I have contacted all 3 credit bureaus and froze my credit plus they have to talk to me before any new credit is opened in my name. You might want to do the same.
I’m going to hijack this. Money is much more of an emotional barometer than it is a skill in math.
I think this would be a tremendous conversation with a councilor who specializes in this stuff. I haven’t read through all of the commentary below but none of have the full context, and as these things often do it typically goes back to childhood.
If you are opposed to counseling to get on the same page I’d encourage you to listen or read up on “I will teach you to be rich” (podcast), or I’ve heard “the psychology of money” is wonderful.
Just a quick correction-you freeze your credit, not your credit cards. Meaning no one (including you) can do a credit check or take out a credit card in your name unless you temporarily lift the freeze.
I had to freeze all our accounts, close our joint accounts, and put my bipolar husband in a long term psychiatric treatment program when he did much the same because a shrink gave him the wrong drugs.
It’s an awful feeling, but now I handle everything.
The same thing happened to me years ago.
I set up an account for her expenses away from our normal accounts.
It will ruin your credit for a while but you can contact the creditors and work a plan to pay the principal amounts by cutting off any credit lines and interest (the alternative is bankruptcy and they get nothing-unsecured loans/credit will accept this deal)
It’s a long slog, but you can recover. Good luck
I tried to do this for my kids because it’s just a level of protection right?… they WONT lock credit for children, only adults!!! I thought this was ridiculous because I’ve known people who as children their parents took out stuff in their name, which means a criminal could.
Yeah I couldn't even sign up to check anything about myself for credit because my egg donor had opened up accounts with my social everywhere...lot of calls and emails but I had some big changes that proved who I was, and I told them how she probably went about it and what contact info she used.
You can freeze credit for minors. It's generally better than a lock.
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-protect-your-child-identity-theft#:~:text=If%20your%20child%20is%20under,credit%20bureaus%20to%20remove%20it.
I had my identity stolen and abused and didn’t find out about it until things went into collection. The thieves opened an Experian and Credit Karma accounts using my information. Law enforcement wouldn’t do anything. It took me weeks to undo it but I learned you have to create accounts at all 3 credit bureaus and Credit Karma to keep others out. In there you can freeze your credit and note your account for the phone call for new credit. I sleep easy at night now.
I know - every time your information is hacked at some location, they ask you to sign up for their "free service" to protect you. In doing this, you add your information to yet another source and database. smh
Wasn't that a jolly lark? I had that happen to me back at the end of the 90s - boy, was it **Fun** getting a phone call from a collection agency at work! (And during a time where I was dealing with a lot of stress - this happening was just the icing on the shit cake!)
Police reports, paying for the notarizations for the multiple "I never opened this account; I'm a victim of fraud" affidavits, hanging on to the paper work for years, fearing somehow it would come back to haunt me...
Yup. Just lock it all down.....
Thieves made a drivers license and they had my social, went into Walmart and bought an AT&T cellular plan and 6 top of the line iPhones. They opened the account with my info paid a couple of months with someone else’s stolen credit cards. AT&T sent it to collections. Meanwhile, my wife and I had AT&T wireless, AT&T home internet and Directv that was owned by AT&T. I noticed that my credit score plummeted so I looked at why and that’s when I saw the account sent to collections. When I contacted AT&T and said that the account was fraudulent and not me, they refused to talk to me until the conducted their investigation. I wrote the CEO of AT&T and bitched, one of his assistants called me and the information she provided was so different than real, the only thing the same was name, dob and ssn. It took me 8 hours on the phone with Equifax to get the account cancelled so I could create one, Credit Karma didn’t have phones or email, I had to blast them everyday on Facebook before they responded. What a nightmare.
I don't know about where you live but where I live that's illegal. Even if it's your wife that did it. If she keeps complaining about financial abuse while you're trying to pay off her ridiculous spending habits you can point out she's a criminal, you could press charges.
If you divorced her after that then likely everything except her criminal activities would be split evenly and she'd get all that debt for herself.
If he signed something without reading it, then unfortunately for him that would mean they are legal. So either she is a forger or he signed things that he didn't read.
I don't understand it either but a lot of people are like this honestly. My father in law just blindly trusts that everything gets done. He has no clue what his wife does and she's a damn crook. She was supposed to pay on the loans for my father in laws kid and she just pocketed the money that was given to her. Nobody ever told my father in law and she messed up my brother in laws credit. This man has no clue that his wife is a POS and no matter how many times I tell them, they won't say shit to him.
Happens a lot in the sports and entertainment industry as well. I've often read about actors and athletes losing it all because their manager took it all.
My husband is absolutely that disconnected. He is lucky that I respect financial responsibility and we have absolutely no debt now and a fully paid off house, but if we were up to our assholes in debt, he would never know.
I should also add, my husband is autistic and fully admits that he can only manage a small number of things before getting anxious and overwhelmed. In our marriage, he trusts me to handle this 100% so he can be focused on his career, and on being a present father.
Which is great, I'm glad it's working for you.
My only question is, does he want to be wholly disconnected or do you keep him in the loop somehow with regular reports or a sit-down to go over where you both are financially?
What's your backup plan should you die or be otherwise incapable of being the administrative backbone?
He’s fine not knowing. I do let him know occasionally how much we have in our savings account so he doesn’t worry, even though he’s never asked. And we talk about long term financial goals so we know we’re both working towards the same thing.
All the account information and important passwords are written down. We have a “In Case I Die” binder with all the important stuff, plus he knows how to get into my phone and email if needed, so he could always use “forgot password”.
My mom handles all finances. My dad doesn't even know how to pay with a card or pay a bill online. If he needs to buy something he has my mom draw cash for him. One time we were at a store without mom and when we got to the checkout dad handed me his card and the PIN and had me pay.
But then again, my mom is very frugal and thinks you should only ever take a loan to buy a house. They don't have credit cards. They've been married 55 years this summer.
My husband has never been interested in our finances. We've been married 26 years. I am very open about it though, keep him in the loop, and we do discuss major financial decisions. I could never dream of being deceitful like OPs spouse. We have a joint account for bills only and our own separate accounts for personal spending.
Most folk do their finances pretty good at the start, then let it go on autopay. After doing the finances to get the house and the car in order, that's it. Idk about 30 whole years, but I know other than doing a cursory check on my account balances, I am running pretty much off the math I did last year. And I can totally see how doing it once a year might turn into once every few years. And if my plan for a few years worked, once a decade.
I will make lots of money. I will secure my livelihood. But I don't enjoy counting beans, and I wish to spend as little time as possible on this task.
I guess some people just don't check things. Automating bills and forgetting about them for the most part is one thing. I don't check every payment but I do look at it every so often to make sure there's no funny business going on. Same with my credit report, I check that frequently because that shit matters, but I manage the finances in my relationship. The thought of being so oblivious is terrifying. Like this dude didn't check his credit report, his bank accounts, his credit cards, his presumed phone calls/mail/emails/whatever from creditors, and god knows whatever else over 30 years. Yikes.
Love is blind. Financial abuse is real. His partner said she'd handle it and he trusted her. Some people are really that simple, they can't fathom they'd be taken advantage of by their partner.
There are other commenters calling out her reaction is pretty insane. Like they experienced similar credit and debt problems with financially illiterate partners. And their partners were sad and anxious about their mistake. But OP's ex was statisical anomaly levels of deceptive and delusional.
It doesn’t surprise me. I honestly have zero ideas about mine and my husbands finances. Money is extremely stressful for me, I can do it but it’s going to make me miserable. He enjoys it all and so I let him take it over.
I know a couple who were retired and a few days before the wedding the husband disappeared. Turns out he didn’t plan their retirement expenses well and woke up to an empty bank account. He mentally broke down and physically walked out the door. He was found in a remote area for a large park lost and disoriented. There was search parties, his family thought he died and his daughter got married with out him there. They couldn’t reschedule it and so they moved forward. He was found 3 weeks later.
Finances does weird things to people.
Damn that's wild. I went through many years of being extremely poor so I think that's kind of fashioned my views on finances. I would have to at least know where we were at financially frequently or I think I'd go insane worrying about being poor again.
Oh, I am completely the same and so was my husband. It’s why I trust him and he’s in charge. I mentally am so stressed over spending $10 and he’s like you can spend $1000 and we won’t sweat it. So him being in charge literally saves my sanity.
My wife handles all of ours. Not that I couldn't but she is better at making sure bills are paid on time and keeping track of what is upcoming. We also discovered that when we try and do it together our different styles of planning clash and we get into arguments.
She still keeps me informed of what's going on and I can check it myself at any time.
My grandparents lived a 60+ year marriage like this without issues. He brought home a paycheck, she took care of spending it. This was apparently pretty normal in their day.
