Tag: financial infidelity

There are 2 entries that are tagged financial infidelity. Now displaying reults 1 - 2.

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Relationships and Finances: Please Give A Reader Advice!

Posted on October 31, 2008 by Him

If there's something I love about you, our dear readers, it is that you always give solid advice (even if we don't agree with it). I once again ask for your wise words to help out another reader. He writes:

Before we got married, I asked my wife how much debt she had. She was very vague, but after some push and pull I got a rough number of "about $15K," not counting her student loans and car loan. That was quite a bit compared to the nearly zero debt I aim to maintain. But I figured that probably wasn't too extreme since the two of us make over $50K/year in salary each.

Well fast forward to after the wedding and move to a new city for both of us. It took her a while to find a job in the new city, but she did find an entry level position just to have SOMETHING. A few months working there and she finally found a job in her chosen field making about the same as what she made before we moved.

During this time, she kept asking me for money to help pay her bills. I lovingly helped her because I see the marriage as a joint venture. What affects her affects me. She's been working at this higher paying job now for about 5 months and she's still asking me for money.

After the attempted calm and rational conversation escalated to a LOT of pushing and pulling, and then to a full on screaming from her direction, I FINALLY discovered the truth. Counting her student loan and car loan and ALL of her credit cards, she has almost $100K of debt! Her MINIMUM monthly payments on her credit cards alone are more than $1,000/month. All 5 of her credit cards are maxed out. Her paychecks go toward minimum payments and then whatever she has left over go toward frivolous purchases like knick-knacks, new shoes, clothes, and purses.

She doesn't see anything wrong with what she's doing not only to herself but to me and US! I've tried taking her credit cards away from her and sitting down with her to talk budget but she absolutely refuses. Now we are losing money left and right. We can still pay the bills, but BARELY. I've had to dip into my savings and I also had to use all of the inheritance I got from my late mother just to stay afloat. Her only reason for not talking with me is "my parents fought about money and that's why they divorced." I would think NOT talking about money is worse than arguing about it.

I've been making all the payments on the mortgage and utilities. She hasn't contributed toward them at all because she can't afford to. If I had known the extent of her debt, I never would have bought this house. I've been looking at debt consolidation and even bankruptcy and other means of trying to lower her monthly payments but everything I've seen says we have to fall behind in those payments and not be able to even make the minimum payments before any of that will even apply to us.

Do you have any advice for me? I've tried getting her to talk to me or even a financial planner but the financial planner seminar that is coming to town that she did agree to go to isn't for another 6 months. We will be flat broke by then.

Financial Infidelity

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Her

This week I am broken-hearted because I learned that financial infidelity has struck my family.

My brother is in the military and has spent the last few years deployed in very dangerous places. He has a wife and children, so he had prepared for the worst and left legal power of attorney documents for his wife, to be used in case of emergency. While he was away, his wife opened accounts in his name without his permission, ran up massive debts, and hid the entire problem from my brother. He did not learn of this until he returned to the U.S. and discovered that they were bankrupt and losing their home. The money he had sent home was used to make frivolous purchases.

Because of the seriousness of the financial catastrophe, my brother and his family were unable to attend our wedding.

My brother did not want us to worry about him or to spend our wedding money helping him out, so he did not tell us why they could not attend. He made up a story about having to work that weekend. It hurt me greatly not to have him there. I thought it was because he did not care.

This week my brother called me to tell me the truth. He is a very private person but he shared his situation with me in the hopes that I would understand and know how much it saddened him not to be at our wedding. Of course, we understood completely. Our only concern is that he and his wife are able to recover from this disaster.

It is a new experience for me to be directly affected by someone else's financial infidelity. While I can never understand why this happened, I hope that it does not destroy their marriage. It is a sobering lesson for us, as we are in the process of completing our own legal documents giving each other power. We made it clear with each other that these documents are not ever to be misused, and that if a financial situation ever arises we have to tell each other the whole truth about it. It is a good life lesson for us, but one that comes at great expense to my family.

Has financial infidelity ever been a problem in your relationships?

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