I Want To Leave My Husband But I'm Financially Trapped

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. I'm considering leaving my husband, but I feel like I'm financially trapped with like the amount of debt that we have. I just feel like I'm not able to leave with my daughter. Okay, what happened to your marriage, hon? We've been married for about 13 years and it's just been a lot of verbal abuse and over the last five years since we've had our daughter, I just kind of started realizing that it's not something I want her to be in and see in that type of treatment. So I just am at this point where I'm, you know, trying to look at my options right now and, you know, we've done couple therapy and it just doesn't seem like it's kind of clicking with him. I just kind of feel like I'm at my wit's end with it. So I'm sorry. And how many kids you got? I have one. What age? She is four. Well, um, you know, obviously we're going to be a proponent for anybody to do anything they can to try to stay together, but not in an abusive situation without some traction on that. So I certainly understand where you are. A friend of mine that does divorce recovery counseling has always told me for the last 30 years that divorce turns a marriage into a business transaction. So this is now about incomes and assets and liabilities. So what is your income? So my income is approximately 56,000 a year. Okay. Can you live on that as a single person? Yes. In our area. Yes. Yes, you can. Okay. And, um, you said there's debt that makes you feel like you're trapped. How much debt do you guys have? Um, so besides our house, uh, my husband has a camper loan, his truck loan and a four wheeler loan. And, um, then we have about, I think 12,000 in credit card debt and I have 27,000 in student loan debt. Okay. And, uh, what's, what's the home worth? Uh, in our area, homes that are equivalent to ours are going to about 35,000. Um, $35,000. I'm sorry. 235,000. Okay. I feel better now. Okay. I thought you were in the camper for a minute. Okay. And, uh, okay. 235,000. And what do you owe on it? Uh, we owe about 179,000. Okay. So there's a little bit of equity there. Okay. I don't know how divorce works in, um, Wisconsin necessarily, but obviously your next step is just gather information. Information always, uh, relieves anxiety. The unknown, it creates more anxiety than a known bad thing. If we got bad news and it's clear, that's less anxiety than unknown than this, just a boogeyman in the closet thing. So you need to sit down with an attorney and find out exactly how this is probably going to go down. I mean, a good divorce attorney can tell you in 30 minutes, this is probably how this is going to go down. And it could sound like he gets all of the debt with his camper truck and four wheeler and they sell the house and the house equity cleaners up the debt that is in the, on the credit cards and maybe on the student loan. Um, and maybe some of his debt as well. Um, and cause you'll probably get half the equity each, uh, in most cases. So either one of you have a big retirement plan? Um, I have one through my employer, um, it's a state pension fund, but nobody has a 401k. Um, I believe my husband has a 401k, but he doesn't have much in there right now. Okay. What does he make? He makes about the same as I do. Okay. Okay. And then there's child support and then there's alimony. And those are the things, those are the variables that if I were you, I would want to learn about those things so that, you know, you know what you're facing and you're probably not as trapped as you think you are. I mean, you go get a, a one bedroom apartment or a two bedroom apartment, sell the house, pay off all the debts and start over as a single lady making 56. That's not, that's not, that's not really trapped. Yeah. I felt like I was trapped though, just cause I, I mean, I still care about him and I don't want him to be stuck. But at the same time, I'm looking at it as like financially we got into the situation and I feel like I'm responsible to pay off like the debts. I don't know why all of those are his toys. Like I said, a divorce turns a marriage into a business transaction. If you want to get all romantic and start paying stuff you don't owe, that's a different discussion. If you're going to do all that, you probably need to go back to marriage counselor and try to save the marriage. But you know, once the decision is made and the switch is flipped, it's every man for himself, you know, and it's not mean. I don't, I'm not trying to destroy him in this situation. Um, but he could sell the four wheeler, the camper and the truck and be out of debt too. Hello. Okay. So you're both are going to be okay on the other side. Nobody's trapped here except by decisions to hold on to a bunch of crap you can't afford. That's the only trapping there is. And staying in an abusive relationship. Yeah. That's a worse trap to me. And so I think those next steps will help you get some clarity on this. Yeah. And I also might change the tone of the, um, the therapy sessions. Like if you go sit down with an attorney and you know exactly how good a position you're actually in, then you're coming at this from a little bit more strength and you're going, look, I really want this to work. But all of a sudden your body language changes, your voice tone changes because of confidence. And because you know, you're going to be okay instead of trapped because, uh, Sarah, what you've told me, you're not trapped unless you choose to be trapped, but you can choose that if you want, but you're not. And, um, but you know, the, a much better outcome is for him to grow up and stop the negative behavior. And you guys to sell off all the garbage and get you a dad gum life back with no debt. Um, and just quit buying everything in sight, but campers and four wheelers and toys and trucks, and this just sounds like boy, boy, out of control, little boy, out of control buying crap. And so, um, I mean, I don't run into a lot of ladies that have bought a camper and a four wheeler. That's it. That's usually I do, but generally that will be the guy they went along with it. Yeah. And the pickup to pull the truck, the truck to pull the camper with that's the other thing. So, yeah. And, um, occasionally I run into some lady and the whole thing was her idea, but usually she's going to make her mistakes in other places. So, um, you know, but you know, like she said, she was participating in the decisions, so she's willing to take responsibility for her part. She owned up for that. She was an accomplice to some of these bad decisions. Yeah. But I like what you said there that you need to know the facts because those unknowns can be scarier and just, you're overwhelmed by everything around you and you get the facts and you go, okay, yeah, we could sell that. Yeah. You know what? That will be split or that won't be in my name. And then you know how to move forward. Yeah. It's interesting. Like cortisol release, stress drug release is way lower on bad news. That's clear than on ambivalent, ambivalent, not knowing the unknown. It creates a whole lot more stress. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.