DP secret debt - help

[Headspangle]

Named changed but been ok here for years. Possibly outing myself with this thread but I am in desperate need of advice.
Been with DP for 7 years, 2 very young kids plus one teen each from previous relationship.
since the birth of our first baby together we have had the usual common issues of being distant, life imbalance, resentment, just general trenches of having young kids. However despite our difficulties and arguments I still held onto hope that once the kids got a bit older then things would get easier etc.
well long story short I’ve found out only once pushed that he has secretly got himself into £25k worth of debt. I went for an affordability meeting as we had been talking about moving and upgrading etc so when I had to ask him about any debts i was dumbfounded with what he told me. In fact, initially he said it was £15k which was bad enough but actually turns out it was much more. He said it got out of control and was using credit cards while money was tight and that although it’s a lot he’s on top of it - I’ve seen the credit report and his score is good but it’s still a huge debt and means all plans for the future and savings for holidays etc are out the window while he pays it back - for what he said is ‘only 4 years’ …
im livid and heartbroken and don’t know what to do. We have a mortgage but are not married. I love him and want our children to have stability but how can I trust him - he was always going to try keep it from me. On the one hand he has said sorry and it was wrong etc but then when I was crying and saying how heartbroken I am he said nothing and has made no plan for how he is going to rebuild my trust etc. he even got angry when I said I can’t believe he’s done this to our family and stormed out.
move also been a single parent for years with jy eldest and I can’t bare to go through it all again and uproot our lives - I’d be forced to relocate and lose my job I’ve worked hard for as couldn’t afford where we live now slone and have no support near me.
thoughts? Please be kind.

I don’t see how ANY gambling is acceptable in this scenario. When was the last time you threw away £20 to entertain yourself?

What has he said about repaying the debt? How is his life changing to do it?

There also have been multiple opportunities to pay it back. He got £5k from his car getting written off. Any big purchases we’ve made have been paid for by either my savings or our fmaily helped us. There has been no reason that I can think of that he needed to get a single credit card for. Unless it’s historical and he neglected it and it built up. It’s the dishonesty and treatment of me I can’t get past. I get he was ashamed and feel some compassion for him in that way. But he was NEVER going to tell me and he put the stability of his young children at risk in making such decisions

My wife lied to me about a loan. Within 5 years of that event, she cheated on me, and then had an affair. Now we are divorced.
I was annoyed at the deceit, and I made the mistake of not treating the loan lie as a red flag when it happened.

Trust is a big thing for a successful relationship.
I wish you well.

Why is it so hard for him to show you ALL of the statements though OP? Thats a huge 🚩
Whats his explanation for why he isn’t showing them and just providing a few of them and only those after several days?

Did he let you log on and see the actual statements from his bank online or has he only let you see the versions he could have very easily doctored?

At this point I think you’d be unwise to trust a single thing he says or shows you unless you are actually looking at statements through his online banking.

As for him saying that you shouldn’t say things like that, why shouldn’t you? He’s lied and concealed the debt. He’s refused to let you see his online banking for days when he knows how distressed it’s making you and you’re supposed to just accept that and say nothing?

I think I could just about get over the debt if he was being humble and engaging with a charity like Stepchange but you still have no evidence of where the money went, if the behaviour that lead to the debt has changed or how it’s all going to be paid off,

Sorry I cross posted with you there. He got £5k from his car and he’s let you worry about spending money for the DC on Holiday and watched you sell bits from around the house to scrape the money together?

Sound advice.

Since it is in 2025 I wonder if he got involved in some crypto scam and lost a bunch of money?

Well, if his shame and embarrassment trump saving his relationship then that tells you a lot. Unless he's going to come clean about what the debt is about - statements give figures not reasons - then trust can't be rebuilt and debt will happen again. Is there such a thing as a financial relationship counsellor? If you could sit down with a neutral expert and pick this apart, form a plan, heal the hurt perhaps he wouldn't be so defensive and be burning bridges.

Honestly op, I wonder if it would be easier in some ways if you made a decision now about your relationship? In your shoes I think id have to, albeit i can't possibly know how I'd feel, but he's clearly hiding something and at the least has no intention of putting you out of your misery. The lack of concern for me and our relationship would finish it for me, regardless of what the statements say. I suspect you're holding out for everything to be some awful misunderstanding, but it won't be because if it were he would be keen to sit with you and show you the statements.

He is treating you horribly and with complete disregard for your wellbeing. Raw than continuing to give him the power, you have the right to decide what you want to do about the relationship now.

I would get him to apply for an IVA if you're in England, or a Trust Deed if you're in Scotland. They are easy to do. He will enter into an agreement with all his creditors to pay a nominal amount for 3 years, and then he's debt free. You generally pay around 20p for every pound you owe. My DH did one years ago when things were out of control for him financially.

I think you need to forget him. He isn't going to be honest with you. You cannot trust him.

Working with your MH team.is the right way forward. Get yourself strong without him - even in spite of him and then move forward.