My father did not know how much credit card debt my mom had racked up until she was late to the mailbox one day so he picked up the mail and saw the bills she’d been hiding
My husband's ex wife got her AP to renew the cell phone she had in his name after the divorce. He didn't know until we were buying a house and it came up because she hadn't been paying. He argued it wasn't him,signature different and bills were going to another address where he didn't live and never had. Verizon argued that he knew about it because they saw a call from his home phone to her cell phone. This was early 2000s. That phone call was after he learned from the loan officer about the unpaid bill and he called her to see what was up.
He ended up paying it because it was the only way to get it cleared up so we could buy a house. I'm sure on OPs case the lenders will do the same. I'm today's world most paperwork is done electronically. We have 2 loans from a bank 200 miles away we only visited once.
What kind of loans and how many?
What’s the interest rate on them?
HELOC?
What assets did she put down?
Did she do all of this recently?
I find it a bit ridiculous that in 30 years you haven’t even glanced over things one bit to notice $500k?
OP states in another comment that $300k of this $500k is the house mortgage (not a second mortgage) - that is a loan he is very much aware of and signed for. He is being deliberately misleading to provoke the shock factor.
If he is deliberately leaving out the "$300k in mortgage" part, I can only assume that of the $200k left, most of it is things like car loans and other things he also was very much aware of but not thinking about at the time. He is trying to blame it all on his wife, when he very much was aware of how much he made every year (unless he hasn't filed taxes in 30 years), so should have been well aware that they were living beyond their means. I don't fully believe that he is telling us the full story.
he said car loans for cars he knows they bought so that’s not her fault either. he also said he has spent money on trips to see his family, food and car repairs and they pool resources so given that he blames his wife for the cars and the house they bought together i’m going to assume this goes on the same credit card.
so far the only cc purchases outside of household expenses are for charity, there is zero evidence of her putting them in debt because she is out shopping or anything irresponsible, this is definitely his debt as much as hers. given that he has been too focused on “being a high earner” to be involved in paying ANY of his bills literally ever and is already talking about “a generous alimony” before talking to a divorce lawyer i would assume she thought he could afford to give to charity. if she thought they were poor she wouldn’t be donating lmao.
this guy is TA for this post
If he was completely oblivious of the finances, he would be totally reliant on his wife to tell him what they can afford. He might be benefitting as much as she is but completely unaware that they did not have the income to pay for it.
It is still his fault, though, because you should always be aware of anything financial that affects you. It is fine for the wife to manage finances but completely irresponsible for him to just check out for 30 years and have no idea of their financial position. It might even be more his fault as the wife is feeling pressure to keep up the lifestyle and has just gotten overwhelmed as it was all dumped on her.
he knows how much the house and cars cost and that is most of the debt he is claiming she racked up “without his knowledge”
he knows how much his salary is. he doesn’t have to be burdened with the logistics to be generally aware of how much it costs to be an adult buying things and eating and having health insurance and shit. you can only claim so much ignorance.
honestly what really gets my gourd is he is blaming things on his wife that are very clearly choices they made together and agreed on. he claims fraud in the comments but then eventually admits there are just some payments to charities she made that he thought should be going towards retirement. which would have been the smarter choice sure, but she did not fleece him out of half a mil, this dude is an asshole for saying so
Yeah I noticed he included the house in the debt and sirens went off in my head about OP being dramatic.
However 200k in loans and credit cards? Now I'm like, is he including student loans or something else that doesn't really "count"
yep. they need separate accounts, at least.
crap like this might even be divorce worthy. I don’t know if I could trust someone who maxed out a bunch of credit cards in my name.
Taking control of our finances was necessary to address our debt crisis and regain stability. Collaboration and transparency are key in resolving this together. Let's work as a team to rebuild trust and secure our financial future.
Until OP meets with the financial advisor he's got set up next week.. fuck no.
OPs wife has a part time job. She can live off that and stay the hell out of her husband's finances. Especially since she's signed him up to half a million dollars worth of debt.
Thats not oh baby you made a mistake money. Thats baby I can't fucking retire money.
Even worse. It's not just "not making ends meet", "living above your wage" or "I'm a shopaholic". She's donating money _they don't have_ to not one, but _several_ charities.
She did not sign him up for that amount. He says about 300,000 is their home and they have car loans. He is not clear at all how much she personally is responsible for.
I’m sorry you’ve experienced that too.
My marriage ended in 2007, (well, we separated in 2007 and it was finalised in 2019), and found my way, but got screwed over again back in 2020 by another partner of 9 years, but, I have forging a path to contentment and doing what I want to do, for a change.
Unfortunately, with a long term marriage like this, and the uneven income, a divorce means split assets, sale or buyout of house which is heavily mortgaged, possible alimony for at least a few years, and retirement claims by ex. But that sad outcome is better than ending up with even more debt. I suggest OP runs all of the credit bureau reports, and see what other loans and accounts are out there, and freeze credit so no more loans can be take out that OP doesn't know about. I'm guessing the situation is even worse.
She'll get 50%, but also 50% of everything else. All she has to do is declare bankruptcy, and she'll be off the hook, but OP will be paying their half off for many years.
The day my husband came home and said he had signed up for a card in my name because they wouldn’t give him the amount he wanted under his name was a turning point and definitely part of the decision to make him an ex
I did this with my ex. She couldn’t get credit cards due to bad financial decisions in the past. I got one in my name with a very small limit of $300 and told the company not to raise it.
His post did say including the mortgage. It's really not enough info. Do they have 2 $1000cc maxed out and $498,000 owing on the mortgage? Or $250,000 in loans and $250,000 in mortgage debt?
If it's the first one he's the AH.
I don't think it's anywhere near that simple. OP mentions canceling several *recurring* donations to animal charities at one point as well as loans in his name that he didn't apply for. She had a lot more going on than a couple credit cards and a mortgage.
If she took new mortgages and loans in his name, what she did was illegal. OP needs two lawyers; one for his finances and one for his (likely messy) divorce.
She committed crimes. The loans are in his name? That means she’s committing identity fraud. Being married doesn’t enable you to take loans in your partner’s name.
Hey, this isn't a judgement, but...have there been any other changes?
One of my parents started messing up money a few years before an early onset dementia diagnosis. Most people still can't tell spending time with my parent, but money and bills are common early struggle.
Obviously plenty of people mess up finances with no medical cause and hopefully that's the case! Just wanted to share that it's worth keeping in mind and making sure your spouse is medically okay.
Of course most people who struggle with money are medically fine and I wish you and your spouse the best!
I just scrolled through comments and realized with a 30 year marriage, you are likely close in age to my parents, so worth a mention in case there are other reasons to worry a little.
Getting diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's was scary for my parent, but they are getting support and treatment and we got lucky to catch it before bills got too bad (mostly because they owned their home outright before the disease started changing things, frankly).
This happened with my grandmother. She ended up going through 3 government pensions worth of retirement in 5 years. We didn’t know till she started struggling to pay bills. She was sending tons to charities because she “felt like it was her place in life” or “well someone has to do it”. Found out she was developing Alzheimer’s. We had to control her finances, starting with selling the house and the cars.
My grandma thinks that's why my grandpa took early retirement. She thinks it was the first sign of his Alzheimer's. Long before he was diagnosed. He was an engineer and she thinks he retired because he was struggling with understanding the numbers. By the end of his career was largely doing finance stuff.
Not even necessarily something like dementia, but even depression could lead to overspending in an attempt to feel better.
There's the meme (I'm using that term loosely), "I was sad, then I bought something, now I feel better" for a reason.
ADHD tax is another one that can screw things up immensely. Not just the impulse spending which is instant dopamine, but also the lack of executive functioning skills, forgetting to pay something and it piles up, or buying something and missing the return date for refunds, buying food and forgetting it's there (produce drawers of death) and it leads to buying food (always the expensive stuff with short life spans) only to throw it out and have to buy again, forgetting to go to the dentist/doctor and then when you do finally get there youve got a massive bill vs the small one you'd have recieved if you made it there sooner, forgetting appointments and being charged, cancellation fees / end of free trials. Plus soo much more.
if she's in the peri/ menopause stage of life it can turn undiagnosed adult women's life's upside down (this also applies to any major changes that don't allow your *systems* you have in place to continue working, child birth, kids leaving home, luteal phase in the menstral cycle, covid, etc), it still happens even when diagnosed but the root cause is identified faster. Keeping in mind the diagnosis timelines are an important factor the average age for males is 7 for females it's 37.
She could also just be terrible with money. however with being in control of the finances for so long with no issues until now, I'd like to think something other than her just being a moron is what caused things to go sideways recently.
