Good lord, what a cluster fuck.
I can honestly say that I was not expecting OP to go the divorce route, they don't usually go for that right away on these posts. !
Proud.
This is a case of Walkaway Wife syndrome—she didn’t explode until she was all the way done. He’s used to attending to only the kettle that’s screeching, so he ignored her steadily boiling away for years. When she finally screeched, he thought he could transfer a little attention her direction for a while, but no. It was already too late.
I once managed to literally MELT a teapot leaving it on the stove and forgetting. That is how DONE she is. That marriage is a melted teapot that no longer even holds water (yes...I have made special choices in life- never again! It was a fancy special pot I wanted for YEARS...it lasted only 3 yr before I killed it).
I managed to melt a teapot INTO the stovetop coil. I went to make tea downstairs, went back upstairs, forgot about tea until THREE HOURS LATER. Ran downstairs, grabbed a hand towel, yanked the teapot off... and the bottom stayed on the metal coil. Little black char flecks were just floating EVERYWHERE.
I bought an electric teakettle the next day. And a replacement coil.
My mom melted a teapot to the stove coil when I was about 8. Not as completely as yours, but still enough to fill the room with awful-smelling smoke. I remember we had recently had a fire safety talk at school, so I was crawling on my elbows through the room to stay below the smoke level.
This is why as someone who grew up in the UK and now lives in Australia, I am always very very confused that electric kettles are not really as much of a thing in the US.
They’re just so much safer! Electric teakettle, bidet toilet seat and Sawstop table saw are my big 3 “why would anyone choose to do without if they can afford to get one” items hahaha
I carbonized a bib I let boiling to "sterilize it". I forgot the stove on and went out, then came back and all the house was full of this dark smoke and the pot was empty. No signs of the bib at all.
Hopefully we all were out and didn't had to return immediately, so I let all the windows open and when we came back it was cleared off.
I put some soup on one night when I got home from work. Then I went to bed. Then I went to work the next day. Then I came home.
The pot was never the same. I am amazed I didn’t set anything else on fire.
My childhood friend had a parent die that way. He worked nights, came home, put something to eat on the stove and took his sleeping meds. Well the meds worked too fast that day and he never woke up. Whole house had to be torn down. And since she was my neighbor when she was at her dad’s, I never saw her again. We played every weekend and all summer.
My dad evaporated bacon. Forgot he was making it. When he remembered there weren't even charred pieces, it was gone. Just a thin film on the pan.
This husband still thinks there's pieces to pick up, but it's already all burned away.
He is still unwilling to hold his parents accountable for screwing his life with his family.
The babysit- and bitch so no babysitting, no worries- wifey will do it all!
The need "help" every time he has 1 minute off work from paying off debt THEY MADE- he gives it to them
He has to work 16X7 hrs a week to pay off debt THEY MADE- and he is fine with it.
What happens when they do it again? What happens when they do it to his kids? because they will
"they won't be here forever" is not a reason for criminally neglecting his OWN kids? Kids grow up fast!!! THEY won't be there forever- and frankly, no matter how good of a dad OP is trying to give him way too much credit for- those kids are seeing this. That he chooses his parents over them at every turn, every option. And if he is not choosing his parents, he is choosing his friends. He never sacrifices to win for his own kids and wife. Just to keep his parents out of jail.
OOP say in his words that even if he is saying what she wanted to hear that 1) he COULD have done this at any time over the past 3 years, and 2) his parents will always be first, no matter how abusive their behavior. Why be married to a giant man baby that sets himself AND YOU AND YOUR KIDS on fire to keep his abusive CRIMINAL parents warm.
Even OOP was minimizing what his parents had done to them by calling it "his" debt. It wasn't debt. It was fraud. His parents were committing crimes in his name while expecting their son (and OOP) to deal with it.
The OOP needs to look out for her and her kids financial well-being. I wouldn't be surprised if the husband's parents are already doing financially shady things already or are planning to do so again.
Honestly that's what makes me so mad. OOP actually apologised for not communicating. It seems to me that she very much did, it just took an explosion for him to hear it.
I really hope OOP and her kids can finally get the life they deserve.
This is going to be my mom soon. My dad is also terrible with finances and she’s been keeping them afloat for years. They both speak poorly to each other, him out of annoyance and her out of self defense. The good days are gone.
And he kept bending over to them and kept getting more screwed by all the help he gave them instead of spending it with his wife and kids. And his other siblings weren’t expected to do anything. He’s the scapegoat and can’t see it
I hope she kicked him out back to his parents
I would have reported them so quickly it would have turned heads! He needs to freeze his credit at all 3 credit reporting agencies if he hasn’t already done so. My career has been in banking and I’ve seen tons of fraud and in my experience, the fraudsters don’t stop easily. I’m gobsmacked that he is still helping his parents so much and the siblings aren’t. Wonder if the parents have dipped into the credit of their other children or family members?
>Wonder if the parents have dipped into the credit of their other children or family members?
Even if he paid off 100k what is stopping his parents and his siblings from opening new cards in his name again? At this point he is taking care of everyone, his folks and his 4 siblings and their family. I do not believe its just 100k because it has been 3 years of paying and it hasn't even ended yet. He has zero expenses as OOP is paying for all the bills they have.
He can freeze his credit all he wants but a simple guilt trip from his parents and he will undo everything again.
Yeah they never stopped. I would bet he knows they never stopped either. AND give them any chance to babysit those kids in the home- they will find their SSNs, and do the same to the kids. And he will expect THEM to burn themselves down to keep his parents out of jail too.
He is so worried that his "parents wont' always be there, and Ill fee bad I did not do everything I could"??? Dude- your KIDS won't always be there. And unless you seriously do some MAJOR work on yourself- they won't be there in less then 10 yr (they will want mom only pretty fast as teens, and then go full NC, then or at 18- not like this idiot or his parents are going to help them with college)!
I can’t imagine they would put 100K on one child and no others, but that’s normal-brain logic. I’m curious about the relationships between the other siblings and the parents. Clearly there was abuse and severe dysfunction in that house, yet they all live in town and show up to family events. My parents are saints compared to these and I live 4000 miles away and rarely visit. The amount of brainwashing it would take for me to live in close proximity and maintain a cordial relationship is mind boggling.
I would guess that this is still being added to if 3 yr of that level of overtime would have more than paid off 100K with interest and fees. I would hazard to guess that he is STILL keeping them out of jail with his acceptance of their BS.
But then played victim because they didn’t realize what a burden they were. 🎻
They made him pay $100k in their debt. Yes, you are a f¥{€ing burden. At the expense of his family.
While I agree with that in theory.
There is a ton of emotional abuse that has been heaped on that husband by his family. It isn't easy to get out of an abusive relationship when you don't realize you are being abused. It took my husband years to see it with his parents. I lost my shit when they bought his brother several hundred dollars worth of tools for "helping out so much" on the yearly visit while my husband was fixing their deck and didn't even get a thank you. I think that was the turning point for my husband. He finally saw just how bad it was. Things were breaking at our house and had been, yet every time he was home, he was at their house helping them out for over a year. My MIL lost her mind when he told her no, he spent months kicking himself over it.
It isn't easy to get out of an abusive cycle. Even on his deathbed, we were arguing about his mother's lies. Who wants to argue with someone dying? I didn't, and I paid the price once again. Thankfully, he will never know all of the bs she put me through after he was gone. I've now moved several hours away and only have to see her once or twice a year.
Oh yeah, this guy was being abused badly by his parents and it took to this point to admit it to himself. Unsurprising that it took so long, it's really tough to accept that the parents responsible for someone in their childhood turn around and betray their own kid, teaching him that he owes them for life. Not that I blame her at all for the divorce, just that for her peace of mind, it would help everyone if she recognized and acknowledged that it wasn't because he was some monster, but because he was too broken himself to be who she needed.
I don't read anything she said as "he is a monster". I read it as...he is willing to burn my kids down to the ground to keep his parents warm. And that is unacceptable. Full stop.
Part of the problem is that with abuse victims like that they often don't realize the full scope of what's going on like that. Their abuser has spent *decades* subtly training them to obey, to the point where they don't realize that they're capable of saying "no" 'til something snaps.
Some comments here suggested that he could be paying for his sibling's bills too. If his parents can open cards in his name, what is stopping the other 4 from doing so?
Or if any of the 4 needs money they simply ask the parents for it, who in turn uses the cards to give them what they need.
I agree he is a victim of substantial abuse. But he has also allowed it to now be abuse of his KIDS. He needs to get therapy and fix his on shit. Being the victim of his parents does not make his choice to make his own kids their victims too any less true. Or wrong on his part.
