My Husband Walked Out And Left Me Drowning In Debt

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. I have been married to my husband 16 years now. We have four kids. I'm contemplating if we should divorce or not. We are completely drowning in debt. Our mortgage has been forbearance. He hasn't filed taxes in three years. It's just like snowball one thing after the next, like $48,000 in debt. I don't know what to do. What do you make? I make about $30,000 a year. I work at a school. What does he make? Well, he's been out of work since December. He told me he was leaving in March to go out of state to work with some friends, and he really hasn't sent me anything. Is he still gone? Yes, he's still gone. So if behavior is a language, has he told you through his actions, I'm leaving you? Yeah, I mean, in March, we went to our marriage counseling session. We'd been going for six years and after about five minutes of me talking, he ended up leaving and told me he was done. It sounds like he's followed through on that. He left you. He's left the house. I agree. I agree. But then he flew home last week to see our kids for their birthdays and basically was like, I still love you. I don't want to get a divorce. But then he left again, and he's been gone for a week and a half now, and I've only heard from him once. Yeah. I hate this for you. I think it's just, it sounds to me just as a neutral third party guy, I'm just a dude on the radio. It seems really clear to me what's happened. Right. And being home for a couple of days or one day, seeing the kids, then being excited he got home, you seeing him kind of surprised. I can even go with him that he liked the idea of that. Right. But his actions are not of a man who wants to be married and build a life with somebody. His actions are not of somebody who wants to be a present father. Is he sending checks? No, he didn't send any money. No, he hasn't sent me. Yes. I think it's metabolizing this awful, heartbreaking truth. He left you. Do you have any idea what he makes? Nothing. I don't think. Well, right now he's not really making anything. He told me that he and some friends out of state wanted to start up their own company, and basically all the money that they've been making has been put back into the company. He said that he paid off a few bills in March. I'm sorry, not March, in May. But in reality, I paid 90% of the bills in May, and I've paid at least a quarter of them for June. But I can't really afford to continue to pay anything else. Our mortgage is put into forbearance. We owe $15,000. What's your home worth? Well, it looks like we still owe $403,000. We bought it for $421,000. What's it worth today? We owe $15,000. The realtor came by and pretty much said because there's a ton of unfinished projects, he could probably sell it for $430,000. But he said if we get all the projects done- You would basically get out of it even. Yeah. But with having that realtor over, discovered that only his name is on the house. I don't think that matters in Texas. Yeah, I'm not sure. I think you're going to be okay on that. And you've been married 16 years. I think you have marital rights for that house. Yeah. And let's back up a little bit. This is not a person of integrity, your husband. He hasn't paid taxes in three years. I promise you, he hasn't told you the truth about everything over the course of 16 years. Is that true? Yes. Okay. So I wouldn't believe him- This is biotherapy for 16 years. Yeah. I wouldn't believe him if he suddenly started telling you he's got to reinvest all this money. Here's the truth. You'd have no idea where he is and what he's doing. Exactly. And so all you can deal with is you. The only person you can control right now is you. And I feel like you're attached to a weight that's pulling you underwater. And the weight occasionally says, I want to swim, but you're the one paying the price for that right now. Yeah. I mean, we're completely trauma bonded. He got shot in 2022 and it completely shook our family. I got that. I got that. But listen, be very careful. Be careful of what I would call therapy speak, internet speak, all that kind of stuff right now. The bottom line is your husband's not been home and he's not sent any money home for a long time after he walked out of the marriage counselor's office and said, I'm done. And you got four kids who are hungry. That's real. Yes. That's not on TikTok. That's real. That's real. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And so the question before you is forget the diagnostics, forget the trauma, but all that stuff. The question you got to ask yourself, and this is a hard one. What are you going to do now? Well, that's what I'm calling you for. I can't afford to leave. I can barely afford to take care of me or the kids right now. I can barely afford gas to get myself to go to work right now. You could live in a much cheaper place than that house. Oh, I mean, I'm going to have to owe 15,000 on it. I know. And you're somebody making the payments now, aren't they? No, it's in forbearance. No, forbearance is you make a payment and a half. No, we haven't made any payment. We owe 15,000. That's not forbearance. That's default. Are you in foreclosure? Well, no, the paperwork that I have, it says forbearance. Okay. Forbearance is when you're making your payment plus some to catch up on your back payments. You are not doing that. You're not in forbearance. Okay. You are in, you're in default. How many, how long has it been since y'all paid a payment? March. Okay. You're in default. You need to get this house on the market today. You're going to lose it. Right. And then you're going to get. How do I do that? We're going to send his name. Cause I had a, two realtors come over and they both told me that all the projects need to be done. And you're not going to do the projects. You don't have any money and you don't have anybody to do the projects. So you need to put the house on the market and you need to sell it. Now you need to call him and tell him that we're selling the house and that I'm having a divorce and I'm having divorce papers filed on you. That may be the only way you can get your name on there is through divorce settlement. I'm not sure there's any money. I don't care. I don't know if you want your money name on it. Right. It's not going to bring enough to cover the bills. And if it does, you know, we'll argue about it then. But if she puts on the market and he says, I don't want to sell it from afar, can he do that if he's just only name on there? Uh, that'll be up to her divorce attorney. Right. Okay. He has four children. And by the way, there's child support view and probably alimony. I don't know if they do alimony in Texas or not, but I know they do child support. And so, uh, child support doesn't care if you want to reinvest back into your company. Yeah. The law doesn't care. It says you have four children that need to be fed. That's what it says. And since March, that ain't cool. Yeah. I ain't cool. Jessica, can we say, I hate this for you, man? I hate this for you. Yeah. Daddy needs to be feeding the babies. I'm to do it, bud. You don't get to go off and play with your friends in another land. Not how this works. You made babies, you get to feed them. That's how, that's how house functioning society works. And, uh, we that are functioning, we'll make you do that and we should. So, yeah, geez. I'm sorry, Jessica. I'm sorry. You're going through this. I think you're done, hon. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.