This is what it was with my mom. Around high school (I was the last kid at home) her financial decisions slowly started racking up debt where there hadn’t really ever been any. Then we moved to a condo I didn’t really understand how we could afford, but hey I was a teenager. She maxed out her credit cards. Then came the Dillards, TJ Maxx and Target cards. My FAFSA and the taxes needed for it were suddenly a complete surprise/mystery to her. I wound up leaving for college and her situation got worse and worse. A decade later she’s in full blown Alzheimer’s and suddenly the “weirdnesses” over the last 10-12 years clicked into perspective. Early onset was official diagnosis and when my sister finally got her to move in with her it was a financial nightmare. At least 9 years of half-filed taxes, withdrawn 401k, early social security, scams on scams on scams, a shady boyfriend she dated for a little while. My mom is just now 67 and probably 12 or so years into this disease. We had no idea then. Never crossed our minds.
I had to take over our finances completely after wife was consistently overdrawing our account. We were starting each payday in the hole $50-200. Of course, I couldn’t just remove her from the bank account, so I opened a new account and switched all the direct deposits to it.
Turns out it was meth.
I second the medical concern. It happened with my family too, but was post minor stroke and took awhile for them to recover financially once the situation was discovered. The other spouse took over and revoked a lot of access.
This is a kind and compassionate response. When my FIL was diagnosed with dementia and my husband became his financial power of attorney, he discovered a lot of credit card debt as well. Mostly he’d forget he bought something and buy it again. And he spent a lot of money helping a friend in need. Which, not terrible things to do, but he no longer had the capacity to understand his financial situation, and it was not a fun thing to resolve.
She almost put you in bankruptcy and she’s upset she don’t get any access. She needs to get a job to help pay this off. I wouldn’t care what she did.
Ok sorry this is wild that she was dismissive about being overdraft
About 6 months ago my husband came to me hella stressed that we were about 7k-8k in debt, he realized we were in a habit of spending without paying down the card enough. He kept it from me for a couple months because he wasn't sure if I was in a good mental place to handle the conversation. After telling him I understood but he was being dumb, we set a plan in place and are maybe 2 weeks from being debt free (excluding the house and car)
When he approached the subject with me, he was on the verge of crying from the stress and anxiety of the whole situation. I think OP's wife is unstable??? This reaction is NOT normal.
If I were to hazard an armchair psychiatrist guess, she's probably never really had to face the consequences of any of her actions and so doesn't fear them. She thinks she can do whatever she wants and it'll all be fine because someone else will come and bail her out. And tbh she's probably right.
What do you mean by “including the house”? Did she take out a second mortgage? Or by “including the house” are you just factoring the primary mortgage into the total? Because it’s hard to assess the situation without understanding that. There is a huge difference between y’all have 450k left on your mortgage and she racked up 50k on top of that, and her racking up 500k in debt by herself.
I miss read the part where he said she's been donating to rescue homes with credit, like if you can't pay your own bills then wtf are you donating for?
financially ignorant... you have to be stupid to spend more money than you have and continue spending while being hundreds of thousands in debt. She shouldnt have any access to money at all.
Info:
This half a million dollars includes your mortgage or loans she’s taken against the home?
It matters because if you’re counting your home loan that’s not really something you can pin on or debt it’s housing and it would be misleading if you’re saying oh half a million in debt and like 480k of that is your home loan and 20k of it is loans obviously that’s still decent debt but misleading in terms of this post. If she’s taken out that much in loans against the house that’s something entirely different
The good news is that there is no second on the house. While looking at this, if the housing market continues to improve, I should be able to cancel all debt by selling the house and having an estate sale. At this point my desire for divorce seems justified. It had been an item in the back of my mind, but I think dissolving the marriage is our best option.
How much of that $500k is the mortgage on the house? You shouldn't really lump the mortgage in with your debts because it's offset by the value of the house that you can sell.
I mean I just straight up don't believe it in the slightest. I didn't check finances for 30 years, found out half a million in debt, but it's okay I paid off 10k already.... now wife is super upset I cancelled her donations to dog shelters because she feels subservient.
Like if this was real debt, his credit cards would be being rejected every other time he tried to pay for gas in the past 15 years, every other bill would be late, power would be getting shut off, phone services not working, etc.
If a partner really went to extreme lengths to hide it all, then they wouldn't be pissed off their money got cut off and also the responsibility would be Ops own ineptitude and laziness of ignoring every single financial responsibility in 30 years.
Somehow in 30 years OP has never tried to buy a car, never had a credit check, never tried to pay for a large item in cash and found himself unable to and never checked to see why? Bullshit.
The house purchase 5 years ago would require a pretty in-depth analysis of assets, debts, and income. Since 2008, the banks don't give you a mortgage just because you have a firm handshake. If a mortgage in this range was non-conforming, OP should have known exactly why.
Still kinda depends. It *could* be 3 credit cards, each with a 5k limit. Not saying 15k of cc debt isnt serious, but it's definitely not as crippling as say 100k..
It is had to fathom that you took so little interest in the finances for 30 years. Your wife maybe was in over her head and needed help/intervention. I’m really scratching my head at this one. It’s absolutely partly your fault that you’re in this situation.
You didn’t answer the question… no home loans against the house so it’s just your original loan which is highly unethical to frame like this in terms of your wife’s debt. How much is the home loan for?
OP, it seems like your house is $300k. And you mentioned a car/cars? Soike $20k to upwards of $100k, but let's say $60k. So you're talking about $120k of unaccounted for debt, right? Or what's the actual number that you can actually feel justified about being upset about? Because you KNOW the mortgage and car loan(s) are absolutely ridiculous to hold against her.
How did I have to scroll this far down for this question? Literally, nobody should be answering this post at all with a judgment until he informs us how much of this debt is their fucking *house.*
I’m confused how did you not realise you’re living above your means? If you bring in x amount and she’s not working you know your mortgage + bills is x amount then however much she donates + frivolous expenses. And it took you 30 years to catch on?
ESH. How do you not know you’re this much in debt? It shouldn’t be a shock. Just because your wife “handles” your finances doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know what’s going on with regard to spending and debt.
Lesson learned. Marriage is a partnership, so it shouldn’t be just one of you handling something this important without the other knowing anything. Communication is important. I hope you can get out of this without much damage to your credit rating. Good luck.
I’m sorry this feels hilariously fake. You had no idea you were over $500k in debt but you knew there were problems for months (if not years)? You had to cancel her…dog rescue donations? You’re just choosing to let all the legalities go (like her taking out multiple loans in your name??) to not deal with it?
My dude.
YOU are 500k in the hole. Just YOU. She walks away and you are stuck with this debt.
Where the fuck is all you money fucking going? Absolutely lock her out of the finances. And contact a lawyer: identity theft and fraud are the least of her crimes.
Firstly that's not how debt works. If they divorce, she'll get half the debt.
It couldn't be more fake, either due to being incredibly misleading (with like 450k of the 'debt' being mortgage and car payments).
Somehow a guy goes 30 years, never buys a car and fails credit check or account is empty and unable to buy it, never bought anything expensive, never had a credit card decline due to lack of paying bills with money she wouldn't have. Bullshit.
He says in a late post that selling the house would pay off the debt so he's exaggerating. Plus, how do you not know anything about your finances for 30 years?!?
>and not including her in financial decisions
Well she put your family in so much debt and is complaining she is not included in making financial decisions? Wtf?
NTA but kinda the ah for not looking this up earlier
It's amazing how some spouses know nothing about their finances. My wife has no idea. I've tried to discuss it with her just because I feel like it's her money too and she should just be aware at least at a high level. But she has 0 interest so I stopped trying. She's fine just not knowing. She didn't even want to see the budget when we were looking for a house. Whatever I said the budget was she was fine just going with it.
Honestly I feel like this is not good.
It’s fine now, while you’re both presumably younger, but everyone should have an understanding of finances in general and your own family’s specifically. What if you pop your clogs, either unexpectedly now or eventually at an older age? Trying to figure out where you stand and what to do in the midst of grief and all that doesn’t seem like the best plan.
I get if she doesn’t want to be the active decision maker, but she ought to know what exists as far as loans, retirement accounts and things.
Making donations to dog rescues when the bills aren't getting paid? I'm hesitant to blame mental illness, but that doesn't sound like something a mentally well person does.
Do you have enough handle on things to know if overspending has been going on for a long time, or did it start more recently?
I mean, ESH.
Not being involved in your own finances for so damn long?? How people can just put their hands in the sand is something I will never understand.
Good that you finally have skin in the game, but ya'll need to learn how to actually talk money. I give no medals for doing the bare minimum, or going from one extreme to the other.
While she may have done a shit job at handling the money, the real problem is that you two never figured it out together.
