Advice urgently needed

[shaz77]

Hi I need some advice. We have been married for almost 9 years, have two children and a ton of debt. My DH has bipolar and most of the time he is responsible (although neither of us are very good with money we're ok). However when he is off his meds he spends when he is up and when he is down so basically ALL THE TIME!! We have about $30,000 debt, lost our house because of the spending. He is working (thankfully) and earns a decent amount but I have had to return to work to keep us going. We were relying on our tax return to get us back on track with bills and debt repayments but DH has three days off his meds and has spent up big on Grays! Some of it is to resell, but other stuff is just stuff! I am sooo annoyed. I was doing the budget and handling the money for a while (after a financial planner recommended that) however he felt 'he wasn't providing' and it put a strain on our relationship. I don't know what to do. We will never get in front if he keeps this up but I dont want to destroy our relationship and have him resenting me because I have control of the money. Doing it together doesn't really work either. What do I do?

[V8]

I have a DH with a brain injury so he is not in control of finances either, or we'd be left with nothing. So i just give him nothing, might be mean but seriously if he has access to money he will get it and waste it, plus if there's no money in the account he'll still try and redraw money and then i get charged stupid fees for it. So yeah, we have some dramas with him cause he doesn't like having no money so we are going to work something out, but if i were you, budget some expenses that he likes and just give him an allowance, you can't afford for him to do that to you, what if you have a sick child or something and you can't pay for petrol or anything necessary, its just too risky and you need to get on top of the debt before it gets even harder to get out of that cycle.

I'm so sorry, it must be very very stressful for you. :hugs:

[Jodie T]

Hi your dh sounds like mine except mine has no reason for it. we have 321000 dollars worht the debt and all my husband does is spend money like it is going out of fashion we are behind in bills and I dont buy a single thing even if i need it we dont have enough money to cover all of our loans and I have sold pretty much everything I own to keep us going my DH works but I dont see a cent and I am scared I will lose the house we have a 3 week old daughter and I m worried about her future and I have tried stopping him from spending it just makes him angry

[Amara]

My ex husband had bipolar. Undiagnosed when we were together though. He was always average with money & buying things he couldn't afford.

At one stage he was withdrawing hundreds of dollars out of the bank & giving it away to strangers on the street as he didn't feel we needed money. Meanwhile I was working full time trying to keep our household afloat. He just didn't understand how difficult he was making my life.

I took charge of the finances. It was the only way I could assure we'd keep a roof over our head. I'd give him a small amount of money each week for smokes & alcohol & that was it. By that stage he was unable to work so all the income was coming from my direction.

Even so it only lasted a few months after that. The financial pressure was too much. We split, sold the house & we both moved on in different directions.