the whole family abd you still think she’s the victim

No one gets to make up information and report it as true or even likely. Especially with this little detail. No one knows any of this.

Assuming means zero.

So if discussing something and then going against your partner when it impacts both of you isn’t deceitful then it’s abusive and controlling.

I'm guessing because she is purposely giving very little information.

The truth is though that she clearly thinks it has affected her hugely with all her I and me statements and has said little about the effects on him. Even the bloody title was phrased to make herself look the victim. She's in this position because of her own doing. Yes people make mistakes and you can't hold it over them, but she needs to take accountability and there's little to show she's done that.

Don't come at me/us with well we don't know what she's done to try to help - because she's not stated. And it's very likely because she's dun fuck all because she's distressed, has anxiety etc.

I do think it was a very ill-thought-out, which I think we can assume OP is aware of

That's interesting, @Didimum; you said (and I agree) that there's a lot we can't know, and yet apparently you feel safe in assuming something which OP hasn't mentioned?

Well, she has, just none of it has been about her DH.

Mumsnet feels odd today.

This man bailed his wife out when she spent thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of pounds of their joint money (because that’s what it is when you’re married) bailing out a friend who has seemingly not paid a penny back all these years later and when he sticks something in the trolley at the supermarket his wife is taking it out and swapping it for something else to save £1. Surely anyone can see why that would stick in his throat.