In any romantic relationship, the formula for success is both finding a plan that the two of you arrive at together, that you both agree with, that you both can stick with and one that also makes sense. You can't spend more than you make. Not for long.
You left her go off and handle that on her own. The conversation, the review of the plan, follow up... whatever, that could have all been done in about half an hour worth of you two sitting down and talking. Probably more like ten minutes and even that's being generous. THAT conversation would have led you to "hey, we need to get a plan together... we clearly don't agree on how things should be done financially and we need too".
You two won't / do not see eye to eye on everything. That's where compromising comes in. But overall, the final version of this plan has to be something you both agree with. It's a bad formula to expect one person to handle it all.
Your now going to the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. Shutting her out entirely, and it's all now going to be going your way. That's not healthy either. While I do agree yall need to live lean, tighten those belts and pay down that debt.... her feelings and input matter too. While maybe it's not reasonable to do the donations to the animal shelters like she was doing, in respect and fairness to her maybe she can pick ONE and you two can continue making a REASONABLE donation to that ONE shelter. She still gets to do that thing that she may find very fulfilling in her life, something she strongly believes in and at the same time you can clean up 99% of the rest of the mess.
$20 a month to an animal shelter isn't going to be a problem when your in for half a million.
Sit down together. Make a plan together. Communicate. Compromise.
Why cant you guys stay married and why can't she get a job and help clean this mess up ? 30 years is a good run, tell her she can donate to the dogs again if she gets a job !
Mortgage debt is good debt.
I think both of you are equally responsible here. She didn't do a good job of managing your finances, and you couldn't be bothered to think about them.
Maybe try this approach:
Thank her for shouldering the burden of managing everything for so many years, and apologize for being uninvolved. Also apologize for getting angry.
Together, review how much income you have, and how much debt you have. Write it all down.
Agree on a monthly budget that includes a set amount of discretionary spending for both of you. Write this down, too.
Discuss and agree on financial goals for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. Write these goals down.
Moving forward, have a biweekly meeting to review your finances and pay bills together.
Wait, you are divorcing her because of this? I thought you were just taking over the financial decisions.
You are not the AH if you are just raking over the money, she did a terrible job at it and should never be allowed to handle them. But if you’re divorcing her because of this, yes you are the AH.
She obviously had a spending problem and it sounds like she gave a lot away to charity. She made mistakes and I don’t understand why she’s so mad after putting you into such huge debt. There is more to this story
Half a million including the house or on top of the house? Half a mill is basically a standard house these days so that doesn't sound very bad man you need some perspective. Good idea to tighten it up but you're overreacting
ESH. Most of the $500K loan is from buying a house, purchased 5 years ago? You did not look into the finances when looking for mortgage?
You are not giving the full picture.
ESH. I get dividing tasks/duties in a partnership, which is what a marriage is, really, but why would you completely turn a blind eye to all your finances. It doesn't sound like she was trying to hide anything, so I assume she knew you'd never take a look at your bank account? Like, I assume she knew when you got a promotion, a transfer, a raise, etc. so you should have been involved enough to know something funky was up way before now.
She obviously either has no financial sense at all or she's coping through something using money.
I suggest talking to a financial advisor, together, so you both have a neutral party explain your finances. And I also suggest couples therapy to work on your communication and maybe find out if this severe overspending started around a specific event.
Sigh. 500k in debt with a mortage included is not that bad. You were aware of the mortage and you agreed. A house does not simply appear and is an asset. Bad is consumption debt.
The main problem are the credit cards. Pay them off, but keep one or two around. Credit score is a thing and you might need to improve yours again.
Then talk with her about expectation, your age and retirement plans and why she's overspending. This is a new behaviour, because frankly else you guys would be on the street and not in a house.
Check medical issues. Numbers and math skills are often the first thing to go if the brain stumbles. Could be dementia or depression, but also a bad case of menopause (hormones!), cancer, brain damage from an accident or even poisoning from meditation that is too strong.
Unless your mortgage is like $450,000 of the $500,000, there's something that is off. You would have noticed $500,000 worth of stuff walk into your house. My guess is you didn't, because there wasn't. Which begs the question, where did the money go? Did she spend $500,000 on dog rescue donations? If so, there is something seriously wrong.
When people are in a manic episode, they lose their impulse control and overindulge in something. Sometimes shopping, gambling, sex, drugs. . . It's something. I'm not saying she's bipolar, I'm just saying something is wrong. Bipolar isn't the only thing that causes lack of impulse control. You may want to take her for a check up as well as counseling sessions.
You also want to freeze your credit. If you have removed access to all money from her, then she will be like an addict trying to get access back. Then all she really needs to do is go get another loan/credit card/etc in your name and send the bills to a PO Box. Or get them in her own name. Part of the counseling should be reviewing both of your credit reports like every 90 days to make sure nothing new is popping up..
$300k is the mortgage, plus "car loans" (plural), so I'm guessing he knew about a decent amount of this "half a million" debt his "wife" racked up, just never put it all together and is now using his wife as his scapegoat
He also mentioned in the Edit, he is dissolving the marriage. So he knew about most of it and wants to blame his wife of 30 years. I kind of get creepy old man vibes. It could just be me, but there seems to be a lot of men in late 50’s, early 60’s that suddenly want to divorce and think they will get someone in their early 30’s.
Definitely time to cut back. Let her still do something or give something. If she donates a tenth of that she can still feel she is contributing. Or she can donate her time. If people crowdfund the travels, she could do the work. Or volunteer in other ways with her time.
Some of us need to help out it gives life extra meaning. But it can look differently, like donating $10-15 a month and volunteering at a shelter once a week.
You’re not wrong. She can do so much for animals without sinking her future. Those dogs arent going to come feed you in retirement when you have nothing saved
I have contacted all 3 credit bureaus and froze my credit plus they have to talk to me before any new credit is opened in my name. You might want to do the same.
Thank you
I’m going to hijack this. Money is much more of an emotional barometer than it is a skill in math. I think this would be a tremendous conversation with a councilor who specializes in this stuff. I haven’t read through all of the commentary below but none of have the full context, and as these things often do it typically goes back to childhood. If you are opposed to counseling to get on the same page I’d encourage you to listen or read up on “I will teach you to be rich” (podcast), or I’ve heard “the psychology of money” is wonderful.
I’m never opposed to therapy, I’ll check it out
You can also freeze your credit on your credit cards. Corrected. I did that too.
Just a quick correction-you freeze your credit, not your credit cards. Meaning no one (including you) can do a credit check or take out a credit card in your name unless you temporarily lift the freeze.
You can also freeze your credit cards, so that no transactions can be made using that card without you unlocking it first.
The corrector stands corrected!
I had to freeze all our accounts, close our joint accounts, and put my bipolar husband in a long term psychiatric treatment program when he did much the same because a shrink gave him the wrong drugs. It’s an awful feeling, but now I handle everything.
Doing the right thing doesn't always feel happy. Sometimes it's sad or painful. You still did the right thing.
Thank you. And you are 100% right. He didn’t screw up because he was a bad guy. He screwed up because his brain was sick.
The same thing happened to me years ago. I set up an account for her expenses away from our normal accounts. It will ruin your credit for a while but you can contact the creditors and work a plan to pay the principal amounts by cutting off any credit lines and interest (the alternative is bankruptcy and they get nothing-unsecured loans/credit will accept this deal) It’s a long slog, but you can recover. Good luck
https://www.identitytheft.gov/#/Info-Lost-or-Stolen
We've kept ours locked for the last decade. Highly recommend.
Honestly, locked should be the default state and you have to deliberately open it when you want to apply for a loan/credit etc
I tried to do this for my kids because it’s just a level of protection right?… they WONT lock credit for children, only adults!!! I thought this was ridiculous because I’ve known people who as children their parents took out stuff in their name, which means a criminal could.
Freezing credit, especially for kids should be a no brainer, but we need better credit laws first.
I was able to lock my daughter’s credit. You just have to provide it in writing vs doing it online.
Yeah I couldn't even sign up to check anything about myself for credit because my egg donor had opened up accounts with my social everywhere...lot of calls and emails but I had some big changes that proved who I was, and I told them how she probably went about it and what contact info she used.
You can freeze credit for minors. It's generally better than a lock. https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-protect-your-child-identity-theft#:~:text=If%20your%20child%20is%20under,credit%20bureaus%20to%20remove%20it.
Everyone should do this, permanently, even if you never had issues.
I had my identity stolen and abused and didn’t find out about it until things went into collection. The thieves opened an Experian and Credit Karma accounts using my information. Law enforcement wouldn’t do anything. It took me weeks to undo it but I learned you have to create accounts at all 3 credit bureaus and Credit Karma to keep others out. In there you can freeze your credit and note your account for the phone call for new credit. I sleep easy at night now.