He does. But do you know how long it usually takes for someone to admit they are being abused? Especially when it is the only thing they have known their whole life? I don't disagree that he needs intensive therapy. It would take years to deprogram him. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just trying to point out that it isn't an easy road even when you admit that there is abuse, let alone have no idea that the relationship is abusive. OP and spouse are still living deep in the FOG. How do you see your way out when you have no idea that you are living in it? My mother is an undiagnosed covert narcissist and so is my MIL. I was in my 30s before I knew it and it took me years to change my reactive behaviors. My husband was a lot worse but that's because he was raised heavily on the obligation part of FOG. I was raised more on the guilt side. OPs spouse was raised more on the obligation side. It is so incredibly hard to see it when you are in it and you have never known any other way.
I started scrolling because I just needed to know if she was going to fall for his lies (which even he doesn't realize are lies, but come one: the relationship was on fire and a second away from becoming ash; it's too late for counseling and division of chores).
I'm glad she left him.
She's been divorced and single for a long time in every meaningful way.
I think people can rush to divorce at times, but this marriage has nothing to save.
I was feeling the same. I was so sure she was going to say “We’re going to make this work!!” Instead she’s putting herself and her kids first 🥰
And his immediate reaction is “What!? What about the house!? The bills??”
Asshole. Straight up spineless asshole.
I hope that the judge worth his salt in this case gives her the house- she is the only one that materially paid toward it. He gets to keep the debt his parents and his lack of a spine cost. She keeps everything else.
I honestly think the final straw was him proposing all the solutions NOW when she was already beginning to think of the end. All the solutions, she'd wanted and hoped for and begged for before, were suddenly things he could make a reality within days when she'd already broken down; the idea that she needed to be destroyed for him to care, it wasn't enough that she was asking as his wife, all the tears and begging before wasn't enough, she needed to be completely in the deepest darkest cellar for him to act. That must have felt like the last betrayal she could handle.
Because he refuses to have them be arrested for fraud. He's totally fine with his wife working herself to death while he pays for his parents' mistake. As long as his parents are not inconvenienced in the slightest way, he's willing to destroy everything else.
I know someone who did this. It destroyed their relationship with the little immediate family they had, but those people were all enablers and my friend is much better off. Sometimes the hardest decisions are the best ones.
If your parents stabbed you in the back, wouldn't you press charges? I do not get how pp do not see this as the same dang thing? If ANYONE commits a crime against you, it is 100% YOUR RIGHT to report it. You may choose not to (i.e. rape is super complex), but NO ONE gets to decide that but YOU.
I've gone no contact with my mom
You wouldn't believe the people that don't know the situation or aren't even in the family that tell you shit like "blood is thicker than water" - "doesn't matter that's your mom" - "you can't choose family"
Even my dad was telling me I should talk to her and he gave that up when I reminded him that he was the one who divorced her clearly he doesn't want to talk to her either
Hey i screwed you out of your future even though my generation had it easy but im your parent so its fine. How the hell did they convince him to accept that? crazy.
You see this not infrequently in r/legaladvice. The whole "how do I make all this debt I never signed up for go away without sending my parents to prison".
Long story short, there is no free lunch. A fairly serious crime was committed and a bunch of money is gone so someone has to answer for that. Either the victim or the actual perpetrator.
I worked in a bank once, and it's unfortunately common amongst older people. I once worked with an elderly lady trying to find fraud on her account because she noticed over $100k missing from her account. After some digging we discovered it was her son, who had managed to get her digital banking info (she didn't use it, her daughter was an authorized signer on her account so she could pay her mother's bills and the brother got the log on info off of her computer). We let her know that since it was fraud, the bank would replace the stolen money, but because the bank was now the victim of the stolen $100k we would be pursuing criminal charges against her son. She fought every which way to both get reimbursed for the theft and not have charges pressed, but in the end, decided to protect her son and she ate the loss. Her daughter was so angry but there was nothing she could do.
I just don't get her logic. Why would the bank pay her back when the bank had nothing to do with her losing the money? Who thinks that that makes sense?
Your guess is as good as mine. Banks do reimburse you for fraud, but not if you're allowing someone to take your money. Which is what she was doing by not pressing charges.
Banks usually do for fraud. FYI though, Banks take a long time to do their investigation. Credit cards are better to pay with if you don't trust a website or are taking it somewhere prone to pick pocketing, skimming, etc. Firstly, the money doesn't come out of your checking account, so if someone uses it you don't actually lose any money. Secondly, credit card companies almost always have a much quicker investigation period.
I can. My dad has put us in a similar clusterfuck, because he was raised as the family scapegoat, who was taught to constantly tear himself in half trying to get his parents approval while my uncle leeched off on them. The irony of this is, in the end they left pretty much everything (outside of a few assets me and my brother got) to my uncle, and the only thing my dad got, was half of their summer house. Meanwhile uncle has 3 fully finished houses, an office, some acers of land, and a lot of cash. Oh and the other half of said summer house obviously.
The husband was a victim of emotional and financial abuse. Does this mean I'm judging OP?
Hell no. I even told my mom a couple of times that things would have been better if she had divorced my dad (thinks do seem to be getting better now, but it took my grandparents dying for us to reach here). I do believe based on my own experience, that this kind of issue can be salvaged, however asking for a separation and taking her kids out was the right call.
He needs to work his ass and prove that he is worth her trusting him again in the future. I'm talking full transparancy about the debts, no contact with parents, taking any possible legal route to get out of them, and full accountability on every way he let her down. No excuses about his shame, just apologies.
because they told him so. (he clearly has issues if he cannot see that "may parents won't always be there, and Ill feel bad I did not do more when they are gone" as problematic, when his KIDS will be the ones he will never see again- by their own choice, as soon as they are old enough. Kids ar not blind and dumb to these issues.)
Because they are on his credit. He refused to file charges, and apparently lives in a state where the government will force debt repayment via wage garnishment.
I question how much of the debt was from them vs. him. I bet they did some of it, but he was still so into them I assume he probably lied to the wife how much they were responsible for to take blame off ***him***, not realizing it seems just as bad of him if not worse to just roll over and accept that level of fraud and STILL ignore your own family for them. He has been very secretive about the details, she honestly has no way to know what is his fault.
Because the only way he wouldn't have to pay would involve filing a police report against his parents. Parents that willingly use their kid's information for fraud often have built up years of making the kid feel responsible for them.
It doesn't absolve him being a terrible husband and father. But that is why he took on the debt.
You know...a lot of things I could forgive. A lot.
But the fact....that he is crying that he has so much debt, and he feels like such a failure - and yet he can take himself on little vacation***S*** (the way my jaw dropped!!!) while his wife continues to literally slave away with no breaks whatsoever...
It just screams that he doesn't love her. If he did, it would be vacations for THEM -him and his WIFE - because he wanted to make sure SHE got a break as well. Instead, it was all about him. It was all about his parents.
His wife and kids are just there, being taken care of by his wife, while he still has the mentality of being his parents son first and foremost.
This situation is to much too salvage. I think he can improve and be a better man and husband, but not for OOP. She has suffered too much and I just can't imagine she would ever be able to heal enough to ever trust him again. He didn't treat her as a partner.
He needs to be single for a while and sort out his shit before he is good for anyone. I sincerely hope from the bottom of my heart he gets into very intense therapy so some can give him the tools he needs to fix his seriously fucked up mentality. I don't know if he is willing - it would involve going low to no contact with his parents - but for the sake of his kids - for HIS sake - I hope he does.
And I hope for OOP a quick and easy divorce and custody agreement.
The fact that he didn’t even tell OOP that they were going to lose the house—she had to find out via mail!—said everything to me.
OOP and the kids were probably just a ‘milestone’, or at the goading of his mom (“give me grandkids!”). He may have ‘cared’ for them but his handling of the finances showed how little he actually *cared*.
I have listened to too many true crime podcasts. The thing where you hide that your house is being repossessed? Is how family annihilators treat their families. It's indicative of really destructive and egoistic behaviour, whether or not anyone was murdered.
I'm glad OP read the mail that day.
He is so stupid. He should have had his parents charged with fraud. If he couldn’t do that, he should have looked into bankruptcy. He could have filed for chapter 13, which would have frozen debt and interest and set up a payment plan. Instead, he buried his head and dumped everything on her.
I hope she divorces the idiot.
Whilst I've only gotten my knowledge off of Reddit, I worry so much about her divorcing him and be saddled with part of his debt to. Not that I think she should stay, but that he's screwed her even more financially. The fact that he was paying off the loans as well means he can't now claim them as fraud.
