My husband has a spending problem. And a drug problem. I think.
I’ve been keeping my head in the sand for the past 20 years, but he confessed to buying a new Porsche today - 9 months ago - and leaving it sitting in a storage facility since. Parcels are constantly turning up on the doorstep but another car (#7) was a bit of a wake up.
He’s relatively high-functioning, so the spending doesn’t cause the issues you might expect, or get us into the situations where I’m forced to deal with it. But it makes me uncomfortable and I’d appreciate any advice on what to do. I think he regrets a lot of the purchasing afterwards. He’s highly impulsive and spontaneous, and I’m completely not, which does work for the most part.
He’s a very creative/neurodivergent type and runs a company. The company is successful but he manages to spend all the money which comes in so it’s always tight - not at home, we have a very comfortable life, but there will often be times when the company is several hundred thousand pounds short for something, or has a windfall of a similar amount. His relationship with money is one which would make most people (myself included) stay awake at night, and as we’re getting into middle age with 3 kids, I’m terrified of where I’d be should something happen to him. I’m not business or finance minded at all.
He confided in me last year that he had developed a problem with prescription opiates after having them for his back. I think it was a big deal for him to tell me, but neither of us have brought it up since, well until today when it came up in relation to the buying stuff in secret, and he said he’d interpreted my not mentioning it again as not caring. I feel like the spending and drugs are both quite similar- he feels shame and uses them as a crutch for what must be a v stressful work life.
We’re building a house at the moment, and it’s been going on for 3 years now. Progress is dependent on money and we had to stop work last year. But we also have two houses already and no mortgage (current tiny one and a flat we used to live in) so complaining he’s not making this happen quickly enough feels off. But I get really frustrated with his spending, he bought me a gold Rolex and a diamond ring, neither of which I’ll wear because I’d be scared of losing them, but at the same time we were having to put off buying a bathroom for the new house.
I know I must sound like an awful human being whinging when I’ve got a very fortunate life, but I’m really not materialistic at all, I’d rather not be surrounded by ‘stuff’ and I don’t know how to approach his problems. He’s a very affectionate and loving partner and a great dad, but the ADHD brings a lot of downsides as well, like being overly sensitive and having seemingly no impulse control with spending. He talked about the medication being a way to switch his brain off for a break. How much of all this is down to a diagnosis and how much is completely inexcusable?