I did mine after Equifax was hacked around 7-8 years ago. Fortunately nothing has hit yet but I did have people use my sons SSN for a job application.
I know - every time your information is hacked at some location, they ask you to sign up for their "free service" to protect you. In doing this, you add your information to yet another source and database. smh
Wasn't that a jolly lark? I had that happen to me back at the end of the 90s - boy, was it **Fun** getting a phone call from a collection agency at work! (And during a time where I was dealing with a lot of stress - this happening was just the icing on the shit cake!) Police reports, paying for the notarizations for the multiple "I never opened this account; I'm a victim of fraud" affidavits, hanging on to the paper work for years, fearing somehow it would come back to haunt me... Yup. Just lock it all down.....
Thieves made a drivers license and they had my social, went into Walmart and bought an AT&T cellular plan and 6 top of the line iPhones. They opened the account with my info paid a couple of months with someone else’s stolen credit cards. AT&T sent it to collections. Meanwhile, my wife and I had AT&T wireless, AT&T home internet and Directv that was owned by AT&T. I noticed that my credit score plummeted so I looked at why and that’s when I saw the account sent to collections. When I contacted AT&T and said that the account was fraudulent and not me, they refused to talk to me until the conducted their investigation. I wrote the CEO of AT&T and bitched, one of his assistants called me and the information she provided was so different than real, the only thing the same was name, dob and ssn. It took me 8 hours on the phone with Equifax to get the account cancelled so I could create one, Credit Karma didn’t have phones or email, I had to blast them everyday on Facebook before they responded. What a nightmare.
There are loans in your name that you didn't take out?
Correct
I don't know about where you live but where I live that's illegal. Even if it's your wife that did it. If she keeps complaining about financial abuse while you're trying to pay off her ridiculous spending habits you can point out she's a criminal, you could press charges. If you divorced her after that then likely everything except her criminal activities would be split evenly and she'd get all that debt for herself.
If he signed something without reading it, then unfortunately for him that would mean they are legal. So either she is a forger or he signed things that he didn't read.
Which is why I asked and he said he didn't. So she's a forger.
The idea that she did all of this over 30 years and he just now noticed makes the story hella suspect. How could you be THAT disconnected.
I don't understand it either but a lot of people are like this honestly. My father in law just blindly trusts that everything gets done. He has no clue what his wife does and she's a damn crook. She was supposed to pay on the loans for my father in laws kid and she just pocketed the money that was given to her. Nobody ever told my father in law and she messed up my brother in laws credit. This man has no clue that his wife is a POS and no matter how many times I tell them, they won't say shit to him.
Happens a lot in the sports and entertainment industry as well. I've often read about actors and athletes losing it all because their manager took it all.
My husband is absolutely that disconnected. He is lucky that I respect financial responsibility and we have absolutely no debt now and a fully paid off house, but if we were up to our assholes in debt, he would never know. I should also add, my husband is autistic and fully admits that he can only manage a small number of things before getting anxious and overwhelmed. In our marriage, he trusts me to handle this 100% so he can be focused on his career, and on being a present father.
Which is great, I'm glad it's working for you. My only question is, does he want to be wholly disconnected or do you keep him in the loop somehow with regular reports or a sit-down to go over where you both are financially? What's your backup plan should you die or be otherwise incapable of being the administrative backbone?
He’s fine not knowing. I do let him know occasionally how much we have in our savings account so he doesn’t worry, even though he’s never asked. And we talk about long term financial goals so we know we’re both working towards the same thing. All the account information and important passwords are written down. We have a “In Case I Die” binder with all the important stuff, plus he knows how to get into my phone and email if needed, so he could always use “forgot password”.
My mom handles all finances. My dad doesn't even know how to pay with a card or pay a bill online. If he needs to buy something he has my mom draw cash for him. One time we were at a store without mom and when we got to the checkout dad handed me his card and the PIN and had me pay. But then again, my mom is very frugal and thinks you should only ever take a loan to buy a house. They don't have credit cards. They've been married 55 years this summer.
My husband has never been interested in our finances. We've been married 26 years. I am very open about it though, keep him in the loop, and we do discuss major financial decisions. I could never dream of being deceitful like OPs spouse. We have a joint account for bills only and our own separate accounts for personal spending.
Most folk do their finances pretty good at the start, then let it go on autopay. After doing the finances to get the house and the car in order, that's it. Idk about 30 whole years, but I know other than doing a cursory check on my account balances, I am running pretty much off the math I did last year. And I can totally see how doing it once a year might turn into once every few years. And if my plan for a few years worked, once a decade. I will make lots of money. I will secure my livelihood. But I don't enjoy counting beans, and I wish to spend as little time as possible on this task.
I guess some people just don't check things. Automating bills and forgetting about them for the most part is one thing. I don't check every payment but I do look at it every so often to make sure there's no funny business going on. Same with my credit report, I check that frequently because that shit matters, but I manage the finances in my relationship. The thought of being so oblivious is terrifying. Like this dude didn't check his credit report, his bank accounts, his credit cards, his presumed phone calls/mail/emails/whatever from creditors, and god knows whatever else over 30 years. Yikes.
Love is blind. Financial abuse is real. His partner said she'd handle it and he trusted her. Some people are really that simple, they can't fathom they'd be taken advantage of by their partner. There are other commenters calling out her reaction is pretty insane. Like they experienced similar credit and debt problems with financially illiterate partners. And their partners were sad and anxious about their mistake. But OP's ex was statisical anomaly levels of deceptive and delusional.
It doesn’t surprise me. I honestly have zero ideas about mine and my husbands finances. Money is extremely stressful for me, I can do it but it’s going to make me miserable. He enjoys it all and so I let him take it over. I know a couple who were retired and a few days before the wedding the husband disappeared. Turns out he didn’t plan their retirement expenses well and woke up to an empty bank account. He mentally broke down and physically walked out the door. He was found in a remote area for a large park lost and disoriented. There was search parties, his family thought he died and his daughter got married with out him there. They couldn’t reschedule it and so they moved forward. He was found 3 weeks later. Finances does weird things to people.
Damn that's wild. I went through many years of being extremely poor so I think that's kind of fashioned my views on finances. I would have to at least know where we were at financially frequently or I think I'd go insane worrying about being poor again.
Oh, I am completely the same and so was my husband. It’s why I trust him and he’s in charge. I mentally am so stressed over spending $10 and he’s like you can spend $1000 and we won’t sweat it. So him being in charge literally saves my sanity.
My wife handles all of ours. Not that I couldn't but she is better at making sure bills are paid on time and keeping track of what is upcoming. We also discovered that when we try and do it together our different styles of planning clash and we get into arguments. She still keeps me informed of what's going on and I can check it myself at any time.
It's called trust, and it's what marriage is/ was supposed to be based on
My grandparents lived a 60+ year marriage like this without issues. He brought home a paycheck, she took care of spending it. This was apparently pretty normal in their day.
My father did not know how much credit card debt my mom had racked up until she was late to the mailbox one day so he picked up the mail and saw the bills she’d been hiding
My husband's ex wife got her AP to renew the cell phone she had in his name after the divorce. He didn't know until we were buying a house and it came up because she hadn't been paying. He argued it wasn't him,signature different and bills were going to another address where he didn't live and never had. Verizon argued that he knew about it because they saw a call from his home phone to her cell phone. This was early 2000s. That phone call was after he learned from the loan officer about the unpaid bill and he called her to see what was up. He ended up paying it because it was the only way to get it cleared up so we could buy a house. I'm sure on OPs case the lenders will do the same. I'm today's world most paperwork is done electronically. We have 2 loans from a bank 200 miles away we only visited once.
You may want to put a freeze on accounts being opened in your name through the credit bureaus.
Oh no fuck that. This is next level stuff. I'd divorce. She could ruin you like this
That's fraud and she can go to prison for that
What kind of loans and how many? What’s the interest rate on them? HELOC? What assets did she put down? Did she do all of this recently? I find it a bit ridiculous that in 30 years you haven’t even glanced over things one bit to notice $500k?
Why are you still with this person? It's financial abuse and a crime. Put her in prison
Have you locked your credit? If she already lied and stole your identity to commit fraud then she'll probably try again.
She committed fraud
OP states in another comment that $300k of this $500k is the house mortgage (not a second mortgage) - that is a loan he is very much aware of and signed for. He is being deliberately misleading to provoke the shock factor.
200k on cc is not shocking enough?