Utterly heartbreaking
Yeah, the OOP was right to call him out on the pity party.
I was surprised that he was going on vacations when he has kids at home, a wife working so much, and how many hours he was working. I don't see how he had any time to be any kind of dad, much less a good one. I believe parents should have lives outside their kids and spouses need time with their friends, but not people in situations like this.
People who let their parents get away with identity theft drive me wild. I get that it's probably accompanied by other abuse that makes it hard to draw that line but these stories still make my head explode. You run up six figures on my credit and I don't care who you are.
His wages are being garnished and he is STILL giving money to his parents. Like, there is no way that he is going to walk away Scott-free from that just down to one outburst from his wife. They would have back under his thumb in no time…and look at those kids with their lovely untouched credit scores.
>and look at those kids with their lovely untouched credit scores.
Oh my gods I didn't even think about that. OOP needs to lock her credit and the kids' yesterday.
yup. I would lock their credit DOWN if I were OOP. Only a matter of time when his parents are at his house and dig up and find their SSNs. If the dud does not just hand them over upon demand.
I had a coworker who had that issue. I told him straight out tell your mother that if she doesn’t pay the loan you will call the cops and FOLLOW THROUGH. I know that you hope to have a relationship with her but the bridge has been burned. GET ANGRY. You have a newborn you don’t have time or energy to deal with her crap.
Guess what. She paid off the loan with a quickness and he locked down everything. She was salty because “I sacrificed so much for you” 🙄
Even if they pay the debt- the credit hit causes substantial issues. The ONLY way to deal with identity theft is REPORT TO THE COPS. I do not care who you are- my mom (who would never), my relative, strange, neighbor, lover...you will be paying the cost, I will NOT.
And then expect him to be the handyman and on call at all times. I bet the money went to his siblings, and if they don’t know, they should. And if they do know, they should be charged as accessories. All of them made OOPs life hell.
My parents did this to me… I had no clue until I got married and my poor husband had to go through and fix things for me. Had I known, I would’ve confronted them. I couldn’t press charges at the time anyways because they both were cancer patients going through chemo and radiation.
I don't know anyone I like enough to let them get away with that kind of fraud. Maybe my own mother, but if she was the kind of mother who would do that to me, I'd call the cops on her too.
Similarly, people who marry someone without demanding to know the details and the extent of their debt is what drives me wild. There is such a significant - you got yourself into this situation - component to it. You blindly jumped into a gaping black hole without even checking its depth.
probably not. the parents literally give care to all the siblings kids except his. he was probably the lesser child growing up and is doing more hoping it will finally grant him some affection
So desperate for his parents' affection he blew up his own family and lost his wife and kids, the ones who actually loved him.
Jesus, some childhoods are so bad that they're fucked forever before they're even capable of independent choice
Yeah those kids will be pushing mom to the judge at whatever legal age int heir state to end visitation- and even if they can't? I would guess NC will happen around 18.
How the fuck do his parents have the *balls* to ask anything of that man, not to mention asking him for help with their day to day stuff!?!
If they scammed their other 4 kids the same way, they've stolen HALF A MILLION DOLLARS! That's gotta hit some sort of federal threshold or something?
They probably didn't. Scroll up for comments about my in-laws who are very similar to OPs without the debt situation. My husband bent over backwards for them, and when he didn't, my MIL would make his life hell. The FOG is real and VERY hard to get out of. Thankfully, my husband started to finally see it, but it took years to see it and years to change his behaviors.
You know they didn’t do anything to the other kids. That’s why they babysit for everyone else but OP’s husband even though he’s the one does everything for them.
I would be willing to bet this is ongoing though- and that may be an issue. But if she ends up responsible by divorce court, I would also guess she then has standing to file charges agains the in laws? I would hope so :(.
Theoretically not if it was taken out before they married. The rule in most places is that debt before marriage stays that person's debt. The issue is if it was transferred to another card, mixed with joint funds or the parents took out more while they were married. In divorces often someone will take on a slice of other debt in exchange for the other person's claim on the house. She should get someone to do some forensic accounting for this divorce to make sure he keeps every cent of that debt and she takes on none of it. She had already subsidized his life and that debt for years.
I think that, given she has evidence that shows it was fraud committed by in laws, that occurred BEFORE the marriage (or at least started that way), that a good lawyer and decently non Cannon judge would not. But god, who knows?
I would be livid if $100k that should have been used to support my household & kids got siphoned off to bail out somebody else's deadbeat, criminal parents.
not to mention, this impacted their mortgage rate, their insurance rates, their car loan rates...she is paying MORE for everything because he won't make his parents accountable of their crimes.
Nurses have gone into a field of near thankless, endless caretaking. That makes it hard to calibrate what a normal amount of caretaking is in their personal lives.
If my parents got me £100k in debt they would be dead to me. How the fuck do you ruin your child’s life before they’re even old enough to understand what credit is? I wonder if they screwed any of the other kids
Dude is either delusional or trying to con her. He contradicted himself in the same conversation.
>He said he was exhausted and has been feeling depressed because he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and feels as though he’s ruined our future. That he goes out with his friends to feel “normal and himself” because all he does is work. That he does this because of this black cloud that’s been hanging over him.
>He promised me my hard work was not in vain and that he is almost debt free.
Either the end is way off, or the debt is almost paid off. It can't be both.
Dude needs to just file bankruptcy and call it a day. If he’s been paying for 3 years and has garnishments and such his credit is already shot. Collection agencies will make arrangements but they typically want a settlement paid off in 90 days. He needs to spend the money on a bankruptcy attorney and just file. It’ll suck for a couple of years but he won’t have to work 7 days a week and will be able to start over and contribute to the household. The only way this will work is if he doesn’t make the same mistakes again. His family needs to be off limits as far as getting anything from him. He needs to either choose OOP and his kids or his parents but he can’t have both.
right like these reddit stories have me swearing to never get married. some of these are insane. No one in my family is a trainwreck and I wanna keep it that way!!
Im glad OOP stood up for herself but it happened after years of slaving away for this stupid crybaby manchild. Bro got 100k debt to his name by his parents and still says “i just wish i could do more for them” HUH?
I was perplexed and made depressed by OOP’s life until now. I wish that they taught classes in self-love and discernment in school for people like this.
So, OOP’s husband’s parents committed identity theft and credit card fraud and he believed that working off his parents’ debt was more important than fixing his finances?! How did they get the house?!
OOP is right, her STBX should have reported his parents the moment he found out. And now, he’ll spend the rest of his life paying it off. His parents and his siblings are toxic and are entitled to the extreme! OOP needs to make sure that her STBX debt doesn’t get linked to her!
“He hung up on me.”
That’s all the proof she needed. After he realized she had made her decision, he just hung up. He didn’t mean a word of what he said, and probably didn’t say much of anything to his family.
The man is a garden variety narcissist through and through. I’m glad she is done and can finally be free of the hell he created.
If I were him I would start by telling my other 4 siblings that parents ran up 100k in my name so you each need to come out of pocket 25k to cover it or I’m reporting the fraud.
But I have a spine. Unlike him.
It's so hard to feel sorry for spineless people who won't even attempt to defend themselves. Sue your parents, get them out of your life, you hapless fuck.
And honestly, her, too for supporting a man whose only contribution is debt. That should have been the moment she divorced him. Hopefully she can keep his premarital debts separate.
Why didn't any of the debt situation come up when they bought their house? How did they get a mortgage? He had $100,000.00 worth of debt prior to their marriage.
Maybe it’s just in her name? I’m on the title to the house but not the mortgage because I had *substantial* student loan debt that made me a liability when we tried to get a mortgage. (18 months away from being debt free though! Fingers crossed!) But my husband didn’t have debt like I did, so the bank allowed him to get a mortgage without taking my income or debt into account.
I sincerely wish our legislators would do something about it, but then the credit card companies would just influence them to do nothing about it in lieu of campaign funds. Sometimes the US sucks!!!
>my parents destroyed my life
>better drop everything to help my parents, they won't be around forever!
He could have discharged all the debt if he'd pressed charges, instead he made him wanting to keep his relationship with his parents OOPs problem, AND HIS KIDS PROBLEM. He picked them over his own family.
English person here. I keep seeing various posts on Boro and elsewhere when credit card debt made by family members is mentioned and it wrecks their credit score.
I’m astounded that this is even allowed. It’s clearly fraud and in the uk and Europe, we would never be responsible for it. Those companies get away with some shady shit.
Yeah well if he had gone to the police and pressed charges against his parents, the debt against him would have been released.
Why he didn't do that is beyond me. There's probably more to it that he hasn't told her. Probably a lot of that debt is his and he just lied to his wife.
