Thread: Need to vent
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Old 09-23-2008, 06:21 PM
  # 4 (permalink)  
hadenoughnow
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Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 633
I have been through almost exactly what you are going through. My ex AH was horrible with money, all I can offer is that it won't get any better until he recovers (or you get out of the situation). I'll tell my story so you can see how bad it can really get.

In the year after our son was born and I was working part time my ex ran up credit cards, bought a snowmobile on credit, bought furniture on credit, bought a car USING A CREDIT CARD!

We had equity in our home (thanks to me making extra payments and the large down payment my grandparents gifted us with) so I refi'd the house, paid the cards and made him sell the toys. So now we had two mortgages (we still had a lot of equity)and when I tried to get him to live on a budget he ran the cards up again.

When I stopped paying on them he just took money out of the bank, we missed two house payments and the bank foreclosed after only 60 days! (because we had equity and they would make money). We filed BK and got the house back then stopped the BK, I made the A take money out of his 401k to refi the house (I found a private investor to give us a mortgage).

I let all the credit cards go to collections (at least then he could not borrow money) and I changed careers, soon my pay exceeded the A's. After a few lean years (many times my family helped me out) I refi'd the house again and paid off all the collection accounts and repaired MY credit.

Somewhere in the middle of all this the A was downsized and given severance, he sat at home for 5 months until the severance ran out, then took another 4 to find a job (different job with the same company, he actually got all of seniority back!).

His new job was union and seasonal he started taking voluntary layoff whenever he could (of course he didn't tell me it was voluntary, I found that out later). At one point I made 4 TIMES as much money as he did yet it was always my fault that he drank and was depressed.

During this time I was at least smart enough not to have any joint credit cards or debts with him and refused to pay any debt he ran up but many times he drained our bank account and I had to scamble to pay bills.

My HP was looking out for me because when we moved into a newer, bigger house (paid for by me) 2 years ago, the mortgage company refused to put him on the mortgage, when I threw him out he could not take the house nor did I have to refi to get his name off, I let him keep his 401k and his pension and said good riddance.

Now he has to work OT just to afford his "lifestyle" .
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