I have a problem and need some advise. Ive been married to my wife for 8 yrs now and we have a wonderful little boy about to turn 5. Sounds awful, huh? The problem is that my wife continues to get us in financial problems with credit cards I have no idea she has obtained. Last year it was 6K on a card and we will be trying to dig out of that hole for years. Now she has gotten overdraft protection at a bank and wrapped that out too. All the while she is lying to me about it. Otherwise she is a wonderful wife and mother and separation is not an option, but pretty soon we will be on the road to bankruptcy, please, any advise would be very helpful! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Jeff,

Cut up the cards and get to a POJA with your W regarding the spending.

Do it now!

Jeff, I'm with "getting better"....my MIL dragged my FIL down when my h was young. She ran up every bit of credit they had and would take the mortgage money to go shopping...they lost their house in foreclosure....address it while you still have time
Melissa

my problem is similar. My wife and I are both 39, have been together over 8 years and we have a 6 year old. My wife also has a 21 year old son that lives with us. My stepson works a parttime job, but spends every penny on himself and/or his girlfriend. My wife and I support my stepson, and pay for his college education. After 2 years of college he has failed almost every course. Now he just announced that he wants to quit college and go to technical school for the next 3 years, and of course my wife and I will be paying his way.
My stepson blows his money foolishly as soon as he earns it, but when his car breaks or he needs something my wife feels sorry for him and pays for it. We have no savings and I am sick of supporting this adult, who does ABSOLUTELY NO CHORES and comes and goes as he pleases. He will leave the house during the day while we are at work and leave lights on or the furnace cranked up. I am sick of working all day while this freeloader loafs around my house. If I ***** about this situation I am seen as the bad guy.

My father kicked me out of the house at age 18 and I made it on my own and learned responsibilities.

This is hard to relate as I am someone who worked from the time I was 12! First, paper routes, babysitting, local 5 and dime, food store, and by the time I was 18, waitressing. I can't stand for laziness! Even now, I have my hands full with 5 kids at home, and don't have to work, but I do anyway for the extras. My h doesn't complain even though he thought it was silly for me to work in the beginning.
Does your w have a job? Does she know you feel the way you do? Maybe, I know this sounds crazy, but maybe you should talk with her about it and give her an allowance? If she knew she had a set amount of money to spend maybe she would be more careful with it and yet she'd still feel somewhat in control because it was her money to do whatever with.
Melissa

Your wife obviously has a problem and I wouls say it's an addiction. It's causing her to act out of character by lying to you and risking damage to your marriage. The actual financial issues may turn out to be far less important than the addiction issues. There is an excellent resource for financial issues and they have counsellors all across the country. The web address is www.crown.org They have a lot of tools and help to get out of debt and may even be able to help with your wife's problems. Hope this helps.

First of all I am not trying to excuse or justify my actions, they were wrong, but facts are facts and here is a bit of my story.

I am a stay at home mom and have a wonderful generous husband, that never complained when I asked him for money. But I did the same thing your wife is doing.

What did my husband do? Well after he confronted me, he told me how he was going to pay off the debts. Then he cut up my credit cards and closed the joint account. I just got sneakier. This cycle went on until...

We started to talk (communicate) which neither of us were any good at.

In our discussion we learned alot about each others needs that neither of us were aware of.

I told him that I resented having to always ask him for money and his always asking what do you need $?? for. That I felt like a small child every time, begging her daddy. That as a child I had to always beg my dad for money were my siblings got allowances. Dad usually let me have what I wanted, but I resented having to plead all the time and my siblings resented my getting what ever I wanted. I was the youngest by 5 years and dad's "last Little darl'n"

His response, That he didn't realize my having to ask was an issue. That it built his ego to be able to say sure here's $??. As to the what do you need it for all the time, wasn't an Inquisition but well because I'm just curious.

Maybe you and your wife need find out where each of you are coming from.

Does your W think this behavior is a problem? It's clean that you see what's wrong, but if she doens't you might need to start there.

Additionally, she might want to check out Debtors anonymous.