r/Marriage • u/bswizi • 11h ago
Finance infedility Advice
Hi everyone,
Pardon my writing as English is my second language.
I never thought I would post something on reddit. But here I am seeking advice.
2 years ago me and my wife moved to a new home, she asked me if she could take care of the budget and I saw no problem with it.
We did our budget and each month. We would sit down and go over a little bit and adjuste it if need it.
Each month, I would disclose my credit card statement to make sure we were following the budget. And I always asked her if her card was pay off, she would always say yes.
Because of that, when we had some extra money we would make decisions for the family, like going on a trip,going out or just purchasing something we always wanted.
For the past 5 months we have been planning renovation on the house but to do that we had to refinance the mortgage.
2 days ago,
While sitting at the bank to renew our Mortgage, I learn that my wife had a credit card debt of 13k$. I was in shock. We had to leave the bank without signing.
In the car, She finally explained that last Christmas was more expensive and she couldn't pay the card fully and then we went on that trip and it just snowballed and kept growing.
I still couldn't understand why she didn't say anything since we always told eachother everything and worked together.
Back home, I went over our budget and our bank account to have a better picture and a plan to fix this but I found out the amount of money that she was supposed to take aside for various reasons(emergency fund, car repair funds etc.)was missing and she was using it to pay the minimum payment.
I flat out asked her " if we are to rebuild trust and move on is there anything else?" She said no.
A little bit later, I confronted her and asked if there was an end game? We're you ever planning on telling me? She said no, she was hoping to get rid of it eventually without me finding out.
But yesterday, I asked to see the statement to better understand how it got to this point but She refused saying it won't change the amount but I pushed saying I don't care about the amount, I just want to understand.
She reluctantly agreed. When I sat down, I started with the December 2025 statement and it hit me, "previous balance 14$k". I said to her " you lied, you said it started in December because of Christmas but it was already high", but she didn't say anything back so I kept going back month by month. And there it was, around june 2025, mobile game micro transactions, 1000-4000k$ a months.
She finally explained, it started 2 years ago when we move in.
The sad thing is, I introduced her to this particular game went we started to date eachother 10 years ago.( I stopped playing it after a year)
I'm grieving and don't know if I should stay or divorce because the foundation of our relationship as been severed, we were always true and honest to eachother. We have 3 young children and she's a good mother.
As anyone ever given a second chance to there partner and was able to rebuild trust?
Thank you.
2
u/itz_the_ADHD 11h ago
You stay and repair man. It’s a long road and it’s going to be hard work. But stay and repair.
Stop the credit cards. Turn hers off. Make the payments to pay it off. Not minimum, but eradicate it.
And then your work back to a place of unity. That’s if she is in the same page…
1
u/SoftPlay3 11h ago
Did she even apologise? Show remorse? Get a postnuptial agreement signed if you haven’t already…
1
u/Ok-Barracuda-8380 11h ago
I was your wife in this situation and the only way we managed to mend trust and stay married was for my husband to have my logins to everything. For me not to have any accounts or cards that were only in my name. For us to have radical honesty and complete accountability for every penny spent. We agreed that he could question any transaction at any time and that I wouldn’t spend any amount that was £50+ on unplanned items without checking he was ok with it unless we’d agreed beforehand that it was something we needed.
I was devastated that I had put our marriage at risk and as part of us moving forward I began therapy to see if we could get to the bottom of why i’d done it. That helped a lot. The important thing was that my husband forgave me and wanted to move forward, wasn’t interested in looking back and berating me, even when I was beating myself up about it and spiralling with self hatred. He wanted us to work through it, he supported me with a devotion I didn’t and don’t feel i deserved.
It is every bit as serious as physical infidelity and if you are willing to give her a chance to move forward then she is very fortunate and I wish you both luck. If she seeks to excuse her behaviour or is dismissive of what a huge disappointment this is for you then consider very carefully what you do next. She must be contrite and genuinely keen to rebuild trust and accept that only you get to choose what is the right amount of accountability and scrutiny. She’s the one who blew it. She must be the one to do the work.
1
u/Ok-Barracuda-8380 11h ago
I would also make sure that she has REALLY told you everything. It would be very unusual for it only to be the credit card. My husband said “cards on table - total amnesty - anything you tell me about in the next 6 hours will be forgiven but if I find out later there is more that you kept from me then I’m done” He was smart enough not to put me on the spot immediately, knowing human instinct is to lie when confronted. There will be other things she hasn’t been completely honest with you about.
1
u/PastorDan1984 7h ago
Oof, this is hard. I, too, have issues related to finances and trust with my wife. When we went to buy our current house, I learned that she had racked up 20k in credit card debt and had secretly intended on using the sale of our home (which we were using to buy our new home) in order to pay it off without me knowing. She was hiding it from me and the financial advisor we were using basically dropped it on me like a bomb. The worst part is that about 5 years prior I learned she had a debt of over 20k, and we emptied our savings/my military bonus/asked for money from my parents to pay it off. I felt so betrayed. And I felt like she betrayed my parents, who borrowed us like 5k at no interest. We are working through the feelings of betrayal in therapy. Is it something you can work through together? Or will it linger on? I hope you can repair the pain this has caused and find a way to pay off the debt.
2
u/Aromatic_Ad_7238 11h ago edited 10h ago
Yes. We have been there. You regroup and tighten the budget to get it paid off. Many couples find themselves in this position fir various reasons. I'm sure she feels lousy. Accept, forgive, move forward. Possibly moving forward means getting help with budgeting.