My 13 year old son put it best when he said ""ex husband" really screwed us over, didn't he mom?". He put me in a financial hole that I don't feel like I"ll ever get out of and I"m so worn out going from bank to bank trying to refinance and pay off the contract on my house so I can pay my ex and move on with my life.

Thanks to him, I bought him a new car because I'd cosigned and he quit paying. I paid for the house, but he still gets $8,000 for being married to me for 4 years. My credit is ruined because I couldn't keep up with the house and car payments, living expenses, and the credit cards; so I defaulted on the cards. I'm working on my credit rating, but it's not going up fast enough and I may lose the house altogether if I can't get the contract paid off this summer. Not to mention the ex keeps calling and threatening to take me to court because he hasn't gotten his money yet. Of course, he's not working or going to school now and he found another sugar momma to take care of him.

Sigh.......I just needed to vent. Any suggestions on getting my credit rating up would be great; although my biggest problem is that I don't HAVE the money to pay off the bad debt, and that's what I need to do to get the rating up.

Anyway, guess I feel a little better now having got that off my chest.

Annasnewlife:

I feel for you and hear your frustration.

I can tell you, I suffered financially during my marriage, and I took a huge debt load when I got divorced. I mean a HUGE debt load. I'm divorced for almost 5 years now, and am still working at paying them off.

My credit score when i got divorced was a 520 - which is bad. I needed a new car, and found a dealer that would finance me at a nice rate of 17.7% - but I needed a car, so I had to sign. I made sure that my house payments and my car payments were made on time every month for years, and my credit score creeped up slowly.

I chipped away at the credit card debt, by making minimum payments, and every tax refund that I got went to pay off a larger chunk of the debt. My credit score creeped up even more.

I did NOT add anymore debt, I didn't borrow against my house during this time, and now 5 years later, my FICO score is in the low 700's - which is considered good.

It's hard, it's frustrating, but it does get better - it just takes time.

Don't give up........
Laura

What's the bad debt in? Medical bills, the car you spoke of, credit cards?

The best financial help I could offer would be to check out daveramsey.com and Financial Peace. Basically, start at Baby Step#1--save up $1000 emergency fund, then start paying off the debts smallest to largest balance rolling (snowballing) the payments into each other until when you start working on the last debt on the list, you have a substantial payment going toward it each month.
Also, remember it's easy to play the "blame game" during this period. If you think about your financial condition, nobody held a "gun" to your head. You probably already knew about this guy's financial history, too. You're hurting and under a great deal of financial strain not to mention the emotional stress. I'm sorry you're going THROUGH this. I say "through" this because that what it is...something where you'll come out on the other end. Keep your head up and when you feel depressed, go play with your beautiful children. It's God's way of reminding us the future is brighter!

Whoa, Steve, what makes you think my ex had a "financial history" that I knew about? He worked full time as a welder, made a decent living, and the reason I cosigned on a car for him was because he had NO credit history; he always saved and bought with cash. He had a vehicle, but it was a clunker he had paid cash for and I wanted him to have a nicer vehicle so I cosigned on a $6,000 car loan. Not at all extravagant, and would have been fine if he'd been working. No, he was a steady worker who never used credit when I met and married him. That impressed me. I guess he had a midlife crisis cuz he suddenly quit his job and took up playing D & D with younger friends, fishing and wandering around in the woods and total unconcern for our finances.....

Anyway, I am going through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University right now and it's great. I know I"m just going through this now and my credit rating will be great in two years, but I don't HAVE two years. I have an irate ex who wants his money NOW and a contract for deed that has to be paid off in 8 months or I lose the $30,000 I"ve paid on the house, and I imagine I'll still owe the ex as it wouldn't be his fault that I lost it. That's pretty scary.

tc: it's 3 defaulted credit cards; about $8,000 total. I'm going to work on them as soon as I take care of current debt.

My bank was actually impressed by how little debt I have now (just the house) and the mortgage company was impressed by how many debts I've paid off in the last year on an $1800 a month income. I even raised my credit score from 570 to 595 in the last 3 months. But that's still not fast enough.

Ah. Ok, here's a site that REALLY helped me clean up my credit report and taught me how to get negative items removed. The key is knowing what's on our credit reports at all times and disputing EVERYTHING that's negative. Follow the techniques on the site and you'll have MUCH better credit pretty darn quickly.

Credit Board

Getting a new mortgage right now is going to be tough for anybody. Try your best to delay your XH as long as possible. Maybe get a relative to co-sign? You can get through this!

T

Thanks tc! It looks like a good site and I'll be spending some time there. Unfortunately, I think the majority of the bad stuff on it is true, but I may be able to get some of the old bad stuff off there.

As to the xh, I think his bark is worse than his bite. He didn't have an attorney and mine wrote the decree in my favor as to the house; there's no date when it has to be sold/refinanced by and the language is rather vague.....although how the money is distributed is very specific. So at worst if he did take me to court the judge would probably set a time to have this done by and if I show him how hard I"m working on this and how I have a deadline anyway (the contract being up in Sept.), I don't think he'd find me in contempt.

I just don't deal with stress all that well and my stomach is in knots worrying over this every day.

Oh, I am approaching several family members about cosigning also. They know I"ve made all the payments for 4 years, so hopefully they will help if they are in a position to.

And thanks so much for the encouragement, I need it!

Here I will toss out a few ideas.

Your husband is using the 6K car that YOU are paying on.

THIS HAS TO STOP. You need to get this car back and sell it.

If you owe him 8 grand, then he only gets 2 grand if he decides to keep the car and you are paying for this.

You should not be giving this car to him AND having to pay him 8K.

I am sorry you married the guy. You probably knew he was a slacker one year into the marriage and should have divorced him then and cut your losses.

But talk to your attorney about the car issue. He is USING you here. That you might have some control over....

The house, ask the seller if you can have a bit longer on the contract. Often a seller wants the contract to continue depending on thier tax situation. If the contract ends and you cash them out, they could have a bad tax situation to deal with if they have gains on the home. Perhaps they would extend the contract, for some time, in writing of course. This could take something off your plate at least and buy you some time.

If the seller does not want to extend the contract, you could offer incentives like higher interest, a little higher payments, etc. I would ask them anyway.

I still think your husband is NOT entitled to that WHOLE car. He either needs to refinance it to get your name off it or sell it.

Hey, why not refinance the house to get his money WHEN AND IF he refies that car. Was the car issue brought up in court?

Hi Stella!

He doesn't even have the car anymore, he wrecked it and his new girlfriend bought him a pretty new truck. Since I had cosigned the car loan, didn't that make me responsible if he quit paying, whether we were married or not? It probably should have been addressed in the divorce, but for some reason it wasn't. I had it paid off before the divorce was even final.

I brought my house payment in to the owner last week and he asked me how I was doing on refinancing. I told him I was having some difficulties and he grinned at me and said "well, remember if it's not paid off in September I'll have to be the bad guy". He's a local lawyer with a reputation for being a jerk; and in fact got this house through foreclosure in the first place. I don't think he's going to give me any slack because it would be a great deal for him to get it back. I'll have paid $30,000 on it and then he gets to turn around and sell it again.

A good friend offered to cosign for me but I'm not sure if he'll be able to; he has money in the bank and a good credit score; but he just got back from two years in Iraq and is unemployed until he finds a new job. I've got two family members I"m going to talk to about cosigning who might be in a better position.