My new husband came into my life with a substantial amount of debt from his last marriage, so much that his weekly repayments are taking half his wage.
He refuses to consolidate, but I feel he doesn't want anyone looking through his financial situation. Now this effects me greatly because we have a child on the way.
He won't budge, so my question is. I know his debt is now my debt, but how do I deal with the anger and resentment towards him for not thinking of his new family first??
3 Replies
You'll have to sit down with him and figure out how your money is going to work, to what extent it will be shared. Reading these threads every family does it differently whatever works for them. He may think that part is his and 100% his to deal with (make decisions). So discuss your roles first, and then if you agree you'll both manage everything you could then discuss ideas about arranging finances including consolidating his debt so you are both on the same page.
I think you have to accept you went into this knowing the situation. You also played your part. You should have had this sorted before you got married, when you get married men don't magically change there mindset. Things are what they are before a marriage and before a pregnancy, they very rarely change because if a wedding and because of a baby..
1. his debt is not now your debt. no one can nor will ever chase you for his debt.
2. he can declare bankruptcy this wont impact your financials.
3. if anyone gets chased it will be his ex wife if her name is on any of it.
4. don't help him pay it and don't compensate him by financially supporting him removing the burn of paying that debt. he incurred it let him feel it we all must have our learning curves in life.
5. consolidating and refinancing it, it may become your debt if you allow your name and credit rating to be used to facilitate the consolidation. so BE CAREFUL!
This may sound harsh, its a bit of tough love. I have been a second wife to a man who is very irresponsible money wise.
Don't get involved, don't lessen the blow, don't encourage him to declare bankruptcy. mine did and then basically expected my credit rating to carry him through it and he almost bankrupted me twice. then imploded on our marriage within months of his bankruptcy being discharged and I being permanently injured.
I learned very quickly not to have credit cards and to hide my purse. Any money I received was taken quickly even at times business associates paid for work with goods and services because he took everything. He would offer to help me with the errands during pregnancy by depositing money at banks for payments. Which I later discovered was being withdrawn again before he even left the counter. He deposited it only long enough to obtain a receipt for my records.
I would do bookkeeping and tax returns. I am a paperchaser by habit, I record EVERYTHING. I'm actually not as anally retentive about it as he likes to think, I just make sure my cheque book balances and nothing balanced in all the years I lived with him (Yes I actually had a cheque book I AM that old). I received all of $40 a fortnight worth of Parenting Pension in the months after we separated. I let it deposit in an old account thinking it would accumulate as savings and lived off my wages which I was depositing in a completely different bank in accounts I had newly opened post separation. after 6 months I looked and found the balance was nil. while I had spent an entire day at the bank separating all accounts the bank and I had missed or there had been an error in removing his access to my accounts via phone banking. Every time it went in, he took it out.
Watch for things like that. I am not saying your's will but it is a red flag to have that much debt whether divorced or not, watch for the sake of protecting yourself. He also progressively sold off every personal belonging I had owned since before we married which wasn't either bolted down or on open display regularly seen. I couldn't even fill a fruit box with what I still possess of what I owned before I entered the marriage and yet it was I who had set up our home. all he had was a suitcase of paperwork.
he wasn't a drinker, he wasn't a gambler, and he wasn't a drug addict, he is just ridiculously bad with money. thousands vanished in a week, still no idea where it went *poof*.
he was also hiding how much he was actually earning diverting everything above a set amount into an account with a different bank. skimming the top off including his progressive pay rises and claiming Child support was bankrupting him. I only found out the full scale of it after his daughter moved home and after we separated he still brought his taxes to me to help him through it. he was earning more than double than he was revealing to me.
Just from what I can track he ripped me off for at least $14 000 over 7 years with most of it occurring prior to our first separation 3 years before our final, which was bills, rent, insurances not paid with his depositing trick, which I paid out during the separation because it was my credit rating and the rest was the final separation and why I kicked him out.
He bald faced emptied my bank account on December 12th while I was at work of the wages of a temp job and a new job I had just started, all of which was to pay for Christmas as he had swiped the Christmas money months prior. When confronted his solution was to cancel Christmas so my solution was to leave a shoe print on his arse when I booted him out the door, and then he deliberately racked up a $3000 phone bill in my name out of spite.
This began in the days before internet banking even existed. Money is a great deal easier to track now, However credit ratings are 100 times more fragile, simply late payments are enough to destroy it. keep an eye on it.
Let him learn from this because if he doesn't now he never will. he is a big boy, big and ugly enough to clean up his mess. there are lessons to learn in cleaning up after ones self.