Hiding debt from sig. other?

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-27-2004
Hiding debt from sig. other?
21
Tue, 01-04-2005 - 5:02pm
Just curious..I hid about $12000 of cc debt from my dh, told him after I borrowed the $$ from his parents to pay it off.....now we're back in mostly due to my school tuition...but I was curious how many of you hid the debt & how much?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 01-05-2005 - 11:30am

I am painfully honest with DH about our debt. It's not MY debt...it's ours and he needs to understand that. We both created the debt. He's not a child and I don't need to protect him. I'm totally upfront and honest about it. I'm also honest about where we stand in our budget, good or bad. I truthfully think it's done nothing but good to be 100% honest. I agree - the truth always comes out.

The only secret I keep is how much we have in one savings account. It's not a huge amount but he's the kind of guy who thinks if it's there, it's to spend. LOL He knows about the account and I've told him that if he wants to know what's there I'll tell him. But thankfully he recognizes that he'll want to spend it and it's not in our best interest.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2005
Wed, 01-05-2005 - 11:49am
i am currently hiding $8500 in cc debt from my husband. i don't know what i am going to do. i can't sleep and it is really beginning to affect my life.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2003
Wed, 01-05-2005 - 12:57pm

Heehee...
I'm hiding the amount in one of our accounts from my fi, too. He knows its there, but if he knows how much there is, he'll think Yay! we have more money, and spend it. It will always be on something useful, practical, and yes, maybe we will need it, but we don't need it now. Right now I'm using this account to put extra payments down on the credit cards so he doesn't care. Also, if he asks how much is in the account, I tell him. It's still our money, it's just a little bit that I control on my own.

I've never hidden our debt from him, although we both hid from it for quite awhile until I found this board.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
Wed, 01-05-2005 - 6:53pm


Have you hidden any debt from him before? If so, what was his reaction then? Is he usually easygoing about mistakes made, or does he blow a gasket? If you think he'll blow his top, you might want to tell him somewhere public, like a restaurant, where the most he'd be able to do is whisper a strong, "What???" when you tell him. By the time you get out to the car, the shock will be over, and everything will be out in the open. It feels good to have it all out...believe me. I kept my debt a secret because I honestly didn't know what Dh's reaction would be, and that's what I was scared of! But to my surprise, he took it very well, and our marriage is stronger now that we're handling the bills together and consulting each other before making purchases. I'm much happier, and he feels proud to be able to help with the finances and help decide where extra funds should go, etc.

I wish you luck with whatever you decide to do.

Pat

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-11-2005
Wed, 01-12-2005 - 6:16pm

Hey Going To Do Better:

I agree, you've got to write down everything you spend. I'm amazed that you are using Quicken however. I find it really difficult, boring . . . too much like what an accounting CPA would use! Hey, I'm just little ole me trying to keep track of my spending. I use MoneyPants online service. I love it. The biggest benefit to me is that when I see what I'm spending, I do spend less, and then I feel really good about myself.

That being said, I'm in the minority of women, in that my husband pays the bills. We both look at the CC statements, so I could never hide debt. As my husband says, I'm the accelerator and he's the brake. Good thing - I like to speed!

Good luck with getting debt free in 2005. The only winners in the debt race are the CC companies!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
Wed, 01-12-2005 - 6:41pm


I've never heard of MoneyPants, but I'll go check it out. We used to use MsMoney (the 1997 version), and I was in charge of handling all the entries and things. The problem was that it got to be major pain because, at that time, we didn't have online banking. I'd have to take all the purchases that I'd already recorded in pen in my checkbook register and retype them into MsMoney, and then wait for the bank statements to arrive and rebalance them against the MsMoney register. Anything that was on the paper statements that was unexpected (service charges) had to be entered by me into the MsMoney program AND my checkbook register in my purse so that everything would match. That was a hassle.

My hubby set up the Quicken program so that it shows not only what each of us has in cash in our wallets, but also our checking, savings, work checking account, Etrade account, credit card, 2nd mortgage, our son's karate school contract payments, his Corporate credit card (work pays it, but we keep track of it in Quicken), etc. Now I only have to click the "update" button, and it retreives all the banking info for me....I reconcile our accounts daily, rather than waiting for a paper statement to arrive. Compared to my mis-adventures with MsMoney '97, Quicken is working out wonderfully. LOL! :-D

The best part is that when Dh turns to me and says, "How're the accounts looking?", I can actually smile and "honestly" tell him that everything is not only looking better, but I'm eager to actually pull up the Quicken program and "show" him how good we're doing now. LOL! No more secrets here! :-D

I think it's cute how your hubby said you were the accelerator and he was the brake. LOL! That's such a cute things to say. LOL!

Pat :-D

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 01-12-2005 - 10:47pm

Hi all,

I have been on the other end of hidden debts (like mymartes, except without the affair), and I just want to add my agreement with her. Dh hid the debt, then hid credit reports so I wouldn't find out about the debt, then denied knowledge of the extent of the debt when I finally found documentation. It got really, really ugly. And I have to say, if he had told me up front, it still would have been ugly. I would have been really, really angry, and probably would have stormed around a bit and yelled, just like I did when I found out through my own sleuthing.