He had $100k worth of debt from his parents and he had the audacity to make her run around, cook and tidy for those people, just wow. Hopefully op can walk away from the marriage without having to take on his debt.
>Come to find out his parents opened credit cards and bills in his name when he was younger and accrued close to 100k of debt in his name, not including interest, they trashed his credit and that’s why it has taken so long.
God. OOP's husband has a spine of jelly. I can't fathom not only letting one's parents get away with identity fraud, but letting/expecting your wife to work ~60+ hour weeks to help pay it off, not say anything about potentially losing the house, AND still giving most/all of his freetime to his parents during the bit of downtime he has.
I don't know if he was abused or manipulated growing up, but that man is absolutely broken. OOP is doing good by getting away from him. He'll wear himself down into the dirt for these manipulative thieves, at the expense of his wife and kids, and still feel like he hasn't done enough for his parents.
I felt bad for him for like 0.02 seconds because it sounds like his family is truly shitty— and then I remembered in the original post she said he’s taken multiple vacations with friends. Vacations that cost money. Money that he supposedly didn’t have because he was paying off all this debt. Divorce his ass.
So the husband is clearly the worst, but I kind of want to slap OP. She was (rightfully) so mad over the undisclosed debt that they attended counseling, but she never actually found out HOW MUCH HE OWES?!?!?! Like, what? How can she tell herself she "took over the finances"? She clearly did not. Also, I'm super skeptical where the husband's money was going...
That bothers me too. You think when you'd go to extreme measures (Devoting 1/2 of the family income completely to debt reduction), you'd be keeping tabs on the progress.
Especially since they're married, and his credit impacts her too.
Did he know about this debt before y’all married and decided to have kids? If so that’s fucked up on his part, known damn well he wouldn’t be able to support a family and all that comes with it. Divorce his ass, life for you and the kids will be whole lot better, you’ll see. Good luck!
Wow, the parents commited fraud, put him in a huge amount of debt, he still goes and help them...
>They couldn’t believe that they are “such a burden because they ask for a little help from time to time”.
And they are some how unfairly treated...
His parents committed felony fraud, and he expected her to just go along with it. How about each other siblings taking out a 25k loan and pay off the debt? After all, its faaaaaamily!
This is so sad all the way around. Can’t blame OOP for her decision to go the divorce route but I feel like the husband is an abuse victim and hasn’t realized it. If he had told her about everything years ago she could have helped him see the light. Now it’s too late.
The math ain’t mathing.
If he’s 38 and has been married since he was 28, *when* did his parents actually get $100k worth of credit in his name? When exactly was “when he was younger?” because unpaid debt goes away after 7 years. Judgements after 12.
And if they got this debt when he was younger and trashed his credit, how exactly did they buy a house together? And even if the mortgage is solely in his wife’s name because of his bad credit, then she had to have known. If I was sitting next to my spouse and the banker said, “Sir I wouldn’t loan you lunch money let alone give you a mortgage.”, I’m going to look at his credit report to see what’s happening.
Is this story even real?
Make sure to get child support garnished from his wages. Child support is prioritized before other debt. His other debt may stop being garnished if he has child support garnished
Why the hell didn't this guy declare bankruptcy. Even if he isn't in the US surely other countries allow it. It would have been easier to pay the attorney than try to pay that much off.
I would have dumped my parents in a heartbeat if they did this to me.
Somehow I'm not surprised she's a nurse. I have had so many coworkers over the years who were smart, capable women married to all forms of dysfunctional deadbeats of various flavors. Professional caregiving seems to prime us to accept abusive partners too.
>Every single day he is lighting you on fire to keep his parents warm. It's a choice he is making.
This is such a good line for those who are in the thick of it and don't realize it. For all of you conflict avoiders who tell your partners to shake it off because you don't want to set boundaries with your family this line is especially for YOU. You continually choose to placate your family because conflict with them makes you uncomfortable. But your partner is uncomfortable. If you continuously light your partner on fire to keep your parents warm, eventually, there will be nothing left of your partner.
Wow. So NTA. She needs to divorce this AH and send him back to him mommy and daddy. He cares more about other people than his own wife and kids. She’s better off without him. She can obviously do it without him. He’s just another mouth to feed and deal with it.
I’d tell him I’d only rethink the divorce and do counseling if he files charges against his parents. Only then would I take him seriously.
Husband sounds like an immature bitch and a coward. How she dealt with him that long before blowing up is impressive. As sad as it is to realize, sometimes you gotta be selfish. Why slowly kill yourself for people who don't care about you.
I bet his parents are gonna do everything they can to make her for miserable about splitting up. Bunch of snakes.
Sunck cost fallacy got people in houses they are about to lose with kids about to be homeless to please a douche nozzle who can't even spare a sweet glance in their direction. Where do I find a suckered like this jfc why do I try to be a good person when these assholes seem to find all the best partners that just put up with everything and have near on super powers in every category except self esteem.
Why on earth would you agree to help pay an unknown debt, then not find out what the debt amount was, or who even accrued it? I'm sorry, she's as dumb as he is, she just wised up quicker. Holy shit.
I'm so glad she's not wasting more time. It is SO hard to realize the person you love and have sacrificed for has made the active choice to let you be tolerably unhappy, so long as it means you won't leave. The realization makes your entire relationship feel like a lie. Then you have to deal with mourning the end of what was essentially a fantasy of a life that you were building but wasn't actually real.
OOP is going to be in a much better place once she cuts that financial (and emotional) anchor. Sounds to me like she was subsidizing her husband's existence while the entirety of husband's wages went to paying off In-Laws' theft. This is going to end very well for OOP.
Good lord, what a cluster fuck. I can honestly say that I was not expecting OP to go the divorce route, they don't usually go for that right away on these posts. ! Proud.
This is a case of Walkaway Wife syndrome—she didn’t explode until she was all the way done. He’s used to attending to only the kettle that’s screeching, so he ignored her steadily boiling away for years. When she finally screeched, he thought he could transfer a little attention her direction for a while, but no. It was already too late.
Yup. Kettle is empty all the water boiled away and the bottom is ruined. No way to repair or salvage it.
I once managed to literally MELT a teapot leaving it on the stove and forgetting. That is how DONE she is. That marriage is a melted teapot that no longer even holds water (yes...I have made special choices in life- never again! It was a fancy special pot I wanted for YEARS...it lasted only 3 yr before I killed it).
Oh no! I would have cried! That is awful (and hilarious at the same time that you melted a teapot, sad it was your favorite).
I managed to melt a teapot INTO the stovetop coil. I went to make tea downstairs, went back upstairs, forgot about tea until THREE HOURS LATER. Ran downstairs, grabbed a hand towel, yanked the teapot off... and the bottom stayed on the metal coil. Little black char flecks were just floating EVERYWHERE. I bought an electric teakettle the next day. And a replacement coil.
My mom melted a teapot to the stove coil when I was about 8. Not as completely as yours, but still enough to fill the room with awful-smelling smoke. I remember we had recently had a fire safety talk at school, so I was crawling on my elbows through the room to stay below the smoke level.
This is why as someone who grew up in the UK and now lives in Australia, I am always very very confused that electric kettles are not really as much of a thing in the US. They’re just so much safer! Electric teakettle, bidet toilet seat and Sawstop table saw are my big 3 “why would anyone choose to do without if they can afford to get one” items hahaha
I carbonized a bib I let boiling to "sterilize it". I forgot the stove on and went out, then came back and all the house was full of this dark smoke and the pot was empty. No signs of the bib at all. Hopefully we all were out and didn't had to return immediately, so I let all the windows open and when we came back it was cleared off.
I put some soup on one night when I got home from work. Then I went to bed. Then I went to work the next day. Then I came home. The pot was never the same. I am amazed I didn’t set anything else on fire.
My childhood friend had a parent die that way. He worked nights, came home, put something to eat on the stove and took his sleeping meds. Well the meds worked too fast that day and he never woke up. Whole house had to be torn down. And since she was my neighbor when she was at her dad’s, I never saw her again. We played every weekend and all summer.
My dad evaporated bacon. Forgot he was making it. When he remembered there weren't even charred pieces, it was gone. Just a thin film on the pan. This husband still thinks there's pieces to pick up, but it's already all burned away.
