We/he either gets it together or I am in a shelter with my daughter, as he has told me that he wants his part of our family home my mother left to me at her death. He has nothing to show for all the three credit cards he has refinanced here through are house, but his grown children are doing very well for themselves now. My daugher and I drive in a old 1997 car with over 100K miles on it, he has a new pickup. I am praying that God will show me a way out of this destruction that is supposed to be a loving marriage. There are no more straws left. He’s used the last one.

I hang clothes out to line dry and he has accused me of squandering money. I am praying every day for a new life, I am just tired of this one.

“The meds assisted me to commit physical adultrey when I had been faithful for over 8 years even when all the credit debt craziness was going on.”

That’s a lame excuse.

The term is “financial infidelity” which is what happened to me in my first marriage. My college educated/degree now ex-wife had a MLM business that wasn’t working and she was leveraging bills through credit cards without telling me. Hidden credit cards, past due phone accounts, potential car repos, going behind my back to get a loan from her parents to attend a sales event, stealing the tax return check to get the past due car loan up to date, owing money to a friend, purchasing new contact lenses versus using the vision plan I had from my job, etc. Every issue was always a “small finacial mistake” in her words- “nothing to get worked up about- everyone makes them.”

She was always after the “big sale” versus working diligently to make money. I had to threaten her with divorce for her to get even a temp job. Funny thing was that the first temp placement she had was at a bank call center calling people who had just missed their first auto loan payment!!!

I threatened to kick her out a second time when I found yet another hidden credit card with $1300 on it. The time when we should have been DINKs- double income no kids- we were OINKs- one income no kids- because her employment was going to pay off credit bills only.

She always wanted to live beyond our means. I wrangled the new SUV for her in late 2001, I wrangled the 80% loan /20%ARM for a home for us, I wrangled the refinance to get out of the 20% ARM, but it was never enough.

The pressure built over the years even after we had paid off the debt she incurred. I nearly went crazy over time. I was misdiagnosed as being depressed and perscribed anti-depressants. The meds assisted me to commit physical adultrey when I had been faithful for over 8 years even when all the credit debt craziness was going on. The only reason I tell you this is that when I was in the “exit phase” of the marriage, the ex-wife went and bought $8,000 to $11,000 worth of brand new furniture for what would become “her house” (no equity of course due to the two financings within three years). She said she got the new furniture because I had kept her “down” financialy and had us using old hand-me-down furniture gifts from various family members. While that new furniture was solely her debt, it was the marriage’s final indication that she had no concept of financial management. Neither of us had that type of money nor did her parents pay for it.

Even after the divorce, she is all about the money and lack of foresite. We had two children together. I am happy to pay the child support but when I was laid off and looking for new work, she sued me for almost a full years amount of child support. This was even though she had garnished my meggar temp job wages and I was paying support when I fixed up and sold old cars. The court granted her a sum under $100 (yes one hundred as in between 99 and 101) in back support and required us to each pay our own lawyer fees.

I live under my means. I have a new spouse (unrelated to the prior marriage adultrey) who has the same financial values as I do. I am currently planning that I will have to pay my childrens entire college even though my ex and I are supposed to pay 50% each as I figure my ex will be bankrupt by that time.

It is “financial infidelity”. I almost could have dealt with it easier if the ex-wife had gotten a boyfriend behind my back. I would have just kicked her out and been done with it rather than try to be the “good husband” and kept the coupleship together by fighting her and the debt…

I would suggest letting your partner know that if things get ‘too heated’ that you’ll go into another room, but this discussion is important and will need to be continued. Otherwise, it comes off very badly to start an argument and walk out, leaving the other person hanging. Yes, I know it started as a discussion, but if you need to go into another room because you’re angry — its turned into an argument.

Sheesh, that sounds a lot like my ex. I’m not saying that it won’t work out, BUT… Anna has a good idea. In the meantime, you need to prepare to leave, both financially and mentally. It took me nearly a year. He is childish and irresponsible.

Why is he only working part-time? If he’s in school, he should be working full-time and go to school part-time. He’s not living with Mommy anymore.

Of course, if they have no desire to change, nothing will help, and you will have to decide whether to stick with them until they hit bottom and decide it is time to seek help, or bail.

If you do decide to stick with them, a group like Al-Anon (for families and loved ones of alcoholics) might be tremendously helpful for you in learning how to hold them responsible for their choices so they might come to their senses more quickly.

We’ve always kept separate finances, but it wasn’t until we bought a house together and started talking about finally getting married that I inquired about his credit cards (because I knew that he had credit cards and he had mentioned that he had debt at one point). That was when I found out about the nearly $17k in debt. We ended up taking care of that and he had a clean slate for a while, but then he racked up another $3k on a Discover card.

The reason behind that mistake was putting him in charge of all of the finances when he was never used to budgeting – so he was putting groceries, entertainment, and other little things on the Discover. At that point I took over all of the finances.

But rather than taking them over and keeping him out of the loop, I talked about setting up a budget, showing him exactly how much he was spending on certain things via Wesabe (that really opened his eyes), and teaching him how to save for things he wanted instead of buying now and trying to pay later. His credit debt is now officially gone and he finally has a savings account that is actually growing with my help.

It did get hard at times, mostly because I needed him to be open about money so that we could deal with the problem and all he wanted to do was not talk about it at all – but we’ve both learned and grown a little more from it.

Starting with dialog is the first step. But if the other party is not interested in talking, you’ve got choices to make. I don’t think someone who is content to have someone else pay the bills while they have party time is going to be motivated to change until you yank the rug out.

It all really comes down to intent. Is the other person hiding the debt out of materialistic entitlement? Or are they hiding the debt because they don’t want you to know there’s no money for groceries (which can be embarassing)? Both of these are wrong, but I know which of these two circumstances I’d be willing to work through and which one I’d walk.

This kind of issue can be worked out. from what I have seen and experienced the issues often come from spouses simply not being on the same page. sometimes, it is best to just split up the finances, so each partner can manage some of the money the way that works for them. Too often people play the my way or the highway routine. Marriage is about compromise, working things out, and being there when things get rough.

Try to figure out *why* the over-spending spouse was doing that. Does s/he feel like the other person gets to spend more money? Does s/he feel like the personal spending money allotment isn’t big enough? Are certain things being budgeted paid for out of spending money that s/he thinks should come out of another category? Figure out the cause and try and work something out. For example, if one spouse frequently needs to eat food out because s/he gets unexpectedly called in to work or a volunteer activity, should that food be paid for out of the personal spending money or should there be a separate “No time to bring lunch” category?

Sometimes it’s an issue of self-control, sometimes it’s not having the same goals, and sometimes there’s another issue at work.

I left.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you should.

You say you have offered counseling but he says he doesn’t need it. That, plus your hints and efforts that go unheeded, indicate that he has a bigger problem than you can deal with alone–so don’t try. May I suggest that you do your own research to find a counseler, then issue an ultimatum: either he goes with you to counseling, or you leave.

Life is too short to live it with a deadbeat.

I left him, took about 5 years to pay it off completely, and now have a positive net worth plus some. But I wasn’t going to wait for him to change. And I wasn’t going to marry him because that was a sure path to bankruptcy.