Michael
“Dear Steve,
My soon to be ex wife and I went bankrupt in May 2008, mainly because of her excessive spending, gambling and check writing. She is now over 35,000 in debt again and trying to hit me up for large sums of money (I do not have) to bail her out.
I dont know anyway for her to get out of this mess. Between personal loans, 20 payday loans, and check floating everywhere it is a mess. If not for our 9 year old son, I would let her go to jail, but that’s not an option if we can avoid it. Is there anyway she could consolidate debts or get help?
Michael”
Dear Michael,
This is a classic example of why most money problems are the symptom and not about the money. Your soon to be ex-wife has an addictive illness that is causing here to spend past her ability to repay. Unless those underlying addictions are treated with counseling and drug therapy, this cycle will simple repeat itself.
Bailing her out will only enable her behavior. Unfortunately, this is much like a drug or alcohol problem. Until the person recognizes they have a problem and agrees to to seek treatment for it, you can’t solve this issue. Truly what you need is an intervention. She needs to understand how her actions are impacting others and leading her to harm others.
You may need to get your son out of there until she is ready to face this issue.
I would locate a local mental health professional that specializes in the treatment of addiction and explain the situation to them. You can then work together to invite your ex-wife into treatment.
It is very important that you regularly check your consolidated credit report to watch for fraud and identity theft by her. Use this consolidated credit report, it’s the one I trust and use.
As her access to money gets choked off, she will become more and more desperate. As evidenced by her bad check writing. It is not uncommon for people in such a situation to fraudulently open credit cards and loans in the names of family members to get more money to feed the compulsion or addiction.
All I can say with certainty right now is that your wife has an adrenaline addiction and it is either an escape to mask something else or it is chemically feeding her brain to allow her to reach a state she wants. Compulsive shopping, where the person does not return the items, and gambling are both exhilaration exercises.
Even getting your wife to see help through either Debtors Anonymous or Gamblers Anonymous would be a beneficial first step if she is ready to admit she has a problem and take some action.
Otherwise, the best thing you can do is let her crash and burn and be there to help her get treatment. Her compulsion is strong that your ability to reason with her.
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i am in pretty much the same boat as shay and i have to say this is killing me. my wife has spent thousands and i only found out about this last week through finding a stack of unopened letters with my name on them. she has applied online for debt in my name which we cant afford, i have unpaid bills from catalogues also, none of which i had any idea about. we have kids together so i cant just walk and truth be told i still love her very much but this is making me hate life, i am working hard and seeing no benefit, my money is just clearing deficits. also i am very worried about being taken to court as i suffer from anxiety issues and this would make me seriously ill (at least mentally) another concern is keeping a roof over my kids heads. i am sick with worry 99% of my waking day, its ruining everything, even my relationship with my kids as i am pretty grumpy all the time. i dont know what kind of help i am after but if anyone can offer advice i be very grateful.
Today I went bankrupt for the first time, my soon to be ex-common law spouse is the reason for going bankrupt in the first place. He had already been bankrupt when I met him, but used my credit online and through manipulation, got me into a complete mess. He had no remorse at taking a loan to cover bill payments/neccessitis of life and paying credit with credit. He used credit cards/accounts, knowing full well that we couldn’t even meet minimum payments. He hid bills from me, trying to cover up that we were “not okay financially”. This went on for 7 years, I accept responsibility by letting this happen and not leaving sooner, I never should have turned a blind eye to my finances by letting him be in control. I have 2 little kids, and I told myself that I was staying for their benefit. Now that I have declared bankruptcy, I am leaving with my kids and never looking back. I no longer have any debt, but most importantly I have no joint debt with him, I am even taken off the mortgage!!! These kind of people have a serious problem, I don’t know if they will ever be responsible. My advice, cut your losses, take your son and cut all financial ties with this woman. I cannot even begin to explain all the chances I gave my ex-spouse, but his actions in the end spoke louder than any words that came out of his mouth. Good Luck!!!
i am in pretty much the same boat as shay and i have to say this is killing me. my wife has spent thousands and i only found out about this last week through finding a stack of unopened letters with my name on them. she has applied online for debt in my name which we cant afford, i have unpaid bills from catalogues also, none of which i had any idea about. we have kids together so i cant just walk and truth be told i still love her very much but this is making me hate life, i am working hard and seeing no benefit, my money is just clearing deficits. also i am very worried about being taken to court as i suffer from anxiety issues and this would make me seriously ill (at least mentally) another concern is keeping a roof over my kids heads. i am sick with worry 99% of my waking day, its ruining everything, even my relationship with my kids as i am pretty grumpy all the time. i dont know what kind of help i am after but if anyone can offer advice i be very grateful.
Wow, it’s shocks me to hear that people are racking up 10 – 20 payday loans. These loans are suppose to be used for emergencies and people need to use them responsibly. Payday loans aren’t free money, and yes there are fees associated with them. I’m shocked to hear that people are able to get so many of these loans how they can reasonably justify paying them back. Getting one payday loan for an emergency is a good thing and something that shouldn’t be negative, but when people are getting loans on top of loans, then there is a problem and it makes others feel like this is the standard. However, these are definitely out of the norm and worst case scenarios. I hope they are able to get an EPP to help repay the loans.
Fred Cashs last blog post..Why Use Payday Loans
It’s a problem on both sides. The payday industry would better serve itself if it moved aggressively to adopt the one loan at a time for one customer. It would prevent these multiple loan scenarios from happening which only serve to blacken the eye of the entire payday loan industry.
Steve