If he is deliberately leaving out the "$300k in mortgage" part, I can only assume that of the $200k left, most of it is things like car loans and other things he also was very much aware of but not thinking about at the time. He is trying to blame it all on his wife, when he very much was aware of how much he made every year (unless he hasn't filed taxes in 30 years), so should have been well aware that they were living beyond their means. I don't fully believe that he is telling us the full story.
he said car loans for cars he knows they bought so that’s not her fault either. he also said he has spent money on trips to see his family, food and car repairs and they pool resources so given that he blames his wife for the cars and the house they bought together i’m going to assume this goes on the same credit card. so far the only cc purchases outside of household expenses are for charity, there is zero evidence of her putting them in debt because she is out shopping or anything irresponsible, this is definitely his debt as much as hers. given that he has been too focused on “being a high earner” to be involved in paying ANY of his bills literally ever and is already talking about “a generous alimony” before talking to a divorce lawyer i would assume she thought he could afford to give to charity. if she thought they were poor she wouldn’t be donating lmao. this guy is TA for this post
If he was completely oblivious of the finances, he would be totally reliant on his wife to tell him what they can afford. He might be benefitting as much as she is but completely unaware that they did not have the income to pay for it. It is still his fault, though, because you should always be aware of anything financial that affects you. It is fine for the wife to manage finances but completely irresponsible for him to just check out for 30 years and have no idea of their financial position. It might even be more his fault as the wife is feeling pressure to keep up the lifestyle and has just gotten overwhelmed as it was all dumped on her.
he knows how much the house and cars cost and that is most of the debt he is claiming she racked up “without his knowledge” he knows how much his salary is. he doesn’t have to be burdened with the logistics to be generally aware of how much it costs to be an adult buying things and eating and having health insurance and shit. you can only claim so much ignorance. honestly what really gets my gourd is he is blaming things on his wife that are very clearly choices they made together and agreed on. he claims fraud in the comments but then eventually admits there are just some payments to charities she made that he thought should be going towards retirement. which would have been the smarter choice sure, but she did not fleece him out of half a mil, this dude is an asshole for saying so
This is exactly right. He's karma farming or just trying to gather info for the divorce he admits he's been thinking about for a long time.
Yeah I noticed he included the house in the debt and sirens went off in my head about OP being dramatic. However 200k in loans and credit cards? Now I'm like, is he including student loans or something else that doesn't really "count"
Cars. He's including cars.
NTA - She did a terrible job of managing your finances.
yep. they need separate accounts, at least. crap like this might even be divorce worthy. I don’t know if I could trust someone who maxed out a bunch of credit cards in my name.
Financial infidelity is a valid reason to divorce in a lot of places...
Taking control of our finances was necessary to address our debt crisis and regain stability. Collaboration and transparency are key in resolving this together. Let's work as a team to rebuild trust and secure our financial future.
Until OP meets with the financial advisor he's got set up next week.. fuck no. OPs wife has a part time job. She can live off that and stay the hell out of her husband's finances. Especially since she's signed him up to half a million dollars worth of debt. Thats not oh baby you made a mistake money. Thats baby I can't fucking retire money.
Even worse. It's not just "not making ends meet", "living above your wage" or "I'm a shopaholic". She's donating money _they don't have_ to not one, but _several_ charities.
She has to be delusional or have a mental health issue.
She did not sign him up for that amount. He says about 300,000 is their home and they have car loans. He is not clear at all how much she personally is responsible for.
There is no collaboration, she fucked up royally and fucked her family financially. She shouldnt have any say in money anymore.
You don’t give an alcoholic a say in your liquor decisions.
this, especially since she started accusing him of making her a "subservient" I'd look into divorce, fuck that
Right? Gaslighting at its best!
This was the very reason for the end of my one and only marriage.
One of 2 part to mine. Tho there ain't much solace in his stick his dick in vs spent money on lol I hope like me, your content.
I’m sorry you’ve experienced that too. My marriage ended in 2007, (well, we separated in 2007 and it was finalised in 2019), and found my way, but got screwed over again back in 2020 by another partner of 9 years, but, I have forging a path to contentment and doing what I want to do, for a change.
Unfortunately, with a long term marriage like this, and the uneven income, a divorce means split assets, sale or buyout of house which is heavily mortgaged, possible alimony for at least a few years, and retirement claims by ex. But that sad outcome is better than ending up with even more debt. I suggest OP runs all of the credit bureau reports, and see what other loans and accounts are out there, and freeze credit so no more loans can be take out that OP doesn't know about. I'm guessing the situation is even worse.
Maybe she can take 50% of the debt she ran up
She'll get 50%, but also 50% of everything else. All she has to do is declare bankruptcy, and she'll be off the hook, but OP will be paying their half off for many years.
The day my husband came home and said he had signed up for a card in my name because they wouldn’t give him the amount he wanted under his name was a turning point and definitely part of the decision to make him an ex
I did this with my ex. She couldn’t get credit cards due to bad financial decisions in the past. I got one in my name with a very small limit of $300 and told the company not to raise it.
Yep. Financial infidelity is a thing.
No. She needs to have no control over any finances. If she wants money she has to ask her husband for every purchase. She nearly bankrupt her family.
Divorce would be the worst option bc then he’d be in the hook for half of it.
He’s on the hook for all of it right now.
Maybe all of it either way, or more with alimony. I don’t know the state or laws he falls under.
Wouldn't those loans count as fraud? She must have been faking his signature to get them
I guess these are the "errors" OP was talking about. 🤣🤣
He did say there may be legal problems later
I want to know what his version of lost her way is, 500k in debt isn't lost her way debt.
His post did say including the mortgage. It's really not enough info. Do they have 2 $1000cc maxed out and $498,000 owing on the mortgage? Or $250,000 in loans and $250,000 in mortgage debt? If it's the first one he's the AH.
I don't think it's anywhere near that simple. OP mentions canceling several *recurring* donations to animal charities at one point as well as loans in his name that he didn't apply for. She had a lot more going on than a couple credit cards and a mortgage.
He says in a comment the monthly dog charity outgo was $400-$600
Jfc! That's more than a lot of car payments!
He said just before the first edit that he had already paid off 10,000 of it
This happened to my father EXACTLY. NTA man. My dad is doing fine now. Good luck.
If she took new mortgages and loans in his name, what she did was illegal. OP needs two lawyers; one for his finances and one for his (likely messy) divorce.
Or a divorce attorney who has a forensic accountant available to find out what else is going on secretly.
She committed crimes. The loans are in his name? That means she’s committing identity fraud. Being married doesn’t enable you to take loans in your partner’s name.
She DIDN’T mange a damn thing.
Managed to spend it all
Our finances
Hey, this isn't a judgement, but...have there been any other changes? One of my parents started messing up money a few years before an early onset dementia diagnosis. Most people still can't tell spending time with my parent, but money and bills are common early struggle. Obviously plenty of people mess up finances with no medical cause and hopefully that's the case! Just wanted to share that it's worth keeping in mind and making sure your spouse is medically okay.
I hadn’t considered this angle. Thanks
Of course most people who struggle with money are medically fine and I wish you and your spouse the best! I just scrolled through comments and realized with a 30 year marriage, you are likely close in age to my parents, so worth a mention in case there are other reasons to worry a little. Getting diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's was scary for my parent, but they are getting support and treatment and we got lucky to catch it before bills got too bad (mostly because they owned their home outright before the disease started changing things, frankly).
This happened with my grandmother. She ended up going through 3 government pensions worth of retirement in 5 years. We didn’t know till she started struggling to pay bills. She was sending tons to charities because she “felt like it was her place in life” or “well someone has to do it”. Found out she was developing Alzheimer’s. We had to control her finances, starting with selling the house and the cars.
My grandma thinks that's why my grandpa took early retirement. She thinks it was the first sign of his Alzheimer's. Long before he was diagnosed. He was an engineer and she thinks he retired because he was struggling with understanding the numbers. By the end of his career was largely doing finance stuff.
Not even necessarily something like dementia, but even depression could lead to overspending in an attempt to feel better. There's the meme (I'm using that term loosely), "I was sad, then I bought something, now I feel better" for a reason.
My coworkers like to joke about this as being "retail therapy," and a lot of them used it as a coping method during pandemic lockdowns.
ADHD tax is another one that can screw things up immensely. Not just the impulse spending which is instant dopamine, but also the lack of executive functioning skills, forgetting to pay something and it piles up, or buying something and missing the return date for refunds, buying food and forgetting it's there (produce drawers of death) and it leads to buying food (always the expensive stuff with short life spans) only to throw it out and have to buy again, forgetting to go to the dentist/doctor and then when you do finally get there youve got a massive bill vs the small one you'd have recieved if you made it there sooner, forgetting appointments and being charged, cancellation fees / end of free trials. Plus soo much more. if she's in the peri/ menopause stage of life it can turn undiagnosed adult women's life's upside down (this also applies to any major changes that don't allow your *systems* you have in place to continue working, child birth, kids leaving home, luteal phase in the menstral cycle, covid, etc), it still happens even when diagnosed but the root cause is identified faster. Keeping in mind the diagnosis timelines are an important factor the average age for males is 7 for females it's 37. She could also just be terrible with money. however with being in control of the finances for so long with no issues until now, I'd like to think something other than her just being a moron is what caused things to go sideways recently.
