**warning - LONG post**
Any advice is welcomed & appreciated right now!
Been with my partner for 4.5 yrs. we have 4 kids between us including 1 of our own.
He’s shared snippets of info over the years about his poor credit history, I’ve witnessed first hand how he can splurge without thinking & constantly taking his account into arrears.
We have a car in our names & have recently built a brand new home which has put us into considerable debt.
We both work full time & hold stable employment - hence the new home & being able to afford repayments etc.
He was honest about his first lot of debt - $10,000, which once He told me, which was early in our relationship, we started making regular repayments & have reduced this by over 1/2.
We were due to get married later this year, however, after I found out about his 2nd debt - $5,000 I cancelled the wedding, & took control of his finances. He gets an allowance every week & once it’s gone, too bad. His wage covers his child support, our mortgage & his allowance per week but there is next to nothing left afterwards. My wage covers day care, school fees, all of our utilities, groceries & the very few activities we do & again, not much left over.
Last night a knock on the door came & a guy was standing there to serve him papers. Basically he has 21days to come up with $21,000 or he will be declared bankruptcy.
Apart from the lies & betrayal & all the other emotional shit my head is spinning with, I need to know what on earth do I do!!!
Yes, I sent him to our broker today. We are to get our house evaluated & pray that it comes back higher than what we owe so we can try & “borrow” more money & tack it onto our home loan.
My fear is that we fall short.. Opting for a personal loan is out of the question. No one would look at us now.
Surely I’m the only one that would be foolish enough to have this shit happen to her, but if by some stretch of the imagination that anyone else out there has experienced this I would love some words of anything right now.
No. I am not leaving him. I love him despite his flaws & despite the lies, betrayal etc.
No, I’m not scared of him, I’ve walked out on my ex husband for other reasons & successfully raised my daughter alone & am more than capable of raising her & my son alone too.
So please don’t tell me to pack up!
If you have made it this far, thank you...
One incredibly stressed out mum..
6 Replies
Go to salvos or ring them for free financial counseling, they can help with advice and negotiate with the debt collectors. Sorry to say tho but ur hubby sounds very dishonest considering it's not the 1st time his lied about money. Big Red flag! Good luck!
Sadly, there isn’t much you can do if you cannot come up with the money. If he is declared bankrupt the trustee will take control of his share of the house and “you” will be asked to buy him out. If you can’t then they will go ahead and sell it. If you have a secure full time job and good credit could you get a loan to cover his debt? Is there anyone you could borrow money from eg family? Bankruptcy sucks. I have seen many friends lose everything including their marriage because of their partners deceit.
It's really not that much in the big scheme of things! Not worth going bankrupt for anyway. Does he have anything he can sell to help? Car, toys? How did he get approved for a home loan with bad debt anyway?
I reckon the first thing you want to do is understand the debt. What's it for? Is this in addition to the original $10k you're paying down and the $5k you found? Was it credit cards, personal loans, defaulting on bills?How did he spend it? If he still has things he bought with that money sell them and put every cent towards the debts. Ask for a debt consolidation so it's one bigger debt and one repayment. It's in their interest to get their money so it should be accepted, you guys can discuss it directly with them or go through a 3rd party. Mybudget might be a good fit for you, it can't hurt to ask. Look at downgrading. Cars, the house if need be, cheaper byo phone plans and all non essentials need to go. He needs financial counselling to understand his position and how this impacts the whole family, it's something to do together so you also understand what's driving his need. Any chance its undiagnosed and untreated mental health issues? It's not an excessive amount so I'd hope you can get it under control without losing the house but he needs to really get it. It is a possibility and he is in the driving seat here. He'll make your family work or he'll break it by not changing his habits. In my opinion he needs to work really hard to improve his pay to bring more in to help cover the cost of his choices, to live with the consequences he's bought about. A second job, making things at home to sell as a hobby, upskilling for a better paying job - whatever it takes to make this right. I wish you guys all the best. I'm sure he hasn't deliberately put you all in this position, he'll have to work his ass off to get you all back out of it though.
Did he know about it? How did it escalate to this without you knowing? I have no issue with things coming back to bite you if you're now more responsible but it sounds like he has been hiding things from you that affect your life too and that's a major red flag.
Firstly, that’s not even how bankruptcy works. It’s not automatically declared on anyone by anyone else. There needs to be a day in court and before that happens, you can do a formal payment plan to pay the amount down and YOU decide how much you can afford to pay per week/ fortnight/ month based on your income and outlays.
I know this because I’ve been through it. In the paperwork that he was served with their should be all of the details of the creditor/s and the amounts.