My Husband Hid Over $100,000 of Debt From Me

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. About two weeks ago, discovered over $100,000 in debt from my husband that I was previously unaware of. We are a military family and he will retire in eight months. So I'm trying to wrap my head around all of it and how I can pay that off in eight months since our economic situation will change drastically then. And I was looking at a HELOC, even though that's not something that I necessarily want to do, but I'm wondering if that is going to be our best option because again, we'll like completely lose his paycheck in eight months. Not completely, obviously, like he'll get retirement, but I have- How long has he been in the military? 22 years. Okay. He's getting 20 year retirement, which is pretty strong. Yes. What's the debt? $92,262.85 from two cars, a credit card and a personal expense. And then I found a fourth account, like a F-O-R-T-H, where it looks like he submitted to get them to negotiate the debt. And there was $28,532 in there. And then I have $33,000 in credit card debt as well too. I- Okay. So you guys were not handling your money together. He's handling his money over here and he wasn't hiding it. He just didn't tell you. I mean, you don't have car debt with cars sitting in the driveway and you're confused that we own cars. You knew you own cars. Yeah. He, we've been married for five years and I tried to combine our finances and he fought it like an uphill battle up until last month when he pulled money from a joint account. And when I was asking why he needed that much money, I just kind of like really put my foot down and I was like, I really need access to all the accounts. And that's when everything kind of just unpacked because I realized that he had been pulling money from other accounts. He was spending 800 on eating out, 300 on gaming. And there's just- You guys really had substantially separate lives. Yes. Financially. No, I mean lives. Your lives were separate. He had a whole life over there to the side that you weren't even half watching. I mean, I knew that he was eating out all the time and the gaming, it's just, I didn't know that it was that severe. And even when I brought it up about him eating at home and all these things, he just wasn't. And it just, the car thing was something that caused a huge fight. So now where is his head today? Cause he was bullheaded and didn't want to do anything smart back then. Is he now still defensive of this ridiculous position? When I took over everything and I basically couldn't sleep and saw everything, I had to sit him down and say, for my mental capacity and my nervous system regulation, I need everything. So I took his cards. He's only living on cash over the last two weeks. If he needs something, he has to ask me for it. I removed every credit card off of Amazon, like I've deleted everything from his phone. Like I just, I needed to have complete control of everything. And so I now have complete control of the finances and he hasn't said anything. I don't know that he's on board, but he's just. Well, this will last for a second. Yes. It's not going to last that obviously not sustainable. So think of it as the words we use around here is financial infidelity. Yes. You found out he was cheating on you and it's important to come up with a seven day plan. I need to know that I can trust you for seven days. And that's often like when somebody cheats on you, like I want no more phone, no more of this. Right. And, but you got to do this money thing together. I don't think he wants to, but. Well, and you have to ask your, he, I mean, if behavior is a language, he's telling you, I don't want to be married to you. I'm not interested in sharing a life with you. I like you at home taking care of the stuff so I can go do whatever I want, buy cars I can't afford and go out to meals I can't afford, but I don't want to build a life with you. Right. And that's hard to metabolize, but that's what that's if, if behavior is a language, that's what he's telling you pretty loud and clear. So when you said, Hey, both of these cars were selling them tomorrow. What's the response? How is he getting to work? I'm a bicycle, right? Because if you sell both these cars, that clears up a chunk of the debt, right? A scooter. Yeah. Get him a moped. No, I'm not getting. I'm not playing at all. Yeah. I mean, this is a big deal, but the fracture is, I mean, or you're not retiring. You go back, you reenlist for four more years because we don't have the money to retire. Yeah. He can't, he can't reenlist. Like he's at the rank where he can't like, there's a possibility that he could advance in August, but he's not, that's not a guarantee, obviously. And so he's at, he's tapped out. He's, he's, he's, he's done as much time as he can. Well, I mean, but then it's not moving. Okay. But then it's, he retires from the military and goes and gets a job the next day. And takes a military retirement and all those checks go in one pile to clean this mess up. Okay. So if we sell all the cars, we don't have a hundred thousand dollars in debt, right? No, we also have three houses, so that's. Oh, okay. We'll sell two of them. Which is not what I want to do because two of them are rented out. I don't want you to do any of this. I didn't want you to discover that the separate life you were leading led to an absolute disaster because your husband was moronic with the handling of his side of the money. And you guys never bothered to be intertwined enough in your marriage to know what the other one was doing. I don't want any of that for you, but that is where we are. You have a hundred thousand dollars in debt and no, I would not take out a home equity loan and keep another property. That's an investment property and run because right now all this debt is in his name, right? You didn't sign any of it. No. Okay. So, I mean, if there's a divorce, it's his, so I'm not running up a home equity loan on our home, especially if his, in case this whole thing comes crashing down. If he hasn't fallen on the floor in front of you and said, I'm going to do whatever it takes, I want to keep this marriage. Oh, steady. Just sitting over there, sucking his thumb in the corner, like a whip pup. Yeah. So you're going to take out a home equity loan, put your house on the block, and then he may go buy another car tomorrow. I mean, when I started telling him how this is ridiculous, the amount of debt he was, he tried to say, throw it in my face that it was the house's fault that we, it was my, I'm the investor in the family, I guess. And so he was like the house's fault. And I was like, you can't say that this started when we started buying houses. Cause you didn't have anything to your name before you got married to me. How much equity do you have in those houses? My property that I bought before we were married has over 200,000 equity in it. The property that we bought together when we got married has over maybe 50. And then the last property, which is the one that is the one that we're not losing money on. It's just the one that we live in. And the one that's the hardest because it was a multifamily. Cause I thought I could scale up because again, you, like you said, we weren't living separate financial lives. And I thought that that's where we were at is the one that even if I tried to sell it, we would maybe break even. We would clear our overhead as far as bills, but this house still needs work. Okay. But you just told me two really easy things. You sell the joint house shell bought together and it brings in 50 grand. And then you sell both the cars and you're debt-free. I mean, it, none of this you want to do, but again, I'm way more worried about your marriage and your financial situation, to be honest with you. You guys have got to grow past this and combine everything and, and become a team, not a, uh, a scolding mother. And that means you don't buy rental houses without y'all both saying, this is what we want to do together. We want to be landlords and he doesn't buy. There's no more you and me. There's now we, or we, or there's not going to be a week because you guys, this is, uh, exposed. Uh, the situation has exposed the weakness and the system that you were using. The system that you're using doesn't work. We don't, we do not find in all the data and the research and the people that we study, people who become wealthy, living extremely separate lives while married, they just don't. And this is the reason is this kind of stuff happens only. We only find that they're hand in glove, working together, symbiotic and, and aligned on our values and aligned on our goals and aligned on our targets and pointing and firing at the target and firing at the target together. And you guys got to get back to that. And, uh, and then you've also got to get rid of the debt and the way you get rid of the debt, sell the house and the cars, create your free, every dollar budget today, the simplest way to budget for your life.