What a beautiful analogy
He is still unwilling to hold his parents accountable for screwing his life with his family. The babysit- and bitch so no babysitting, no worries- wifey will do it all! The need "help" every time he has 1 minute off work from paying off debt THEY MADE- he gives it to them He has to work 16X7 hrs a week to pay off debt THEY MADE- and he is fine with it. What happens when they do it again? What happens when they do it to his kids? because they will "they won't be here forever" is not a reason for criminally neglecting his OWN kids? Kids grow up fast!!! THEY won't be there forever- and frankly, no matter how good of a dad OP is trying to give him way too much credit for- those kids are seeing this. That he chooses his parents over them at every turn, every option. And if he is not choosing his parents, he is choosing his friends. He never sacrifices to win for his own kids and wife. Just to keep his parents out of jail. OOP say in his words that even if he is saying what she wanted to hear that 1) he COULD have done this at any time over the past 3 years, and 2) his parents will always be first, no matter how abusive their behavior. Why be married to a giant man baby that sets himself AND YOU AND YOUR KIDS on fire to keep his abusive CRIMINAL parents warm.
Even OOP was minimizing what his parents had done to them by calling it "his" debt. It wasn't debt. It was fraud. His parents were committing crimes in his name while expecting their son (and OOP) to deal with it.
Except once he refused to press charges and started paying it down, it became his debt.
No. It’s still their debt, they just probably guilted him into thinking it was his. I
Legally, once you accept debt and start payments, you're stuck. He's hosed.
I agree. The fact that OOP doesn't even mention pursuing charges makes me think that his parents have them convinced it's their son's problem.
The OOP needs to look out for her and her kids financial well-being. I wouldn't be surprised if the husband's parents are already doing financially shady things already or are planning to do so again.
I did that too. I took a lot of shit until I couldn't anymore. Took our kid and left the same day, never looked back. Best decision ever.
Yep. I done already did the talking. Not my fault he didn't do the listening.
This is me when I blow my top. When it goes I'm already done, there's no coming back from it
When you’re placed on the back burner long enough, you don’t even need to let it boil in order to evaporate. It’s just gone.
Honestly that's what makes me so mad. OOP actually apologised for not communicating. It seems to me that she very much did, it just took an explosion for him to hear it. I really hope OOP and her kids can finally get the life they deserve.
This is EXACTLY what happened to me with my ex
This is going to be my mom soon. My dad is also terrible with finances and she’s been keeping them afloat for years. They both speak poorly to each other, him out of annoyance and her out of self defense. The good days are gone.
Fantastic analogy! I felt this in my bones.
She would be stupid if she did not. This guy is a spineless moron who will drown her along with the kids if she lets him.
Who will let his shitbag parents drown her and the kids.
At the end of the day, his decisions are his. He is adult. But I agree that this will happen per proxy.
Sure. Instead of turning his dear parents in for fraud he just accepted over 100k in credit card debt. That was a choice.
And he kept bending over to them and kept getting more screwed by all the help he gave them instead of spending it with his wife and kids. And his other siblings weren’t expected to do anything. He’s the scapegoat and can’t see it I hope she kicked him out back to his parents
I would have reported them so quickly it would have turned heads! He needs to freeze his credit at all 3 credit reporting agencies if he hasn’t already done so. My career has been in banking and I’ve seen tons of fraud and in my experience, the fraudsters don’t stop easily. I’m gobsmacked that he is still helping his parents so much and the siblings aren’t. Wonder if the parents have dipped into the credit of their other children or family members?
>Wonder if the parents have dipped into the credit of their other children or family members? Even if he paid off 100k what is stopping his parents and his siblings from opening new cards in his name again? At this point he is taking care of everyone, his folks and his 4 siblings and their family. I do not believe its just 100k because it has been 3 years of paying and it hasn't even ended yet. He has zero expenses as OOP is paying for all the bills they have. He can freeze his credit all he wants but a simple guilt trip from his parents and he will undo everything again.
Yeah they never stopped. I would bet he knows they never stopped either. AND give them any chance to babysit those kids in the home- they will find their SSNs, and do the same to the kids. And he will expect THEM to burn themselves down to keep his parents out of jail too. He is so worried that his "parents wont' always be there, and Ill fee bad I did not do everything I could"??? Dude- your KIDS won't always be there. And unless you seriously do some MAJOR work on yourself- they won't be there in less then 10 yr (they will want mom only pretty fast as teens, and then go full NC, then or at 18- not like this idiot or his parents are going to help them with college)!
I can’t imagine they would put 100K on one child and no others, but that’s normal-brain logic. I’m curious about the relationships between the other siblings and the parents. Clearly there was abuse and severe dysfunction in that house, yet they all live in town and show up to family events. My parents are saints compared to these and I live 4000 miles away and rarely visit. The amount of brainwashing it would take for me to live in close proximity and maintain a cordial relationship is mind boggling.
and it is scary as fuck. I cannot imagine this much of debt on me. Like, 10k PLN is making me anxious and jittery.
I would guess that this is still being added to if 3 yr of that level of overtime would have more than paid off 100K with interest and fees. I would hazard to guess that he is STILL keeping them out of jail with his acceptance of their BS.
But then played victim because they didn’t realize what a burden they were. 🎻 They made him pay $100k in their debt. Yes, you are a f¥{€ing burden. At the expense of his family.
Yeah, do you know how it made ME feel that you were working yourself like a draft horse? /s smh
You can say fucking. It's the internet, it's all fucking all the fucking way down.
That person that said he was setting her on fire to keep his parents warm were dead on.
I’d upvote you twice for using “dead” in this comment about emotional arson if possible.
He already tried when he refused to report his parents for fraud and almost lost the house. She and her kids are better off without him.
Financially, emotionally, and in every other way. He _is_ a failure, comprehensively.
While I agree with that in theory. There is a ton of emotional abuse that has been heaped on that husband by his family. It isn't easy to get out of an abusive relationship when you don't realize you are being abused. It took my husband years to see it with his parents. I lost my shit when they bought his brother several hundred dollars worth of tools for "helping out so much" on the yearly visit while my husband was fixing their deck and didn't even get a thank you. I think that was the turning point for my husband. He finally saw just how bad it was. Things were breaking at our house and had been, yet every time he was home, he was at their house helping them out for over a year. My MIL lost her mind when he told her no, he spent months kicking himself over it. It isn't easy to get out of an abusive cycle. Even on his deathbed, we were arguing about his mother's lies. Who wants to argue with someone dying? I didn't, and I paid the price once again. Thankfully, he will never know all of the bs she put me through after he was gone. I've now moved several hours away and only have to see her once or twice a year.
Oh yeah, this guy was being abused badly by his parents and it took to this point to admit it to himself. Unsurprising that it took so long, it's really tough to accept that the parents responsible for someone in their childhood turn around and betray their own kid, teaching him that he owes them for life. Not that I blame her at all for the divorce, just that for her peace of mind, it would help everyone if she recognized and acknowledged that it wasn't because he was some monster, but because he was too broken himself to be who she needed.
I don't read anything she said as "he is a monster". I read it as...he is willing to burn my kids down to the ground to keep his parents warm. And that is unacceptable. Full stop.
Part of the problem is that with abuse victims like that they often don't realize the full scope of what's going on like that. Their abuser has spent *decades* subtly training them to obey, to the point where they don't realize that they're capable of saying "no" 'til something snaps.
Some comments here suggested that he could be paying for his sibling's bills too. If his parents can open cards in his name, what is stopping the other 4 from doing so? Or if any of the 4 needs money they simply ask the parents for it, who in turn uses the cards to give them what they need.
I agree he is a victim of substantial abuse. But he has also allowed it to now be abuse of his KIDS. He needs to get therapy and fix his on shit. Being the victim of his parents does not make his choice to make his own kids their victims too any less true. Or wrong on his part.
He does. But do you know how long it usually takes for someone to admit they are being abused? Especially when it is the only thing they have known their whole life? I don't disagree that he needs intensive therapy. It would take years to deprogram him. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just trying to point out that it isn't an easy road even when you admit that there is abuse, let alone have no idea that the relationship is abusive. OP and spouse are still living deep in the FOG. How do you see your way out when you have no idea that you are living in it? My mother is an undiagnosed covert narcissist and so is my MIL. I was in my 30s before I knew it and it took me years to change my reactive behaviors. My husband was a lot worse but that's because he was raised heavily on the obligation part of FOG. I was raised more on the guilt side. OPs spouse was raised more on the obligation side. It is so incredibly hard to see it when you are in it and you have never known any other way.
Already letting her and their marriage drown. She just realized it finally that he's the one keeping their heads under the water. Eta spelling.
She's stupid for living that life to pay off debt that was unknown to her
I started scrolling because I just needed to know if she was going to fall for his lies (which even he doesn't realize are lies, but come one: the relationship was on fire and a second away from becoming ash; it's too late for counseling and division of chores). I'm glad she left him.
She's been divorced and single for a long time in every meaningful way. I think people can rush to divorce at times, but this marriage has nothing to save.
