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Old 10th May 2005, 08:27 PM   #1
mookett
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Unhappy anyone else married to compulsive spender/debtor?

I'm desperate to find someone else out there who knows what I'm going through! I've been married to a lovely man for the past 12 years, and for most of them he has been spending money and running up huge debts behind my back. These usually take the form of credit cards or loans and I usually find out because a stray letter gets through, or the bank starts calling our house. Once or twice I have been to the bank only to find all the money has gone from my account.

At the moment it appears to be under control... but I do have to check all our accounts daily. The problem is, and I guess alot of you who have had problems with husbands and porn can relate, that I cannot trust him at all, in fact to do so could be dangerous for our financial situation.

The difficulty is the secrecy. You cannot imagine the lengths an intelligent man goes to to keep debt hidden. He has had private post office boxes to send statements to, he has taken more bank statements than I can remember, disconnected the phone so the bank won't call when he's home, and consistently lied to me. He is still lying to me.

Our bank account can't sustain his spending - he always spends more that he earns. I get panic attacks whenever I see a postman near our house... is he going to deliver a letter saying we're £1,000s in debt again? No-one can offer any practical advice as it is his account and his problem.

Has anyone else been through this? I would love to know I'm not alone.
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Old 10th May 2005, 10:06 PM   #2
Concerned Reader
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Re: anyone else married to compulsive spender/debtor?

Dear mookett

I'm not sure how far this article is applicable:

http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/marriagecl...d/index13.html

I'd be surprised if you were alone and I suspect that there is more debt washing around in marriage difficulties than is recognized.

It isn't clear from the posting whether he is emptying his own account, which is the main account, or if he has somehow got authority to requisition yours.

If he has gained unauthorized access to your own account, go to the bank and request that they replace the money. If they have exceeded their authority, they will have to make good the loss.

The debt and the behaviour are actually separate issues. The behaviour is only going to be addressed by him, and probably with professional help. The debt, however, is a technical matter and I have a few suggestions, but I've never had to actually try them, so I have no idea if they would work.

First, if the house is not rented, make sure you have registered an interest in it at the Land Registry. This won't get you any property rights you don't already have, but if a lender looks at the register to decide whether to extend a loan, they can't ingore your existence. This has been tested several times when banks loaned money without checking if spouses were living there and knew about the loans, and when it comes down to it they can't recover their money if they haven't checked properly. So that source of credit would be restricted.

Secondly, consider showing demands for payments to the credit checking agencies (see article listing them http://homebuying.about.com/cs/yourc...dit_report.htm ) and leave it up to them to decide if they will reduce his credit rating, further restricting his access to credit.

Thirdly, there is a nuclear option, but it is unlikely to do the marriage much good. You could ask an accountant about your H declaring himself personally bankrupt - or even have a creditor move to have him declared bankrupt. Due to changes in the law, bankruptcy is a much less debilitating experience than it used to be. It is still nasty, but it caps debts and obliges your H to turn over financial control for a while, and then get it back in a controlled way.

Sadly, I can imagine the lengths your H goes to in order to disguise his debt and I don't want to speculate why he does that because the explanation is not at all pretty.

I'm sorry that all these suggestions are so grim and don't really deal with the problem, only the symptoms of it.
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Old 12th May 2005, 02:28 PM   #3
mookett
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Re: anyone else married to compulsive spender/debtor?

Dear Concerned Reader

Thanks very much for your reply. I've had a quick glance at that article and it looks helpful.

The accounts he has taken money from have been joint ones. so it was all legal. Now that joint account is in my name only, and he has no access to his wages, giving me some proctection. This does not stop him opening whatever account he likes though and getting credit.

Thanks very much for the debt advice. We both own the house, even though I'm not earning, so at least he cannot apply for 'secured loans' without me. He can apply for other credit if he wants to, as long as his credit score will let him. At least it's not very good now, putting the brakes on things a little. Obviously as they are all his accounts I can't actually do anything without his consent (like trying to reduce credit limits etc).

You are spot on when you say the behaviour is the problem, but again it's his problem, and I can do nothing about it. Apart from pray!!

You can see how powerless I am!!! That's why I was hoping to find someone who could empathise. Many thanks for taking the time to reply though, I'm really grateful.

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Old 17th May 2005, 02:55 PM   #4
Sam888
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Re: anyone else married to compulsive spender/debtor?

I totally sympathise, we could be married to the same man!

My husband also has poor control over his spending, he ended up in IVA which put a cap on things for 5 years, however since coming out of IVA last year he has promptly run up 15000 pounds of new debt on a couple of credit cards. I confronted him about this last week when I opened a statement by accident. I feel I can't trust him, he means well, a large proportion of the IVA debt was the cost of the divorce from his first wife and a significant portion of this latest lot has been used to pay for landscaping our garden which had been badly neglected by the previous owners but he has a number of single or childless friends who have much more disposable income even though they earn less and feels that he should be able to keep up with them. He also feels compelled to keep up with the Jones (or more like the Beckhams) He also spends ridiculous amounts on our children and buys football match tickets for an unemployed friend who rarely pays it back.
Whenever I raise the issue of money he tries to avoid it or on the odd occasion when I have put our finances infront of him in black and white he goes into a sulk and makes unrealistic promises to stop all personal spending which lapses after a couple of weeks. He lies to me about how much things have cost and makes me feel like a kiljoy who doesn't want him to have any fun. I feel like his mother when it comes to money, not his wife.
His salary is twice that of mine, however I pay all the household bills and have no personal spending money at all, I feel so resentful and worry that this will poision our relationship. He's such a lovely man in so many ways but this is becoming a real bone of contention.

