my dh has credit card debt - most of which he had before we met - he told me it was around $30K and he was working very hard to bring the balance down. After a year or so, I found out the debt is more around $46K and growing. I thought he was paying it down because he puts in at least 60-70 hours a week.

He does not let me see his bills, paychecks, etc. We keep everything seperate - his checking account / my checking account. When I do try to talk about the debt, he gets upset and angry with me. He tells me he is in control of the situation and I need to not worry about it.

So do I just let it go and forget about it or what? Dh gives me some money each week to help with groceries and bills...could give more if he wasn't paying it all to the credit card companies. WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

I did the same thing - let us have separate accounts and believed that he knew what he was doing, even though I saw the signs. Granted, we've had a layoff and a disastrous job where he basically paid to keep the company running, but I finally got him to go to CCCS this month - he is $80,000 in debt! And I have my own because he didn't give me money he promised to, so I had to get in worse shape, too. He was stunned to see how in debt he is, but he isn't willing to do their plan, so we are royally screwed.

Basically, if I had put my foot down 20 years ago, and insisted on transparency on bills, we never would have gotten like this, but I trusted him. Don't trust your husband; this is family money you're talking about, not his vs yours.

Thanks for your post! I appreciate your words of advice...

It's going to be a battle with my DH - he won't let me see his checking account info because he doesn't want me telling him what he can spend money on etc. DH said his father used to do that to him when he was younger and he isn't going down that road again. He also said he doesn't like to look at his debt because it brings him down - thus staying in denial. I told him we had to create a budget and get some of the debt paid down instead of making min payments. He said he couldn't afford a penny more - but still charges $500 or so a month on to the debt. I have zero credit card debt and own my own home so who do you think should be dealing with the finances in our marriage...I am just so frustrated today.

Can you tell me more about CCCS?

I really think you are going to have to put your foot down. Finances is NOT an individual matter in a marriage. It can't be. You are going to have to find a way to let him know you will NOT be ok with this any more. Give him some options, but tell him you cannot continue without one of the options.

CCCS is a nonprofit organization in most cities that will work with your creditors (if you go with their plan) and reduce your interest rate, if not amount owed, and pay your bills for you; you agree to give them a certain amount of your paycheck, cut up your credit cards, and live on cash only until your bills are paid off. Tough living, but that's what it takes sometimes.

You also can go to daveramsey.com and use their tools to work on your debt. I actually went there yesterday and signed up, since H won't work with me. It has some good advice.

We have a lot of debt, and I'm working on paying the balances off (the debt is primarily my husband's under MY name). It is because of foolishness on my part and trying to help him work on a personal passion, hotrodding. I spent thousands on car parts for him because he couldn't get the credit. (Ooh catperson! Add something to the list of supporting his interests!!!)

He had a good job and I had no reason to believe he wouldn't pay me back. However, he got laid off and went through a period of financial uncertainty where he lived off my credit card for a few months.

That was 6 years ago and I'm still trying to get a hold of the bills. He wouldn't let me talk to CCCS because he wanted to get a house... supposedly programs like CCCS are just as bad as bankruptcy according to the credit bureaus.

Now that we have a house, maybe I'll check into it. I have just enough money saved to pay some of the smaller balances most or all of the way off and I've negotiated a re-aged, lower interest rate plan with one of the higher balance accounts.

He has not been able to contribute because now I'm the higher wage earner and what he makes pretty much contributes to paying the necessities.

Though, I don't know if I CAN tell my husband.. too afraid he'll flip out. He wants to refinance so he may see my plan to get out from under my debt as getting in the way of a lower mortgage payment.

This is why having complete seperate accounts is a horrible idea. You shouldn't have to pay your spouse back. What my wife and I did was we agreed on a set amount we'd each have to spend on things we wanted. We also budgeted for going out to eat once a week. The rest went to bills.

What your husband is failing to understand is that when you marry someone, it's different than dating...you equally share the bills.

Oh, he knows...

I've actually heard advice quite the contrary of what is being discussed... We have a joint account (my husband insisted upon it), even though I think we should have a joint for bills and separate accounts for personal items (clothes, etc.). Everyone I know thinks it's foolish that we share bank accounts.... they say it will lead to him "taking" my money for himself.

I've also heard to keep track of what percentage he pays in the mortgage... if it's not 50/50 (it can't because he only makes 2/3 what I make), then it's unacceptable and to keep tabs because he doesn't have the same stake in the house than I do. :? I won't do that. Seems kind of b***y to me, to do that, you know???