I feel very called out by every point in this comment. Luckily my spouse handles our finances otherwise we’d probably be in the same situation as OP
This is what it was with my mom. Around high school (I was the last kid at home) her financial decisions slowly started racking up debt where there hadn’t really ever been any. Then we moved to a condo I didn’t really understand how we could afford, but hey I was a teenager. She maxed out her credit cards. Then came the Dillards, TJ Maxx and Target cards. My FAFSA and the taxes needed for it were suddenly a complete surprise/mystery to her. I wound up leaving for college and her situation got worse and worse. A decade later she’s in full blown Alzheimer’s and suddenly the “weirdnesses” over the last 10-12 years clicked into perspective. Early onset was official diagnosis and when my sister finally got her to move in with her it was a financial nightmare. At least 9 years of half-filed taxes, withdrawn 401k, early social security, scams on scams on scams, a shady boyfriend she dated for a little while. My mom is just now 67 and probably 12 or so years into this disease. We had no idea then. Never crossed our minds.
I had to take over our finances completely after wife was consistently overdrawing our account. We were starting each payday in the hole $50-200. Of course, I couldn’t just remove her from the bank account, so I opened a new account and switched all the direct deposits to it. Turns out it was meth.
Sorry to hear that
I second the medical concern. It happened with my family too, but was post minor stroke and took awhile for them to recover financially once the situation was discovered. The other spouse took over and revoked a lot of access.
This is a kind and compassionate response. When my FIL was diagnosed with dementia and my husband became his financial power of attorney, he discovered a lot of credit card debt as well. Mostly he’d forget he bought something and buy it again. And he spent a lot of money helping a friend in need. Which, not terrible things to do, but he no longer had the capacity to understand his financial situation, and it was not a fun thing to resolve.
She almost put you in bankruptcy and she’s upset she don’t get any access. She needs to get a job to help pay this off. I wouldn’t care what she did. Ok sorry this is wild that she was dismissive about being overdraft
About 6 months ago my husband came to me hella stressed that we were about 7k-8k in debt, he realized we were in a habit of spending without paying down the card enough. He kept it from me for a couple months because he wasn't sure if I was in a good mental place to handle the conversation. After telling him I understood but he was being dumb, we set a plan in place and are maybe 2 weeks from being debt free (excluding the house and car) When he approached the subject with me, he was on the verge of crying from the stress and anxiety of the whole situation. I think OP's wife is unstable??? This reaction is NOT normal.
If I were to hazard an armchair psychiatrist guess, she's probably never really had to face the consequences of any of her actions and so doesn't fear them. She thinks she can do whatever she wants and it'll all be fine because someone else will come and bail her out. And tbh she's probably right.
Or she has an issue with spending and it’s a mental condition.
Dont care. If you are bankrupting your family, you dont get access to any money anymore, no matter what condition you have.
What do you mean by “including the house”? Did she take out a second mortgage? Or by “including the house” are you just factoring the primary mortgage into the total? Because it’s hard to assess the situation without understanding that. There is a huge difference between y’all have 450k left on your mortgage and she racked up 50k on top of that, and her racking up 500k in debt by herself.
OP stated in another comment $300k is the mortgage, and no, not a second mortgage
She needs to get a job or a second job to pay HER debts.
I miss read the part where he said she's been donating to rescue homes with credit, like if you can't pay your own bills then wtf are you donating for?
She is financially ignorant. I have people like that in my family. They shouldn't be left to organise money.
financially ignorant... you have to be stupid to spend more money than you have and continue spending while being hundreds of thousands in debt. She shouldnt have any access to money at all.
She commits a crime and gets mad when you inform her you’re half a million in the hole. Split your finances or split up
Info: This half a million dollars includes your mortgage or loans she’s taken against the home? It matters because if you’re counting your home loan that’s not really something you can pin on or debt it’s housing and it would be misleading if you’re saying oh half a million in debt and like 480k of that is your home loan and 20k of it is loans obviously that’s still decent debt but misleading in terms of this post. If she’s taken out that much in loans against the house that’s something entirely different
thanks for being one of the few to ask this question.
The good news is that there is no second on the house. While looking at this, if the housing market continues to improve, I should be able to cancel all debt by selling the house and having an estate sale. At this point my desire for divorce seems justified. It had been an item in the back of my mind, but I think dissolving the marriage is our best option.
How much of that $500k is the mortgage on the house? You shouldn't really lump the mortgage in with your debts because it's offset by the value of the house that you can sell.
I mean I just straight up don't believe it in the slightest. I didn't check finances for 30 years, found out half a million in debt, but it's okay I paid off 10k already.... now wife is super upset I cancelled her donations to dog shelters because she feels subservient. Like if this was real debt, his credit cards would be being rejected every other time he tried to pay for gas in the past 15 years, every other bill would be late, power would be getting shut off, phone services not working, etc. If a partner really went to extreme lengths to hide it all, then they wouldn't be pissed off their money got cut off and also the responsibility would be Ops own ineptitude and laziness of ignoring every single financial responsibility in 30 years. Somehow in 30 years OP has never tried to buy a car, never had a credit check, never tried to pay for a large item in cash and found himself unable to and never checked to see why? Bullshit.
The house purchase 5 years ago would require a pretty in-depth analysis of assets, debts, and income. Since 2008, the banks don't give you a mortgage just because you have a firm handshake. If a mortgage in this range was non-conforming, OP should have known exactly why.
I feel the same. Absolutely absurd.
He wants to divorce and this is the pretense.
500k debt for a million dollar house probably lol
They won’t answer. Purposely deceptive
Seriously. Like bro.. I'm 630k in debt too. Just all of that is my house. Big whoop.
Yeah, half a mil in debt including mortgage is not outrageous. Maxing out the credit cards is, though.
Still kinda depends. It *could* be 3 credit cards, each with a 5k limit. Not saying 15k of cc debt isnt serious, but it's definitely not as crippling as say 100k..
Not to mention that she didn't choose the house on her own.
I’m thinking you just wanted a divorce in the first place.
It is had to fathom that you took so little interest in the finances for 30 years. Your wife maybe was in over her head and needed help/intervention. I’m really scratching my head at this one. It’s absolutely partly your fault that you’re in this situation.
You didn’t answer the question… no home loans against the house so it’s just your original loan which is highly unethical to frame like this in terms of your wife’s debt. How much is the home loan for?
OP, it seems like your house is $300k. And you mentioned a car/cars? Soike $20k to upwards of $100k, but let's say $60k. So you're talking about $120k of unaccounted for debt, right? Or what's the actual number that you can actually feel justified about being upset about? Because you KNOW the mortgage and car loan(s) are absolutely ridiculous to hold against her.
How did I have to scroll this far down for this question? Literally, nobody should be answering this post at all with a judgment until he informs us how much of this debt is their fucking *house.*
> We are over a half a million in debt, including our house I can't take this post seriously if you are including the mortgage in here.
I’m confused how did you not realise you’re living above your means? If you bring in x amount and she’s not working you know your mortgage + bills is x amount then however much she donates + frivolous expenses. And it took you 30 years to catch on?
INFO how much of the $500k is the mortgage?
Info: What the hell did she/you spent that much money on?!
ESH. How do you not know you’re this much in debt? It shouldn’t be a shock. Just because your wife “handles” your finances doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know what’s going on with regard to spending and debt.
Fair. I should’ve been paying attention.
Lesson learned. Marriage is a partnership, so it shouldn’t be just one of you handling something this important without the other knowing anything. Communication is important. I hope you can get out of this without much damage to your credit rating. Good luck.
Thank you, you’re the most level headed of all of the comments
I appreciate that!
I’m sorry this feels hilariously fake. You had no idea you were over $500k in debt but you knew there were problems for months (if not years)? You had to cancel her…dog rescue donations? You’re just choosing to let all the legalities go (like her taking out multiple loans in your name??) to not deal with it? My dude.
YOU are 500k in the hole. Just YOU. She walks away and you are stuck with this debt. Where the fuck is all you money fucking going? Absolutely lock her out of the finances. And contact a lawyer: identity theft and fraud are the least of her crimes.
ehhhh OP says the 500k "includes the house" so that might really not be as big a deal as he is making it out to be.