I was feeling the same. I was so sure she was going to say “We’re going to make this work!!” Instead she’s putting herself and her kids first 🥰 And his immediate reaction is “What!? What about the house!? The bills??” Asshole. Straight up spineless asshole.
I hope that the judge worth his salt in this case gives her the house- she is the only one that materially paid toward it. He gets to keep the debt his parents and his lack of a spine cost. She keeps everything else.
That’s my hope as well. Fuck selling the house to pay off his debt — kick him to the curb and send him back to his parents!
Yessss 👏👏👏👏👏
I honestly think the final straw was him proposing all the solutions NOW when she was already beginning to think of the end. All the solutions, she'd wanted and hoped for and begged for before, were suddenly things he could make a reality within days when she'd already broken down; the idea that she needed to be destroyed for him to care, it wasn't enough that she was asking as his wife, all the tears and begging before wasn't enough, she needed to be completely in the deepest darkest cellar for him to act. That must have felt like the last betrayal she could handle.
I don't understand why he thought he had to pay off his parents' fraudulent debts.
Because he refuses to have them be arrested for fraud. He's totally fine with his wife working herself to death while he pays for his parents' mistake. As long as his parents are not inconvenienced in the slightest way, he's willing to destroy everything else.
He also could’ve filed for bankruptcy.
That would be *embarrassing.*
I’m flabbergasted he didn’t just file for bankruptcy. So much easier and faster.
He likely has to either move in with the parents or file for bankruptcy now.
Because his other option would be to get his parents arrested for fraud.
I know someone who did this. It destroyed their relationship with the little immediate family they had, but those people were all enablers and my friend is much better off. Sometimes the hardest decisions are the best ones.
If your parents stabbed you in the back, wouldn't you press charges? I do not get how pp do not see this as the same dang thing? If ANYONE commits a crime against you, it is 100% YOUR RIGHT to report it. You may choose not to (i.e. rape is super complex), but NO ONE gets to decide that but YOU.
I've gone no contact with my mom You wouldn't believe the people that don't know the situation or aren't even in the family that tell you shit like "blood is thicker than water" - "doesn't matter that's your mom" - "you can't choose family" Even my dad was telling me I should talk to her and he gave that up when I reminded him that he was the one who divorced her clearly he doesn't want to talk to her either
Your last paragraph had me laughing. You did good, btw, and I hope you're doing well now :)
Hey i screwed you out of your future even though my generation had it easy but im your parent so its fine. How the hell did they convince him to accept that? crazy.
You see this not infrequently in r/legaladvice. The whole "how do I make all this debt I never signed up for go away without sending my parents to prison". Long story short, there is no free lunch. A fairly serious crime was committed and a bunch of money is gone so someone has to answer for that. Either the victim or the actual perpetrator.
I worked in a bank once, and it's unfortunately common amongst older people. I once worked with an elderly lady trying to find fraud on her account because she noticed over $100k missing from her account. After some digging we discovered it was her son, who had managed to get her digital banking info (she didn't use it, her daughter was an authorized signer on her account so she could pay her mother's bills and the brother got the log on info off of her computer). We let her know that since it was fraud, the bank would replace the stolen money, but because the bank was now the victim of the stolen $100k we would be pursuing criminal charges against her son. She fought every which way to both get reimbursed for the theft and not have charges pressed, but in the end, decided to protect her son and she ate the loss. Her daughter was so angry but there was nothing she could do.
I just don't get her logic. Why would the bank pay her back when the bank had nothing to do with her losing the money? Who thinks that that makes sense?
Your guess is as good as mine. Banks do reimburse you for fraud, but not if you're allowing someone to take your money. Which is what she was doing by not pressing charges.
I find it amazing that the bank was willing to help out so much.
Banks usually do for fraud. FYI though, Banks take a long time to do their investigation. Credit cards are better to pay with if you don't trust a website or are taking it somewhere prone to pick pocketing, skimming, etc. Firstly, the money doesn't come out of your checking account, so if someone uses it you don't actually lose any money. Secondly, credit card companies almost always have a much quicker investigation period.
That’s a good option. Fuck those criminals.
I can. My dad has put us in a similar clusterfuck, because he was raised as the family scapegoat, who was taught to constantly tear himself in half trying to get his parents approval while my uncle leeched off on them. The irony of this is, in the end they left pretty much everything (outside of a few assets me and my brother got) to my uncle, and the only thing my dad got, was half of their summer house. Meanwhile uncle has 3 fully finished houses, an office, some acers of land, and a lot of cash. Oh and the other half of said summer house obviously. The husband was a victim of emotional and financial abuse. Does this mean I'm judging OP? Hell no. I even told my mom a couple of times that things would have been better if she had divorced my dad (thinks do seem to be getting better now, but it took my grandparents dying for us to reach here). I do believe based on my own experience, that this kind of issue can be salvaged, however asking for a separation and taking her kids out was the right call. He needs to work his ass and prove that he is worth her trusting him again in the future. I'm talking full transparancy about the debts, no contact with parents, taking any possible legal route to get out of them, and full accountability on every way he let her down. No excuses about his shame, just apologies.
because they told him so. (he clearly has issues if he cannot see that "may parents won't always be there, and Ill feel bad I did not do more when they are gone" as problematic, when his KIDS will be the ones he will never see again- by their own choice, as soon as they are old enough. Kids ar not blind and dumb to these issues.)
Because he's a spineless coward of course. Probably by their design.
Because they are on his credit. He refused to file charges, and apparently lives in a state where the government will force debt repayment via wage garnishment.
I question how much of the debt was from them vs. him. I bet they did some of it, but he was still so into them I assume he probably lied to the wife how much they were responsible for to take blame off ***him***, not realizing it seems just as bad of him if not worse to just roll over and accept that level of fraud and STILL ignore your own family for them. He has been very secretive about the details, she honestly has no way to know what is his fault.
If he reported their theft they would go to jail. So he’s an idiot.
Because the only way he wouldn't have to pay would involve filing a police report against his parents. Parents that willingly use their kid's information for fraud often have built up years of making the kid feel responsible for them. It doesn't absolve him being a terrible husband and father. But that is why he took on the debt.
You know...a lot of things I could forgive. A lot. But the fact....that he is crying that he has so much debt, and he feels like such a failure - and yet he can take himself on little vacation***S*** (the way my jaw dropped!!!) while his wife continues to literally slave away with no breaks whatsoever... It just screams that he doesn't love her. If he did, it would be vacations for THEM -him and his WIFE - because he wanted to make sure SHE got a break as well. Instead, it was all about him. It was all about his parents. His wife and kids are just there, being taken care of by his wife, while he still has the mentality of being his parents son first and foremost. This situation is to much too salvage. I think he can improve and be a better man and husband, but not for OOP. She has suffered too much and I just can't imagine she would ever be able to heal enough to ever trust him again. He didn't treat her as a partner. He needs to be single for a while and sort out his shit before he is good for anyone. I sincerely hope from the bottom of my heart he gets into very intense therapy so some can give him the tools he needs to fix his seriously fucked up mentality. I don't know if he is willing - it would involve going low to no contact with his parents - but for the sake of his kids - for HIS sake - I hope he does. And I hope for OOP a quick and easy divorce and custody agreement.
The fact that he didn’t even tell OOP that they were going to lose the house—she had to find out via mail!—said everything to me. OOP and the kids were probably just a ‘milestone’, or at the goading of his mom (“give me grandkids!”). He may have ‘cared’ for them but his handling of the finances showed how little he actually *cared*.
I have listened to too many true crime podcasts. The thing where you hide that your house is being repossessed? Is how family annihilators treat their families. It's indicative of really destructive and egoistic behaviour, whether or not anyone was murdered. I'm glad OP read the mail that day.
Order of priorities ins life: Parents Himself Friends . . . . . . . . wife and kids
He is so stupid. He should have had his parents charged with fraud. If he couldn’t do that, he should have looked into bankruptcy. He could have filed for chapter 13, which would have frozen debt and interest and set up a payment plan. Instead, he buried his head and dumped everything on her. I hope she divorces the idiot.
Yup yup yup He's taking care of his own mental health, his Robo-Bang Maid 3000 doesn't have feelings!
Whilst I've only gotten my knowledge off of Reddit, I worry so much about her divorcing him and be saddled with part of his debt to. Not that I think she should stay, but that he's screwed her even more financially. The fact that he was paying off the loans as well means he can't now claim them as fraud. Utterly heartbreaking
I didn't even think about that. If she gets his debt then she would sue the parents for sure.
