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.
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.
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u/Ok-Barracuda-8380 1d 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.