I have however, read the article on Sneaky Spending and I think the solutions on this may work. I think we need to work out a joint solution instead of me or the courts imposing one on him to get his buy in,I'm going to kick off the conversation tonight. I'll let you know how it goes.
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Old 17th May 2005, 06:23 PM   #5
Liz
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Re: anyone else married to compulsive spender/debtor?

Hi there

There are a number of articles and resources here designed to help those struggling with debt and spending problems.

In particular Credit Action has online advice here.

Money issues can be akin to addiction, and it can take time and effort to enable a person to face up to the damaging effects of their behaviour and why they are behaving this way. For example, a friend of mine, has just faced up to compulsive spending which she links back to insecurity which developed after her husband had an affair. There can be all sorts of complex reasons why people cannot control their spending. I hope that the resources will help you to find ways to unlock these issues in your partner and to survive financially in the mean time.

Liz
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Old 17th May 2005, 09:00 PM   #6
mookett
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Re: anyone else married to compulsive spender/debtor?

Thanks for your replies. Nice to hear from you, Sam! Wow, you seem to have been really patient and brave. I can imagine how you felt when you opened up the statement - ugh! Don't you feel really resentful too? I feel like I have had so much stolen from me. Keep me posted on the conversation...
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Old 18th May 2005, 06:10 AM   #7
alwinkster
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Unhappy Re: anyone else married to compulsive spender/debtor?

In Feb. I found out my husband of only 4 months, had a secret life. Not only did he have 5 credit cards, 3 of which i didn't know about, but also took out a loan. This equaled 12 grand in debt, at the age of 24. I never asked for it, i never even knew about it, but now I'm helping him pay it but he can't even care enough about me to call me more than 2 times a week.

I should explain, we got married in October of 04, he is in the navy and was supposed to be receiving his new orders soon. I had 2 months at work with the USDA to get my 1 year in, which i needed so we decided to stick out the 2 months.

Now, I finally find out he will be coming here for 6 weeks of training, but not until September. So two months is now almost a year and our marriage is almost over. The debt and money has caused many problems, but also the fact that I talk to him at most 2-3 times a week. He doenst care that i'm on anti depressants, that I'm miserable, or that I'm hurt. HE seems to only care about himself lately, cause he can't keep promises, call, or give up any of his spending, while I cut out everything in my life to help him pay.

He got this debt from online gambling. he always had good luck, won big in vegas, played with play money online then kept winning, went to real money cause he was bored, won, then started losing, then he knew I was starting to know he was still doing this (because now it was coming from out joint account) so he gambled more to try and win it back and took out a loan. The whole time I am thinking we are ok.

Now grad school is def. not an option and i feel guilty because he kept telling me we were ok with money so there are a lot of things we could have cut out. Like our wedding bands, never could afford it, not that we got huge ones, but more than we could afford so now I feel guilty, but I also just feel sad because I spent over a year of my life devoted to that wedding and i became the wedding planner, not the bride. That night i was more worried about if everything was ok and doing my job and i didn't hardly get to have any fun. I wasnt even around him except for the required dances, i was then greeting the people while he was partying. And no one, not even him, asked me to dance or said i even looked ok. Your wedding day everyone is supposed to tell you that you are beautiful, even if its a lie!!!!

I'm at a point i dont know what to do anymore, i want to help him but I cant ruin my life to help him if he isnt even goinng to care, when it was his debt in the first place. he's gone on 3 boys trips, i've had none except our trip at the end of the month to florida which is probably going to suck since i havent even talked to him in almost a week. pretty sad when you have to lie to your parents about your husband and make excuses why he never calls when I'm home for the weekend. I'm beginning to think this was the biggest mistake of my lifeand that makes me sad because i love him so much, and he used to love me and make me feel like I was the most important person in the world. He blames the distance, but he is just lazy and doesnt want to stay up to call etc. guess his life is more important than mine. I'm just stuck to my meds and wine i guess. wow and Im only 24, hate to see me when im 70!
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Old 22nd May 2005, 09:08 PM   #8
mookett
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Re: anyone else married to compulsive spender/debtor?

Hi alwinkster!

Just wrote you a long reply and then lost it all! I need to get off computer now (H wondering where I am!) but I just wanted to say you are not alone, and I'll reply again tomorrow.
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Old 24th May 2005, 09:43 PM   #9
mookett
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Re: anyone else married to compulsive spender/debtor?

Hi alwinkster.

Sorry, just written you a long post, and it doesn't seem to like it! Lost it all again, so I'll be brief...

Does your H think he has a gambling problem? Can he access Gamblers Anon in the navy?

Do you have to help him pay his debts? I just wonder if you're helping him avoid a valuable lesson here.

I wonder if the spiteful comments and uncaring nature are due to the fact that he feels guilty? I know with my own H when the problem is more under control he is much nicer to me than when it isn't. In fact, a bad attitude towards me on his part is often an alarm bell!

You can come through this if you want to, it's not impossible. If he can get the gambling sorted, you could see - no gambling = no debt = no guilt = lovely husband!!

Please don't turn to alcohol and anti-depressants (not recommended). Can you see a counsellor yourself for support? Keep me updated.
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