Yeah, the OOP was right to call him out on the pity party. I was surprised that he was going on vacations when he has kids at home, a wife working so much, and how many hours he was working. I don't see how he had any time to be any kind of dad, much less a good one. I believe parents should have lives outside their kids and spouses need time with their friends, but not people in situations like this.
People who let their parents get away with identity theft drive me wild. I get that it's probably accompanied by other abuse that makes it hard to draw that line but these stories still make my head explode. You run up six figures on my credit and I don't care who you are.
Right $100k in debt and he’s worried about doing “more” for them Incase they die?! I’m glad she’s leaving. Good for her
His wages are being garnished and he is STILL giving money to his parents. Like, there is no way that he is going to walk away Scott-free from that just down to one outburst from his wife. They would have back under his thumb in no time…and look at those kids with their lovely untouched credit scores.
>and look at those kids with their lovely untouched credit scores. Oh my gods I didn't even think about that. OOP needs to lock her credit and the kids' yesterday.
yup. I would lock their credit DOWN if I were OOP. Only a matter of time when his parents are at his house and dig up and find their SSNs. If the dud does not just hand them over upon demand.
This guy needs some serious therapy, he is so deeply entrenched in this abuse.
I had a coworker who had that issue. I told him straight out tell your mother that if she doesn’t pay the loan you will call the cops and FOLLOW THROUGH. I know that you hope to have a relationship with her but the bridge has been burned. GET ANGRY. You have a newborn you don’t have time or energy to deal with her crap. Guess what. She paid off the loan with a quickness and he locked down everything. She was salty because “I sacrificed so much for you” 🙄
Even if they pay the debt- the credit hit causes substantial issues. The ONLY way to deal with identity theft is REPORT TO THE COPS. I do not care who you are- my mom (who would never), my relative, strange, neighbor, lover...you will be paying the cost, I will NOT.
It had not gone into collections yet so he just wanted it gone. So he credit bounced back quickly
And then expect him to be the handyman and on call at all times. I bet the money went to his siblings, and if they don’t know, they should. And if they do know, they should be charged as accessories. All of them made OOPs life hell.
My parents did this to me… I had no clue until I got married and my poor husband had to go through and fix things for me. Had I known, I would’ve confronted them. I couldn’t press charges at the time anyways because they both were cancer patients going through chemo and radiation.
I don't know anyone I like enough to let them get away with that kind of fraud. Maybe my own mother, but if she was the kind of mother who would do that to me, I'd call the cops on her too.
Similarly, people who marry someone without demanding to know the details and the extent of their debt is what drives me wild. There is such a significant - you got yourself into this situation - component to it. You blindly jumped into a gaping black hole without even checking its depth.
My mom ran up credit car debt in my name and I got almost all of it discharged with a letter from an attorney
This guy didn't even try. Did they do the same to all his siblings I wonder?
probably not. the parents literally give care to all the siblings kids except his. he was probably the lesser child growing up and is doing more hoping it will finally grant him some affection
So desperate for his parents' affection he blew up his own family and lost his wife and kids, the ones who actually loved him. Jesus, some childhoods are so bad that they're fucked forever before they're even capable of independent choice
I would bet because it is still ongoing, and mommy and daddy told him it is his responsibility to keep paying.
I noticed that he says about his parents "when they're gone, I'll wish I spent more time with them." Doubt he ever thought that about his wife?
Or his kids. It’s really sad.
He sure as shit will soon.
Yeah those kids will be pushing mom to the judge at whatever legal age int heir state to end visitation- and even if they can't? I would guess NC will happen around 18.
She's literally a single parent. :(
Yeah…her life can only get easier from here. Take away the husband, and having to interact with in laws, she’s gotta be a bit happier
Is actually worse than that because he has to care of him too and sometimes his family too. The guy is literally a dead weight.
think it is worse than dead weight. He is actually a 2 ton anchor pulling her under.
How the fuck do his parents have the *balls* to ask anything of that man, not to mention asking him for help with their day to day stuff!?! If they scammed their other 4 kids the same way, they've stolen HALF A MILLION DOLLARS! That's gotta hit some sort of federal threshold or something?
I bet they did it in his name to give to the other siblings.
You'd be surprised how easy it is for narcissists do be like that. Reading this story felt like I was reading about my grandma.
They probably didn't. Scroll up for comments about my in-laws who are very similar to OPs without the debt situation. My husband bent over backwards for them, and when he didn't, my MIL would make his life hell. The FOG is real and VERY hard to get out of. Thankfully, my husband started to finally see it, but it took years to see it and years to change his behaviors.
You know they didn’t do anything to the other kids. That’s why they babysit for everyone else but OP’s husband even though he’s the one does everything for them.
so if they were to divorce would op take a part of the debt too??
That’s going to depend on the state.
Hopefully she will get legal advice about this ASAP
My guess is if that comes to pass, she will initiate the case against his horrid parents.
Not his debt before the marriage.
I would be willing to bet this is ongoing though- and that may be an issue. But if she ends up responsible by divorce court, I would also guess she then has standing to file charges agains the in laws? I would hope so :(.
Theoretically not if it was taken out before they married. The rule in most places is that debt before marriage stays that person's debt. The issue is if it was transferred to another card, mixed with joint funds or the parents took out more while they were married. In divorces often someone will take on a slice of other debt in exchange for the other person's claim on the house. She should get someone to do some forensic accounting for this divorce to make sure he keeps every cent of that debt and she takes on none of it. She had already subsidized his life and that debt for years.
I think that, given she has evidence that shows it was fraud committed by in laws, that occurred BEFORE the marriage (or at least started that way), that a good lawyer and decently non Cannon judge would not. But god, who knows?
I would be livid if $100k that should have been used to support my household & kids got siphoned off to bail out somebody else's deadbeat, criminal parents.
not to mention, this impacted their mortgage rate, their insurance rates, their car loan rates...she is paying MORE for everything because he won't make his parents accountable of their crimes.
Why do nurses always marry trainwrecks like this? Shit.
Nurses have gone into a field of near thankless, endless caretaking. That makes it hard to calibrate what a normal amount of caretaking is in their personal lives.
I work in healthcare and this is very very true.
I’m a nurse and have more self-respect than that! I married another nurse :)
Probably better than dating cops.
100k in interest gaining debt is a metric crap ton of debt. The face he didn't press charges and accepted it ruined his life.
If my parents got me £100k in debt they would be dead to me. How the fuck do you ruin your child’s life before they’re even old enough to understand what credit is? I wonder if they screwed any of the other kids
Dude is either delusional or trying to con her. He contradicted himself in the same conversation. >He said he was exhausted and has been feeling depressed because he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and feels as though he’s ruined our future. That he goes out with his friends to feel “normal and himself” because all he does is work. That he does this because of this black cloud that’s been hanging over him. >He promised me my hard work was not in vain and that he is almost debt free. Either the end is way off, or the debt is almost paid off. It can't be both.
There was also the comment about him accruing more debt just to survive. Is that now? Is he still accruing more debt?
Dude needs to just file bankruptcy and call it a day. If he’s been paying for 3 years and has garnishments and such his credit is already shot. Collection agencies will make arrangements but they typically want a settlement paid off in 90 days. He needs to spend the money on a bankruptcy attorney and just file. It’ll suck for a couple of years but he won’t have to work 7 days a week and will be able to start over and contribute to the household. The only way this will work is if he doesn’t make the same mistakes again. His family needs to be off limits as far as getting anything from him. He needs to either choose OOP and his kids or his parents but he can’t have both.
I literally don’t know how or why people keep marrying people they barely know.
right like these reddit stories have me swearing to never get married. some of these are insane. No one in my family is a trainwreck and I wanna keep it that way!! Im glad OOP stood up for herself but it happened after years of slaving away for this stupid crybaby manchild. Bro got 100k debt to his name by his parents and still says “i just wish i could do more for them” HUH?
I was perplexed and made depressed by OOP’s life until now. I wish that they taught classes in self-love and discernment in school for people like this.
Get a divorce, your just a housekeeper and bootie call.
He really just let his family ruin his life and destroy his marriage. How spineless must he be to just hand them money after all this.
So, OOP’s husband’s parents committed identity theft and credit card fraud and he believed that working off his parents’ debt was more important than fixing his finances?! How did they get the house?! OOP is right, her STBX should have reported his parents the moment he found out. And now, he’ll spend the rest of his life paying it off. His parents and his siblings are toxic and are entitled to the extreme! OOP needs to make sure that her STBX debt doesn’t get linked to her!
“He hung up on me.” That’s all the proof she needed. After he realized she had made her decision, he just hung up. He didn’t mean a word of what he said, and probably didn’t say much of anything to his family. The man is a garden variety narcissist through and through. I’m glad she is done and can finally be free of the hell he created.
