Almost from the first moment that the idea of impending separation penetrated my ex’s head, he began shopping for his new place. With gusto. With too much gusto, some might say, and I certainly did question his judgment in exercising his purchasing power so fervently.
Our joint household was outfitted with more than enough items of a culinary, decorative and functional nature to supply his new apartment; however, he refused to take most of the things I tried to send him with. He didn’t want them, he said. He wanted a fresh start.
He got his fresh start, but along with it came enormous credit card bills. I had some idea of the extent of the damage several months ago when inadvertently I saw his credit report. The sum total of his debt was the sort of number that would cause anyone but a sultan to squeal in financial terror, but apparently it wasn’t enough to dissuade him from further fiscal chicanery. He continued to spend, and juggle balances between cards, and loan himself money by means of insidious winsome checks mailed out by his creditors.
I began to grasp the full extent of the problem when he told me that he’d “forgotten” to change his withholding to reflect the fact that the children would not count as dependents on his taxes this year. Despite my reminding him at the beginning of this year that he’d need to do that, he failed to make the adjustment until just recently.
Furthermore, the man made several other dangerous assumptions about his tax situation, assumptions that would make you roll your eyeballs to the heavens repeatedly. Let’s just save some time, shall we? I’ll forgo the details, and you can spare your eyes the strain of repeated rotations. I’ll just say this: His mistaken ideas could have been corrected instantly by a simple googling.
By now his situation has reached desperate levels. He’s casting about for a solution in the most non-productive ways possible, including by asking me for help. This strikes me as a particularly painful lesson in how the world works. I am obnoxiously frugal yet I enjoy (relative) financial ease. He is wildly extravagant but is experiencing the sensation of being well and truly fucked.
Writing snark about his foolishness is easy (I could go on for hours!), but beneath a thin layer of derision I am worried. I’ve done everything in my power to undo my bonds of financial dependence on him, but he still by law must support the children. If things go worse for him I have to wonder if that will continue.
Furthermore, my neurotic side clamors to help him. I want to schedule an appointment with his shrink to see what I should be doing. I want to call the credit card companies and use my enormous powers of persuasion to suggest that they lower his interest rates. I want to stand over him while he gathers his bills, then march him into credit counseling.
“It’s not that I don’t have enough money,” he told me one night as we sat on the couch with children shrieking and playing around us. “My income is fine. I just don’t have enough flexibility with my income.”
I turned away. I made an excuse to walk to the kitchen so that the look on my face (and my painfully rolling eyes) wouldn’t be visible, though in writing this I have no idea why I’d spare him. He stands naked and chained in the arena with lions approaching from every side and yet he still fails to grasp his situation. He still believes that his good job and nice paycheck entitle him to a certain lifestyle, despite the fact that his bills say otherwise.
No amount of help from me would cure him of this delusion. He’s going to have to fail, and fail spectacularly, before he figures this out.
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Almost a perfect parallel to the financial meltdown that’s dominating the news these days, isn’t it?
Only your ex isn’t too big to fail.
I have also found it difficult to let go of the desire to “help” the ex with his finances; i question his choices and wonder why the hell he hasn’t gotten back into the housing market, but whatever. What.Ever. I just have to let him do whatever he’s going to do, which is hard knowing i only make ends meet because of the child support. Ugh. But his irresponsibility does serve one purpose– reminding me yet again why i got the hell out.
As much as I want to feel bad for people who are not financially responsible, I don’t.
I’m 21. I drive the same car my wonderful parents gave me when I was almost 16 (100,000 miles, 2 accidents, multiple dents, and rusted paint, ago). My friends drive brand new cars. Live in fancy apartments. Laugh at me when I decline going to a nice bar because I know I can’t afford $15 cocktails. I have seen their bills. I have to help write some of their checks because they have no idea how to write a check, let alone balance a checkbook. I’ll be secretly smirking as they financially fail in 3 years, and I’m moving into my own home. Bitchy? Most definitely. But painfully honest. Sorry. That became a bit of a rant. Rough day.
I am in awe at you being able to walk away. To let his problems be his problems. I hope I can be as strong as you one day.
Yup,,,Fiscal Responsibility, tends to be elusive to some people…The lifestyle you want , is usually not within your reach…
True Wisdom from my Father,,if you cant pay cash for it,,You Cant Afford It…
Are you sure we weren’t married to the same guy. I got all the above and loads more. The eye rolling has effectively given me a migraine. Want some Excedrin? lol
Just to throw a lead balloon out there.
Same situation except I am the male and my ex is the one who did stuff like this. Since she HAD the kids I felt morally obligated to try to help her out. Time and again I bailed her out and when I couldnt do that any more I helped get her set up with the Credit Counseling organization (cant recall the actual name of it, it’s the legit one not the fly by night ones that advertise on late night tv)
When we split I took all of her debt onto my own cards roughly 30k and it took me a decade to get out from behind that load.
Guess my point is, that it isn’t always the guy who is the problem.
I remember, it was the CCC Consumer Credit Counseling.
I really think that the non-custodial parent gets the shaft 5 times over when the custodial parent is a flake.
It looks like he’s going to have to learn the hard way about how to manage his finances. He won’t listen to your advice til its way too late for him…
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The maternal instinct to ensure he provides for your children as he should cannot sway you from being able to turn away.
My son’s father was the same. I was driving around town in my same old beat up car with my infant son, while he bought himself a brand new vehicle. I tried so desperately to remind him of what he stood to lose should he continue to lead his lifestyle after we split.