What you need to do then is make plans for your future - and your children's future. The daughter doing GCSE's is she yr1 or yr2. If she is yr 1 moving her right now (not 6 months time) might be ok, but will be hard. If she's yr 2 you need to find a way of keeping her in her school for the next 9 months - whats the situation with his teen? Are they at school on your address or their mums? Not saying that they are your responsibility but might give you some leverage if similar age.

This debt could predate your relationship. He may always have been awful with money but never been caught before. He didn’t come clean until you found out. And is still covering the truth.

I’m so sorry that happened to you. I hope you’re doing better now. I agree with all you’ve said .

Yes , I asked him where the money went and if we could put it in savings and he ws just vague and said oh it’s all gone , everything’s so expensive etc. makes sense now

I think this is likely. He always says ‘years ago I was terrible with money’ and then we had the first shock when we got declined our first mortgage application years ago becsuee of his debts his didn’t tell me about. But thought he’d sorted it all out since then as he was so upset about it. I’m in pain and trying my best to not let it consume me. Mostly I am very frightened about the future.

At the time the £5K was paid out, did you know he'd received it? Was there no conversation about how you would replace the car that'd been written off, what you'd get, anything like that? If not then this is part of the problem. He's been treating you like a financial passenger who doesn't need to know anything, not a life partner he makes decisions with. And worse, he's also been letting you use your own smaller income to prop up the family while he does what he likes, whatever that has been, with his money. This isn't how a good dad and partner behaves. I know you don't think you'll be better off without him but I wouldn't be so sure.

Well we had separate cars at that point (much to my disagreement) he kept saying he needed a separate car although I’d kept saying let’s save the money and just share mine (which is what we do now). Eventually he relented but as came through his insurance I am not privy as to what happened to it

Does anyone knkw much about trading 212? That was listed a lot

Trading 212 is a popular app for buying and selling stocks, shares and the like. It's a legit company.

Though it's completely foolish of him to be using borrowed money to invest, if that's what he has been doing.

Has he been buying crypto trying to ‘win’ back money to pay his debt?
That is as good as gambling imvho. Ask him to show you his trading account.

Thank you. Yes, essentially the same as gambling. He has always said he never gambles but there were payments to sky bet even though small amounts every month. Why lie? How can you think you knkw someone so well and not know them at all.

Just a thought, you said he had one loan with% interest on, which is likely to be a 0% balance interest card. Ie, you take out a new credit card, and they offer to transfer the existing balance of an old card with a 0% transfer fee. However, the interest-fee payment period usually only lasts one or two years, so this could be temporary. Just something to be mindful of,

(Quick google, up to three years balance transfer fees currently available).

Thank you that’s really important info and I will check about that. That’s what he said he had been doing but there looks like a couple of larger loans I wasn’t expecting. Still very confusing. If it’s not gambling it’s a long standing issue with reckless spending and I know his mum has loads of debt when he was growing up and so perhaps it’s completely normalised for him

I think your latest updates change the picture quite a lot OP unfortunately.

An £8k loan and a £12k loan within the same month is not consistent with being short while you were on maternity leave. If the household genuinely just needed a buffer, why was £20,000 of borrowing required in one month? It’s a huge sum and I worry the tip of the iceberg.

You need to sit with him and his accounts and get him to spell out the paper trail for you with transactional proof: £12,000 loan lands in current account on X date. What happens to that £12,000 afterwards? Does it pay off another card? Go to Trading 212? Leave in cash transfers? Pay another lender? Disappear in smaller transactions?

I would literally work through the large loans one by one and follow the money.

The credit card statements you haven’t seen yet are also really important because a huge amount of spending could have happened directly on those cards and wouldn’t necessarily be obvious from his current account.

Trading 212 deserves proper scrutiny. It is a legitimate investment platform but using borrowed money to trade or invest while carrying substantial consumer debt is very high risk behaviour and depending on what he was doing there, the account history may explain some of the borrowing. The important thing is not just how much he deposited but whether there were repeated deposits, withdrawals, realised losses, leveraged products/CFDs.

The previous mortgage incident is defo relevant. This isn’t a first time financial mistake. He has already experienced the consequences of hidden debt and still appears to have continued concealing huge borrowing afterwards.

Before you even think about paying anything off / deciding on whether your marriage survives this I would:

Get both credit reports. I would want to see all three credit reference agencies eventually, because not every lender reports identically everywhere. That will show open accounts, balances, limits and recent credit applications.

Ask to see the path of what happened to the loans and to the £5k car insurance payout. If someone has serious debt and suddenly receives £5,000, that is an obvious opportunity to reduce it. If it went elsewhere, where?

Safeguard the mortgage if this is in your name too. If you’re both named on it you’re both liable. If for some reason he stopped contributing, the lender can still expect the full mortgage payment to be made.

Given what you’re uncovering, I would want to establish whether the mortgage is completely up to date (don’t rely on him to tell you, ask for paperwork). Exactly what account is it paid from and is the money for the next payment protected?

Are there any other joint loans/overdrafts? Are all of these mystery loans definitely unsecured? Has there ever been any further borrowing secured against the house?

Ask if your mortgage lender can put any safeguards in place so that additional borrowing against the property can’t happen without your involvement.

Protect yourself financially now. You need to know exactly what joint liabilities exist x