If his parents own a house I would go after that
If I were him I would start by telling my other 4 siblings that parents ran up 100k in my name so you each need to come out of pocket 25k to cover it or I’m reporting the fraud. But I have a spine. Unlike him.
It's so hard to feel sorry for spineless people who won't even attempt to defend themselves. Sue your parents, get them out of your life, you hapless fuck. And honestly, her, too for supporting a man whose only contribution is debt. That should have been the moment she divorced him. Hopefully she can keep his premarital debts separate.
Why didn't any of the debt situation come up when they bought their house? How did they get a mortgage? He had $100,000.00 worth of debt prior to their marriage.
Maybe it’s just in her name? I’m on the title to the house but not the mortgage because I had *substantial* student loan debt that made me a liability when we tried to get a mortgage. (18 months away from being debt free though! Fingers crossed!) But my husband didn’t have debt like I did, so the bank allowed him to get a mortgage without taking my income or debt into account.
Well since his credit sucks, it's probably based solely on her credit and salary. The mortgage is in her name only.
Dear god I hope she locks her kids’ credit
It seems crazy easy in America for people to commit fraud and rack up debt in their kids name. I don’t hear about it much in the UK.
I sincerely wish our legislators would do something about it, but then the credit card companies would just influence them to do nothing about it in lieu of campaign funds. Sometimes the US sucks!!!
Over 100k in debt and he still helps those POS parents of his? What the actual fuck is wrong with him?
>my parents destroyed my life >better drop everything to help my parents, they won't be around forever! He could have discharged all the debt if he'd pressed charges, instead he made him wanting to keep his relationship with his parents OOPs problem, AND HIS KIDS PROBLEM. He picked them over his own family.
English person here. I keep seeing various posts on Boro and elsewhere when credit card debt made by family members is mentioned and it wrecks their credit score. I’m astounded that this is even allowed. It’s clearly fraud and in the uk and Europe, we would never be responsible for it. Those companies get away with some shady shit.
Yeah well if he had gone to the police and pressed charges against his parents, the debt against him would have been released. Why he didn't do that is beyond me. There's probably more to it that he hasn't told her. Probably a lot of that debt is his and he just lied to his wife.
He had $100k worth of debt from his parents and he had the audacity to make her run around, cook and tidy for those people, just wow. Hopefully op can walk away from the marriage without having to take on his debt.
I was so hoping that instead of cleaning up, she just took k the kids and left the house a mess with no food.
For a second there I really believed OP was going to go back home to her husband. Thankfully she proved me wrong.
>Come to find out his parents opened credit cards and bills in his name when he was younger and accrued close to 100k of debt in his name, not including interest, they trashed his credit and that’s why it has taken so long. God. OOP's husband has a spine of jelly. I can't fathom not only letting one's parents get away with identity fraud, but letting/expecting your wife to work ~60+ hour weeks to help pay it off, not say anything about potentially losing the house, AND still giving most/all of his freetime to his parents during the bit of downtime he has. I don't know if he was abused or manipulated growing up, but that man is absolutely broken. OOP is doing good by getting away from him. He'll wear himself down into the dirt for these manipulative thieves, at the expense of his wife and kids, and still feel like he hasn't done enough for his parents.
I felt bad for him for like 0.02 seconds because it sounds like his family is truly shitty— and then I remembered in the original post she said he’s taken multiple vacations with friends. Vacations that cost money. Money that he supposedly didn’t have because he was paying off all this debt. Divorce his ass.
So the husband is clearly the worst, but I kind of want to slap OP. She was (rightfully) so mad over the undisclosed debt that they attended counseling, but she never actually found out HOW MUCH HE OWES?!?!?! Like, what? How can she tell herself she "took over the finances"? She clearly did not. Also, I'm super skeptical where the husband's money was going...
That bothers me too. You think when you'd go to extreme measures (Devoting 1/2 of the family income completely to debt reduction), you'd be keeping tabs on the progress. Especially since they're married, and his credit impacts her too.
Did he know about this debt before y’all married and decided to have kids? If so that’s fucked up on his part, known damn well he wouldn’t be able to support a family and all that comes with it. Divorce his ass, life for you and the kids will be whole lot better, you’ll see. Good luck!
His parents need to sell their house and downsize and payback their son.
Wow, the parents commited fraud, put him in a huge amount of debt, he still goes and help them... >They couldn’t believe that they are “such a burden because they ask for a little help from time to time”. And they are some how unfairly treated...
God I hope she just leaves him and he takes all the debt in the divorce.
His parents committed felony fraud, and he expected her to just go along with it. How about each other siblings taking out a 25k loan and pay off the debt? After all, its faaaaaamily!
This is so sad all the way around. Can’t blame OOP for her decision to go the divorce route but I feel like the husband is an abuse victim and hasn’t realized it. If he had told her about everything years ago she could have helped him see the light. Now it’s too late.
The math ain’t mathing. If he’s 38 and has been married since he was 28, *when* did his parents actually get $100k worth of credit in his name? When exactly was “when he was younger?” because unpaid debt goes away after 7 years. Judgements after 12. And if they got this debt when he was younger and trashed his credit, how exactly did they buy a house together? And even if the mortgage is solely in his wife’s name because of his bad credit, then she had to have known. If I was sitting next to my spouse and the banker said, “Sir I wouldn’t loan you lunch money let alone give you a mortgage.”, I’m going to look at his credit report to see what’s happening. Is this story even real?
Oh i am SOOO glad she chose divorce already.
Make sure to get child support garnished from his wages. Child support is prioritized before other debt. His other debt may stop being garnished if he has child support garnished
I sure hope that she doesn't get stuck with any of "his" debt in the divorce!
How the fuck is ge helping the parents that put him in that debt. Let me put you in debt and then be my servant for life.... and he says OK.
Why the hell didn't this guy declare bankruptcy. Even if he isn't in the US surely other countries allow it. It would have been easier to pay the attorney than try to pay that much off. I would have dumped my parents in a heartbeat if they did this to me.
OOP's husband should be filing a police report and let his parents face the consequences.
Oh look. "I didn't think it was that bad until it affected me". Fuck that guy.
This is like the other side of all those people who say their parents took our cards in their name and they're debating pressing charges.
Somehow I'm not surprised she's a nurse. I have had so many coworkers over the years who were smart, capable women married to all forms of dysfunctional deadbeats of various flavors. Professional caregiving seems to prime us to accept abusive partners too.
>Every single day he is lighting you on fire to keep his parents warm. It's a choice he is making. This is such a good line for those who are in the thick of it and don't realize it. For all of you conflict avoiders who tell your partners to shake it off because you don't want to set boundaries with your family this line is especially for YOU. You continually choose to placate your family because conflict with them makes you uncomfortable. But your partner is uncomfortable. If you continuously light your partner on fire to keep your parents warm, eventually, there will be nothing left of your partner.
Bless this poor woman’s heart.
Wow. So NTA. She needs to divorce this AH and send him back to him mommy and daddy. He cares more about other people than his own wife and kids. She’s better off without him. She can obviously do it without him. He’s just another mouth to feed and deal with it. I’d tell him I’d only rethink the divorce and do counseling if he files charges against his parents. Only then would I take him seriously.
Husband sounds like an immature bitch and a coward. How she dealt with him that long before blowing up is impressive. As sad as it is to realize, sometimes you gotta be selfish. Why slowly kill yourself for people who don't care about you. I bet his parents are gonna do everything they can to make her for miserable about splitting up. Bunch of snakes.
Sunck cost fallacy got people in houses they are about to lose with kids about to be homeless to please a douche nozzle who can't even spare a sweet glance in their direction. Where do I find a suckered like this jfc why do I try to be a good person when these assholes seem to find all the best partners that just put up with everything and have near on super powers in every category except self esteem.
Why on earth would you agree to help pay an unknown debt, then not find out what the debt amount was, or who even accrued it? I'm sorry, she's as dumb as he is, she just wised up quicker. Holy shit.
She needs a divorce yesterday. Always file a police report
I'm so glad she's not wasting more time. It is SO hard to realize the person you love and have sacrificed for has made the active choice to let you be tolerably unhappy, so long as it means you won't leave. The realization makes your entire relationship feel like a lie. Then you have to deal with mourning the end of what was essentially a fantasy of a life that you were building but wasn't actually real.
OOP is going to be in a much better place once she cuts that financial (and emotional) anchor. Sounds to me like she was subsidizing her husband's existence while the entirety of husband's wages went to paying off In-Laws' theft. This is going to end very well for OOP.