My Husband Opened Up Credit Cards Behind My Back

[Music] brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Well, I'm dealing with a case of financial infidelity, uh, unfortunately. Um, and I'm a little lost in what I can do. Now, I know that majority of it is going to be a marital issue and not necessarily a math problem, but um until there is cooperation to solve our uh marital concerns, um I want to know what is acceptable um in my position uh to help I guess give us a little bit of financial security um for myself and my children. Well, what are you up against? Tell us a little bit more details about what the infidelity is looking like. Sure. Um, so my husband and I will be married almost 10 years um next month. Um, and a few years back, um, we've we've never had credit cards. We've always been on the same page. Um, we we did financial peace. Um, and we did really good for a while. Um we had children um four children in about 5 and a half years. And um a few years ago he uh opened up a credit card without telling me. Um and what he spend up h what did he run up? How much debt? Meet every dollar budgeters Christy and Steve. They used to fight about money. I'm the spender. I'm definitely the saver. Now that they budget with every dollar, they're on the same page. Money is definitely one thing we do not ever fight about. Having the budget gave me the permission to spend. Knowing that the money is in each category, it just allowed us to work together better. Now, that's what we call a win-win. Now, we just have to pick paint colors. We can't help you with that. Every dollar. Create your free account today. What did he run up? How much debt? Over $6,000 in 9 months. Okay. To do what? What was he doing? um buying hobby stuff. Are you guys not on a budget together? Are you doing a budget together at that point? We were. You were at that point. We were. Now, I had just had um Okay. So, 6,000 stuff. $6,000 worth of stuff appears in your house and you're doing a budget that didn't show $6,000. Did you not have a question about that at that time? I did. So, I found it um or I found out about the credit card a month after he uh signed up for it. Um I found a piece of mail in in the mailbox. Um and when I confronted him about it, he got super defensive. Um and then proceeded to use it however he saw fit, which none of it went to any medical bills, none of it went to the house, none of it went to me or the children. It it was all so what was that conversation? Explain that conversation. What what happened? Did he just say you know what we've been living this lifestyle? I you know I just I don't know if I agree with this whole debtfree lifestyle. I'm I think it's okay to use credit cards and I want to go forward with that. Was there a conversation or it was just who cares what you think? I'm doing my thing. Um unfortunately yeah it was the latter. Okay. So how long ago was that again? continued. Um it was about two and a half years ago. Okay. And so why would you have an expectation that it quit? You wouldn't. So when he maxed out the card, um he came to his senses, we had a heart-to-he heart conversation, and he he still wouldn't let me help. He still wouldn't show me the balance. Let me let's you know, let's try to sell some things. let's try to like, you know, I said, I'll be happy to help. I'll I'll pitch in. Like, this isn't just your problem. We're in this together. Let's let's figure this out. And he was super reluctant to still do that. Um, however, over the course of a year, he did not use that card. And he did eventually um cut it up and cancel it. I'm going to skip the second year. Skip forward because that was two and a half years ago. Tell us what's happening today that's making you call the show. So, so in in the spring, um I felt he had earned some trust back and I agreed to use 60% of our tax return to pay the card off in full. Um 3 months later, I find out that he has opened yet another card. Got it. Okay. So, he's Okay, this has ab you started the conversation correctly. I'm sorry, honey. This has absolutely nothing to do with money. Right? This is an integrity breach in the most precious relationship on the planet, which is between husband and wife. Right? You can't trust your husband. And that's where you've got to go with this. Okay? Um it has nothing to do with the fact that it's a credit card and Ramsay hates credit cards. It's he's lying to his wife and deceiving his wife about anything, right, regularly as a pattern. And this is a deal breaker eventually if you guys don't get this solved. This is not a situation where marriages last. And so you've got to sit down with a marriage counselor, both of you, immediately. It's your only which he's not willing to do though. Then he is planning his divorce. Mhm. Behavior is a language. Dr. John Deloney, he says it all the time. And his behavior is, I do whatever I want and I'm not willing to work with my wife on anything. I'll do whatever I want. I'm going to walk around act like I am not married. That behavior is a language. He's saying he doesn't want to be married. So, I'm going to call him on that. You go to a marriage counselor, not a radio show, and you get some advice from that marriage counselor immediately on how to begin. when I've gone to a counselor cuz the initial I'll say argument cuz it didn't end up being a conversation um led to him telling me that I was the one that needed counseling and not him. So yeah, listen, we can't do anything about him. What I need what I need you to do there was no listen to me. Stop talking. Listen to me. You need to go to a marriage counselor and you need to get them to teach you how to frame an ultimatum, how to frame of you're going to do this or this marriage is over. Because honey, the marriage is over if you don't. The counselor can teach you. We can't make him go to counseling. We can't make him do anything. But we can and you can make him conform to a set of principles, a form of set of behaviors in order to stay married. And those behaviors sound like go to marriage counseling. So we deal with why I feel like it's okay to lie to my wife because if he'll lie to you about this, honey, he'll lie to you about anything. Well, that's the thing that that's where it is cuz I I don't want somebody to hear, "Oh, we're telling her to get a divorce because they don't agree on money." There's no way that this behavior is only play but there's no way it's only playing out in that arena. You cannot stay married to someone who deceives you, right? Period. About anything, right? It's that simple. A liar is not a basis for any kind of relationship. Right? And you know, but I'm saying you can't have a business relationship. You can't have a contractual relationship. You can't have a marriage relationship. When my kids were little and they lied to me, they are out of relationship until until their tail end cools off. Right? And I'm just saying that behavior rarely compartmentalizes itself into one. No, it often there's often other things going on. You're exactly right. Yeah. If you're willing to lie and hide this, what else are you willing to lie and hide? And um same thing true with a team member here, an employee. That's right. Okay. There's a few things that we don't work on a plan to help someone turn it around. One of them is thieving. If you're going to steal, I don't negotiate with thieves, right? I don't want to rehab a thief. You're just fired that day. I don't I don't I Your dad didn't do his job. Your mom didn't do their job. So, you're just fired. It's that simple. There's a couple things like that. And so, these are integrity breakdowns. It's nothing to do with money. Money is just where it's manifesting itself. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your