His financial irresponsibility is so apparant now, his wife writes our son’s child support checks out of HER account.
Just be still girl, it will work out….
We have a nephew who is buying, buying, buying. He has two children (a third on the way) and has just put a huge addition onto his house, has bought a swimming pool, keeps switching between buying and selling a new 4-wheeler or snowmobile, and has been going on vacation left and right. Oh yeah – almost forgot about the big screen television he bought.
Meanwhile we’re sitting here with one vehicle paid off and another one that will be paid off in a few years. A huge house of our own with low payments. An old 32″ television, no cell phones, no pools…you get my picture.
The difference? In 10 years they’ll be having serious issues. In 10 years we won’t be.
Good for you for standing back.
There’s a bit of wisdom from the professional kitchen – “never try to catch a falling knife”. You wouldn’t buy him vodka if he was an alcoholic, nor let him borrow from your medicine cabinet of prescription drugs if he was a junkie. So, don’t be afraid of giving Tough Love.
You talked about talking to his therapist? How about writing him a l1-page letter and copying his therapist, with simple statements of fact:
1 – His current precarious financial situation is created by the choices he has made of his own free will.
2 – He is an adult and the same resources that are available to others are also available to him to help him in changing his current stained circumstances.
3 – He has a standing financial committment to provide $X for his children’s life expenses, and given their young ages, and the current rate of inflation, that $X amount is actually shrinking in terms of the percentage it is covering their needs every month. That committment he has made is not going to become less as the years go on – and state, quite plainly, that as their mother, your first loyalty and concern MUST be to the welfare of your children.
4 – You are not responsible for any debts other than your own. While you certainly hope, with all your heart, that your exhusband will experience a swift and abundant reprieve from his current financial problems, hope, good thoughts, and your prayers are THE ONLY support you will be sending his way. You do not have the resources to “help him out” financially, or emotionally, in this crisis he is experiencing.
(Set the emotional boundary now – you can’t let him guilt you)
Now, having gone on record as these being your truths, very quietly, behind the scenes, wihtout telling him or anyone who might slip and tell him, honey, start your own “warchest” because I can already tell, you are psychic enough to see the storm that is coming. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst: that there will be NO financial support from him at some point in the future, possibly for many years.
Please verify that you are not connected in any way to his credit cards. I’ve heard that if you were in any way connected to the card when it was issued, the credit card company can still try to come after you no matter what your current relationship is, that only cards issued after the divorce disconnect the two of you.
I dropped cards I had for decades to be sure my ex would be free of me. (Yes, I’m the crazy one, I’m ashamed to say.)
But hey, they might come after you anyway. They’ll try anything. My wife got letters — but just letters — from a collection agency looking for her ex’s money 23 years after their divorce. (He was the crazy one.)
Also, while I think you already know this I’ll say it anyway. Be on guard for your ex’s “terminal vagueness”. I learned this at Debtors Anonymous. We compulsive debtors and spenders tend to be gifted in that, sometimes unconscious of it even when we’re trying to do it right.
And finally, good luck with this. For people like me, and I think your ex, this is an addiction like crack cocaine. Don’t underestimate it.
After decades of therapy and lately medication (Lexapro — the supposed anti-OCD drug) am I weaning myself off of my compulsive debting and spending. I’ve ruined myself and scarred the people I love over and over again — sneaking, lying, the whole thing. (My drug of choice? Books. Really. I’m a bookaholic. I own over 10,000 books.) It’s not pretty, and it’s hard for me to admit, even anonymously.
You cannot save him from financial ruin, and it is not your responsibility to give him the leg up, either. But you know this.
All you can do is protect your children from his irresponsible financial behaviour. You may expect to become their sole means of support, and you would not be alone in this.
All great advice, but since he did come looking for advice from you, I’d tell him “Get into credit counseling, cut up the cards and forget about your wine&dine lifestyle.”
If he fails to take your advice, the onus is on him, not you.
As far as child support goes, if he even MENTIONS dropping the amount of child support, refuse and advise him “If you don’t pay your support, I’m going to the AG and they’ll garnish your wages.” And then follow through if necessary. Again, the onus is on him, not you.
The only thing nobody else mentioned, he is not your child, no matter how immature his spending habits or innocence of elementary school math.
Just because the solutions for you are simple no-brainers, this does not obligate you to provide for him.
Although turning for the kitchen instead of rolling your eyes at him might have done him a disservice, as he then didn’t get the feedback of how ridiculous his “flexible money” concept is.
Wise of you to stand back… as you say, it looks like he needs to fall before he learns the lesson. Hard for you, though … habits die hard.
Hey Aag:
Happy Fall! My opinion is that although hearing about your ex’s financial crisis is unpleasant, please remember that the obligation to be there and support (mentally, physically and emotionally) ended along with your marriage. I mean you said so yourself, he didnt seem to care when he left – didnt care for your input when he so extravagantly spend his money. And while I understand that people make mistakes, I’m also a firm believer that when things end… they END. So if you really wanted the headaches of bearing his problems and issues as your own, you would have stayed married to him. Life goes on, ups and downs happen to everybody. I think maintaining an amicable relationship with him as the father of your children is fine. Discussing his financial, emotional, or mental status – that should have been done and over with a long time ago.
Almost every state in the union has provisions that if someone required to provide child support fails to do so for a given amount of time they will automatically deduct the amount owed from his checks making sure the kids get thier before anyone else.