I think that's horrible advice. That resorts you marriage to room mates. I mean, do you evict him if he doesn't contribute 50% because he makes a lower wage? And what if one persons income equals a 50% share with no money left over and the other person has $3000 left over a month? Does that mean the person with the extra money gets to blow their money while the other person has to "borrow" money from their spouse?

I really think what has worked best for us and quite a few of our married friends is the approach that I mentioned...each person gets X amount of personal/selfish/etc items of their own. We then allow to go out to the movies or out to eat or a date once a week or once every other week. The rest goes to bills.

Needless to say both of the people giving the above advice are divorced..... I don't see the need to preemptively protect oneself from their spouse like that.

We really do need to work on budgeting. I set aside $100 a week for groceries. I rarely go over that, usually when it's time to buy other supplies like cleaning supplies, etc. However, hubby has a humongous appetite and always goes out to lunch and spends $10-$15 a day on lunch (a real budget buster).

I'm trying to get him to bag lunch (like me), but he always has an excuse not to. I got him to for a short while, but then he always complained about what I put in his lunch or the amount of food I gave him, or the time it took to eat... I stopped doing it.

Whaddaya do? We can't afford him to go out every day and he simply won't make his own bag lunch. Tell him he can't eat?
He's cranky enough on a full stomach! It's tenfold as bad when he's hungry!

So tell him that you want to spend the equivalent on what he spends through the week on lunch on something you want. $10-$15 a day? Geez.

Yeah. I don't know how he does it. Actually, I do. He goes to fast food places and orders like 3 burgers at $3.50 a piece. He's not fat, just big (tall)... Though I worry about the quality of the food he gets, I don't even want to know what his cholesterol is (he hasn't been to the doctor in years).

How about for presents (Christmas, birthday, Valentine's, etc.), you give him gift cards for the fast food places he goes to? You can't make him want to do what you like. That's not POJA and it will only breed resentment and feeling controlled. Find a POJA, like my suggestion above.

I've asked if he wanted that kind of thing and he always says "No." He has a Green Dot card, however, he doesn't want to keep it because they charge a monthly $5 fee. I think it would be a great way to budget his spending.

I don't force him to do anything... however I've suggested he start bringing a bag lunch (he can make it himself if he wants)... his excuse: "If I'm in the building, EVEN IN THE BREAK ROOM, I'll get disturbed." He uses the "going out for lunch" idea to get away from the people at his work since they apparently don't understand the boundary of "Hey, I'm at lunch."

Then I suggested perhaps bringing in healthy snacks to munch on when he's not at lunch (fruit, nuts, etc.), reducing the need for such a big meal at noon... but no, "That's unprofessional. And I wouldn't understand that because I'm a government worker (apparently all govenment workers have no sense of professionalism. :rolleyes:)." OR "Such and such food hurts my teeth, gets caught in my teeth, too hard to eat, gives me a stomachache when I eat... [insert excuse I cannot argue with even if I question its validity]."

At that point, I'm like: "Nevermind, I forgot I'm always wrong." and drop the subject.

My wife and I have a (somewhat) working arrangement, although she is frustrated by the fact that she makes more money than me and still doesn't have as much extra to spend as she'd like, though she is the one who has created all our bills (lots of debt to pay off because "we can get this and it'll only be a few dollars a month"). We have a joint checking and savings account, but then we each have individual checking accounts. We both put most of our paychecks into the joint accounts, and a little (between $100 and $200 a paycheck) into our individual accounts. We pay bills and joint expenses out of the joint accounts, but things we want for ourselves we pay out of our own accounts.

This actually worked pretty well until she got us so far into debt (in my name) that all of our money has to go to the joint checking to pay the bills. Of course, she got there because I didn't put my foot down and stop her purchasing stuff we didn't need, especially lots of stuff that she doesn't even use. The root of the problem is that she needs to learn how to effectively manage our money, and it sounds like your husband has the same problem.

I think the problems that most people have with money are two fold. For one, their FOO influences their spending habits. For example, my wife's mother would empty her bank account as a punishment, often for trivial things, and her mother would gamble away and overspend thousands of dollars she didn't have. Between having a poor role model and having all her spending desires externally suppressed, I think she has a lot of pent up desire to spend on things, even things she knows she doesn't really need, because she can.