But let me add this. The difference is that the yelling would have been the end of it. Instead, because of the lies and deception and slyness on his part, I am taking a long time to learn to trust him again. If he had told me, I would have been mad, gotten over it, and that would have been the end of it (okay, I still would have confiscated his credit cards, but I had already done that anyway! LOL). But now, every time something seems even a tiny bit fishy to me, I get suspicious and begin to wonder if he's lying or doing things behind my back again. And it doesn't help to ask him straight out, because he didn't tell me the truth when I asked him about the debt back then, so how do I know he would tell me the truth now?

It has been nearly two years, and I'm beginning to trust again. He has done a lot to earn my trust, and I'm actually letting him handle a credit card for company (reimburseable) expenses now, which he tracks and pays, and so on. Of course, I demand complete transparency, and I access the account several times a week to see what kind of activity is occurring and to ensure payments are made in a timely manner. I still sometimes worry about credit card offers, and so on. We still get into arguments occasionally because I'll get suspicious about something and he'll feel like I should trust him by now.

I think he knows better now. I think he knows that the lies and deception are the one thing that has brought us closest to divorce. In fact, I think if we hadn't had children at the time, there is a strong chance I would have called it quits. I was really, really, really stung, and mad and hurt that even when presented with the documentation in black and white he tried to worm out of it. I can't think of a time in our marriage I have felt so betrayed and angry--and wondering if I had married the wrong person, I mean, what is the point if you can't trust the person you're with to tell you the truth? The sad thing is, the debt itself was only a small fraction of our total debt. It wasn't the money that made me mad. It was the lies and deception.

So, I know every situation is different. But I thought it might help to hear a little more from someone who has been deceived in the past. It takes much longer to regain trust after lies. If dh had come clean on his own, before I found the documentation, it would have been easier to trust him again in the future, knowing that he had shown that his conscience was stronger than his embarrassment/fear/etc.

Anyway, I know dh did it because he thought he could just take care of it and I wouldn't have to worry about it. And then he was just so scared that I would be really angry. And then, once he had told one lie, it seemed easier just to keep lying, hoping he would sort it out before I found out. And partly, he was just irresponsible and chose not to pay attention to it as it went to collections and then got charged off. I know he had good intentions, and that he is a loving, good, moral person. He just got carried away.

I just wanted to add that to the mix. I'm not trying to tell anyone that they must tell their SO, and I'm certainly not judging anyone. Only you can know your situation and your heart, and only you can decide what is best. I just thought it might help to see what *can* happen, and how it *can* turn out.

Blessings to all,

Heather

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-15-2003
Thu, 01-13-2005 - 8:32pm

I too have gone through my husband hiding debt from me. He opened a PO Box in another town and got his statements there. He had a second job for "spending money" that he used to pay them. He did this for four years. During those four years, I got us, according to my books, almost debt free. (we still had the mortgage and 1 car Payment)

I found out when a debt collector called the house instead of his cell phone and requested $10,0000 dollars within a week. My first thought was credit card fraud, so I got all the information I could from this creditor and did some detective work of my own. Made some checks of my on own and confronted my husband with it. It turned out he had racked up over $30,000 debt.

Any way to make a long story short. It will be two year on Feb 6 when I found out. I was furious. It has taken a long time to get over the anger and hurt. He had broken my trust. Lied to me.

It has taken a lot. He change the way he spent money. I signed up with equifax and get an email everytime there is a change on his credit report. Yes it is expensive, but a lot cheaper than a divorce lawyer. This was a point I insisted upon.

I was the one in our relationship "in charge" of the bills. So It wasn't that I left it up to the "other" person to take care of the bills. So, this is part of the reason why I was so angry. I think it a different situation when one person puts his head in the sand and lets the other person do all the finances and they end up in debt and the person who doesn't know took themselves out of the responsibility of the bills.

This is my experience.

I am not telling any one what they should do, but when you are in a realationship the choices you make affects your partner whether or not the know about it. It always comes out in the open and it is better to come from you than an outside source.

AVB

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-14-2005
Fri, 01-14-2005 - 11:09am
Hello,
In regard to your insightful message: do you think that this topic will ever come up during a heated argument?
I am experiencing the same situation and I feel ashamed when I think of the money problem.
How do I get over this feeling?
Carol -the credit chick :)
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
Fri, 01-14-2005 - 9:16pm


No. I don't think it will. I mean, he's done irresponsible things in our marriage before, and I have never held it against him. I suppose he's returning the favor now. And he can see that in the last month, since our debt became an open topic, I have really been trying. He told me tonight at dinner, just out of the blue, that he was so proud of how hard I've been working to find ways to save money. I've been checking out stacks of books at the library on debt and how to get out of it, etc, and he's seen me reading them any free moment I get. We paid off our car on the last day of 2004, and at the end of this month, I will have saved $2000 to put towards either our son's karate school contract or our 2nd mortgage. He knows this, and he's amazed at how well I've been doing.

As rotten as I felt keeping it all a secret for so long, I know I will never go back to keeping secrets. I can't guarantee we'll never be in debt again once we are out of it...but if we get back into it, it would be both our doing and not just by my irresponsible actions. :-D