This is my first time posting but I’ve been reading this site for more than 4 years. I’ve been with my husband for 8 years, married for almost 4. He has ADHD and is on medication. He isn’t hyperactive at all, but he has issues focusing and I’m guessing he has a learning disability as well. Other than taking medication, he does little else to learn or understand his ADHD. He never reads this site even though I’ve asked him to several times.
Our main issue is around money and our relationship is completely breaking down-MAJOR parent/child dynamics. I am so angry and resentful because I feel like he is financially ruining me. I value financial stability at my core and it’s one of the things I value the most-perhaps the top thing. I’m the kind of person who started saving money in my 401K when I was 22 years old. I bought my first house when I was 23. Financial stability is really, really important to me. I work in corporate America and could get laid off anytime. I am very uneasy with a lot of debt (outside of a mortgage).
When we were dating, I learned that my husband had $25K in credit card debt, no assets, and nothing saved for retirement. Basically, he just didn’t live within his means. There was no reason for it-he just wasn’t in control of understanding where his money was going. Plus, he feels “entitled” to things he cannot afford like vacations and big screen TV’s. I tried to help him develop a plan for getting control of his debt and he got a second, part time job and began to pay it down. I had actually ended our relationship and we broke up for 5 months. We only got back together because he agreed to this plan.
Because he started to pay off his debt and had a plan to continue, I agreed to marry him nearly 4 years ago. It’s a second marriage for both of us. The agreement that I actually struck with him when we married was that I would pay 85% of our monthly common bills (mortgage, etc.) and he would pay 15% to allow him to continue to pay down his credit cards. This was supposed to go on for 2 years when his contribution would go up to 1/3 of our household bills. (I make 2/3 of the household income, he makes 1/3 so I thought that was fair.)
2 years turned into 3 1/2 and he still didn’t have his credit cards paid off. I did not monitor him closely so I have no idea where his money went. At the same time as this, his ex-wife decided to serve him with papers to sue him for more child support, plus part of his daughter’s private school tuition, plus half of his 2-kids college expenses. An 8 month battle ensued racking up thousands and thousands of dollars in legal bills and culminated in his ex-wife actually deposing MY financials to help pay for his kids. (Apparently she sees me as a source of income for her.) The net result of this is that he settled with his ex-wife out of court to pay an epic amount of child support (the max in our state) PLUS college, plus healthcare, plus a small portion of his daughter’s private school tuition (his ex-wife doesn’t believe public schools are good enough for his kids and he has no say.) I had no say in any of this and his lawyer was TERRIBLE in my opinion. We are in a state with case law that apparently allows this. I have no idea what his lawyer even did for him.
So now the result is that he STILL owes a small balance on his credit cards plus legal debt, plus more child support. In the next 6 years, he will have to somehow take out loans to put his 2 kids through college. The guy can never get ahead, ever.
I’ve disassociated myself and decided that he still will owe me his share of his bills. He got himself into this predicament and I wasn’t going to bail him out anymore. It’s possible for him to pay everything except college with his two jobs as long as he sticks to a tight budget. College will have to come from loans that he will have to pay off when his kids are out of school and he doesn’t have to pay child support anymore. Under duress from me, he developed a budget and our agreement was that we would review his progress against it once/month to make sure he was on track.
Well, months go by and he doesn’t track anything against his budget. It literally pains his to even say the word budget. When I asked him last night when he wants to review it with him, he just blew up at me and said he has “too much stress”. Whatever-I have little empathy for him anymore. He acts like a victim way too much and he never learns.
The other major thing that I’m angry about is he totaled my (paid off) car when I was away on a business trip. He took my car instead of his because he didn’t want to put miles on his car. We don’t share cars and he didn’t have my permission to take mine. I would never just take his without asking. I have a car payment now that he just cannot contribute to. I hate having a car payment.
I just don’t see an end to this and I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’ve been duped by a guy who promised to be financially responsible for refuses to be so. My anxiety levels are higher than every in my life and I keep thinking about how I was happy before I married him.