For another, some people simply lack an intuitive sense of money, what you're parents referred to as "knowing the value of a dollar". My brain is very good at keeping track of my spending and knowing how much money I have in my accounts even without keeping a record of transactions. At any time I can tell you the amount of money in any account I have to within $100, with $10 if the account has a low balance. My wife, on the other hand, has wildly inaccurate estimates of the amount of money in her accounts. When she underestimates it's not so bad, but when she over estimates she finds that she has overdrawn the account and racked up hundreds of dollars in insufficient funds fees (whereas I have never once overdrawn an account except when she spent out of our joint account without telling me).

Sorry if I'm making this too much about me, but I think my wife has a lot in common with your husband as far as their understanding of money goes. The best thing is to probably try to help your husband develop better spending habits. Since he already seems to know that there's something wrong with the spending, build on that and discuss things with him. Hard as it may be, don't lose your patience with him. Stay calm, even if he gets upset, and remind him that you are just trying to improve things. If it helps, say that you got the information you're telling him from a show like Oprah or The Today Show. If you don't get mad at him and make him feel like he has to hide is spending from you, I think you can start to make real, is gradual, progress.

Speaking of which, it's important not to make him feel that you are judging his spending. It sounds like this is why he is concerned about using a joint account and ragging on him will only reinforce those fears and make him want to hide his spending to avoid your judgement. Even when you don't agree with his spending, you don't want to push him out. It won't make anything better, and it will cause him to try harder to hide things.

Quick TJ. Akrasia, do you get Style channel at home? There's a wonderful show on there called Clean House. It's this lady and her team who go to people's houses who have let the clutter overtake their lives. Usually because one of the two is a compulsive shopper. They basically armtwist the family to let them sell off half their stuff in a yard sale, and then use the money to redo their house. Awesome show. I love it cos it makes me feel like my mess isn't really so bad, lol.

Anyway, maybe your wife would see a little of herself in those people who have 250 pairs of shoes, or 3000 Beanie Babies.

He's funny about money. He used to be really bad at paying bills... let a few go to collection a few years ago, etc. However, when we were looking to buy the house, he turned into credit nazi. He went so far over the other way that he made my life miserable (took all my credit cards away, chided me for buying ANYTHING - even once when I NEEDED work clothes for a job interview... I bought a suit because I had gained weight and all my other suits were not flattering...)

He still doesn't really have a sense of budgeting his money, but he'll occasionally freak out if we get a late fee notice or have to juggle money to pay all the bills. But instead of having a rational solution, like calling the company to work something out, or pay late and suck up the fee, or even overdraft (sometimes the overdraft fee is less than the late fee and I'll let the account overdraft if one of us gets paid the next day or so), he orders me to pay the bill (or pays it himself) and forego grocery shopping... which is really dumb because then we just wind up going to fast food restaurants and spending more than we would if I would just get food at the grocery store.

I don't know if that makes any sense or not.

You Need a Budget - IMHO the best system to get your finances under control and it follows the POJA.

I have been the bill-payer guy for 13 years in our marriage. During this time, I became skilled in understanding cash flow and why it's important to paying bills on time. I forget that she has no experience in managing money. I have literally done it the entire time.

The reality is that she not a detail-oriented person and I have covered this gap in her personality. Sometimes it works well, other times, it causes issues in our marriage [not just about money].

Two years ago, I stopped really managing our money [joint account]. At the time, I said that I was sick of doing it and wanted her to take over (selfish demand). This has led to a large credit card bill.

I kept watching it go up and up and up. In the past, I would have controlled her by being a jerk and demanding that she stop spending money. I wasn't following the POJA.

Finally, the card maxed out at $34K. This was so undeniably huge that my wife was [as she put it] "sickend" with that amount of bad debt hanging over our heads.

With respect to finances, my wife has irrational fears on money that she says are based on a feast-famine cycle growing up.

When I tried to broach this subject many times, she would avoid it at all costs. I would try to combat her irrational thoughts with simple logic. This didn't work too well as she generally would become overwhelmed.

It took a lot of patience to get her to go through a budget meeting with me, as described by the YNAB system. The first three times it was a dismal failure that ended with fights and loss of love bank units.

I realized that I was making a lot of selfish demands in the past, rather than trying to get to a joint agreement about spending money.

I simplified everything and was able to get her agreement on a monthly [adjustable] budget in 15 minutes. We did it without ending in a fight and we both came away from it a bit more empowered.

When we have had a financial goal such as saving for a vacation, she has no problem saving money. This is because she now understands that making a budget is not a prison, it's freedom. She actively chooses not to waste money because she gets a nice vacation and we don't go into debt for it].

The YNAB point is that we get to PLAN and CHOOSE how we spend money.

Give it a shot.