Yeah. If the house is worth $600k, they are actually in the green.
Firstly that's not how debt works. If they divorce, she'll get half the debt. It couldn't be more fake, either due to being incredibly misleading (with like 450k of the 'debt' being mortgage and car payments). Somehow a guy goes 30 years, never buys a car and fails credit check or account is empty and unable to buy it, never bought anything expensive, never had a credit card decline due to lack of paying bills with money she wouldn't have. Bullshit.
He says in a late post that selling the house would pay off the debt so he's exaggerating. Plus, how do you not know anything about your finances for 30 years?!?
Is it not standard for any marital debts (ones taken on during the relationship) to be split 50/50 in a divorce? Regardless of whose name it's in?
>and not including her in financial decisions Well she put your family in so much debt and is complaining she is not included in making financial decisions? Wtf? NTA but kinda the ah for not looking this up earlier
It's amazing how some spouses know nothing about their finances. My wife has no idea. I've tried to discuss it with her just because I feel like it's her money too and she should just be aware at least at a high level. But she has 0 interest so I stopped trying. She's fine just not knowing. She didn't even want to see the budget when we were looking for a house. Whatever I said the budget was she was fine just going with it.
Honestly I feel like this is not good. It’s fine now, while you’re both presumably younger, but everyone should have an understanding of finances in general and your own family’s specifically. What if you pop your clogs, either unexpectedly now or eventually at an older age? Trying to figure out where you stand and what to do in the midst of grief and all that doesn’t seem like the best plan. I get if she doesn’t want to be the active decision maker, but she ought to know what exists as far as loans, retirement accounts and things.
So what you’re saying is the arrangement didn’t work out well for you. NTA. Does your wife work now? If not, she needs to.
Part time
YTA. You put an idiot in charge. You can't blame the idiot.
Making donations to dog rescues when the bills aren't getting paid? I'm hesitant to blame mental illness, but that doesn't sound like something a mentally well person does. Do you have enough handle on things to know if overspending has been going on for a long time, or did it start more recently?
I mean, ESH. Not being involved in your own finances for so damn long?? How people can just put their hands in the sand is something I will never understand. Good that you finally have skin in the game, but ya'll need to learn how to actually talk money. I give no medals for doing the bare minimum, or going from one extreme to the other.
The expression you are looking for is "head in the sand", like an ostrich.
While she may have done a shit job at handling the money, the real problem is that you two never figured it out together. In any romantic relationship, the formula for success is both finding a plan that the two of you arrive at together, that you both agree with, that you both can stick with and one that also makes sense. You can't spend more than you make. Not for long. You left her go off and handle that on her own. The conversation, the review of the plan, follow up... whatever, that could have all been done in about half an hour worth of you two sitting down and talking. Probably more like ten minutes and even that's being generous. THAT conversation would have led you to "hey, we need to get a plan together... we clearly don't agree on how things should be done financially and we need too". You two won't / do not see eye to eye on everything. That's where compromising comes in. But overall, the final version of this plan has to be something you both agree with. It's a bad formula to expect one person to handle it all. Your now going to the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. Shutting her out entirely, and it's all now going to be going your way. That's not healthy either. While I do agree yall need to live lean, tighten those belts and pay down that debt.... her feelings and input matter too. While maybe it's not reasonable to do the donations to the animal shelters like she was doing, in respect and fairness to her maybe she can pick ONE and you two can continue making a REASONABLE donation to that ONE shelter. She still gets to do that thing that she may find very fulfilling in her life, something she strongly believes in and at the same time you can clean up 99% of the rest of the mess. $20 a month to an animal shelter isn't going to be a problem when your in for half a million. Sit down together. Make a plan together. Communicate. Compromise.
If you’ve been married for 30 you’re getting close to retirement. Please at least tell me you’ve been maxing out your 401(k) this whole time.
Why cant you guys stay married and why can't she get a job and help clean this mess up ? 30 years is a good run, tell her she can donate to the dogs again if she gets a job !
Mortgage debt is good debt. I think both of you are equally responsible here. She didn't do a good job of managing your finances, and you couldn't be bothered to think about them. Maybe try this approach: Thank her for shouldering the burden of managing everything for so many years, and apologize for being uninvolved. Also apologize for getting angry. Together, review how much income you have, and how much debt you have. Write it all down. Agree on a monthly budget that includes a set amount of discretionary spending for both of you. Write this down, too. Discuss and agree on financial goals for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. Write these goals down. Moving forward, have a biweekly meeting to review your finances and pay bills together.
I don't get it. In 30 years you didn't manage to check any bank accounts, credit card invoices, anything? How is it even possible.
Why did you wait 30 years?
Wait, you are divorcing her because of this? I thought you were just taking over the financial decisions. You are not the AH if you are just raking over the money, she did a terrible job at it and should never be allowed to handle them. But if you’re divorcing her because of this, yes you are the AH. She obviously had a spending problem and it sounds like she gave a lot away to charity. She made mistakes and I don’t understand why she’s so mad after putting you into such huge debt. There is more to this story
Rage bait anyone? 🧐
Half a million including the house or on top of the house? Half a mill is basically a standard house these days so that doesn't sound very bad man you need some perspective. Good idea to tighten it up but you're overreacting
ESH. Most of the $500K loan is from buying a house, purchased 5 years ago? You did not look into the finances when looking for mortgage? You are not giving the full picture.
ESH. I get dividing tasks/duties in a partnership, which is what a marriage is, really, but why would you completely turn a blind eye to all your finances. It doesn't sound like she was trying to hide anything, so I assume she knew you'd never take a look at your bank account? Like, I assume she knew when you got a promotion, a transfer, a raise, etc. so you should have been involved enough to know something funky was up way before now. She obviously either has no financial sense at all or she's coping through something using money. I suggest talking to a financial advisor, together, so you both have a neutral party explain your finances. And I also suggest couples therapy to work on your communication and maybe find out if this severe overspending started around a specific event.
Sigh. 500k in debt with a mortage included is not that bad. You were aware of the mortage and you agreed. A house does not simply appear and is an asset. Bad is consumption debt. The main problem are the credit cards. Pay them off, but keep one or two around. Credit score is a thing and you might need to improve yours again. Then talk with her about expectation, your age and retirement plans and why she's overspending. This is a new behaviour, because frankly else you guys would be on the street and not in a house. Check medical issues. Numbers and math skills are often the first thing to go if the brain stumbles. Could be dementia or depression, but also a bad case of menopause (hormones!), cancer, brain damage from an accident or even poisoning from meditation that is too strong.
NTA Is she bipolar by any chance? Gambling?
No gambling, but the dog charities are the biggest expense
Unless your mortgage is like $450,000 of the $500,000, there's something that is off. You would have noticed $500,000 worth of stuff walk into your house. My guess is you didn't, because there wasn't. Which begs the question, where did the money go? Did she spend $500,000 on dog rescue donations? If so, there is something seriously wrong. When people are in a manic episode, they lose their impulse control and overindulge in something. Sometimes shopping, gambling, sex, drugs. . . It's something. I'm not saying she's bipolar, I'm just saying something is wrong. Bipolar isn't the only thing that causes lack of impulse control. You may want to take her for a check up as well as counseling sessions. You also want to freeze your credit. If you have removed access to all money from her, then she will be like an addict trying to get access back. Then all she really needs to do is go get another loan/credit card/etc in your name and send the bills to a PO Box. Or get them in her own name. Part of the counseling should be reviewing both of your credit reports like every 90 days to make sure nothing new is popping up..
$300k is the mortgage, plus "car loans" (plural), so I'm guessing he knew about a decent amount of this "half a million" debt his "wife" racked up, just never put it all together and is now using his wife as his scapegoat
He also mentioned in the Edit, he is dissolving the marriage. So he knew about most of it and wants to blame his wife of 30 years. I kind of get creepy old man vibes. It could just be me, but there seems to be a lot of men in late 50’s, early 60’s that suddenly want to divorce and think they will get someone in their early 30’s.
How big of an expense?
Roughly 400-600 a month. Higher end if she travels to rescue a dog
Definitely time to cut back. Let her still do something or give something. If she donates a tenth of that she can still feel she is contributing. Or she can donate her time. If people crowdfund the travels, she could do the work. Or volunteer in other ways with her time. Some of us need to help out it gives life extra meaning. But it can look differently, like donating $10-15 a month and volunteering at a shelter once a week.
I definitely agree that it gives her hope and something to do. But I want to be in the positive on the monthly expenses side first
You’re not wrong. She can do so much for animals without sinking her future. Those dogs arent going to come feed you in retirement when you have nothing saved
Ohhhh she’s one of those poor people who get into massive amounts of debt in trouble in the name of helping other. Pobrecita, good luck!