For Better Or Worse

My husband and I will be married 19 years this October.  We have been together 22.  Trust me when I say we have been through a lot of wonderful times over this span and I would say an equal number of not so great ones.

We have had deaths;  significant deaths, unexpected deaths, deaths we did not want to accept.  We have had MAJOR financial issues which have in turn caused MAJOR trust issues.  For me to be a grown woman raising my children and not have a handle on what our financial situation is is mortifying.  I put my trust implicitly into my husband to handle that end of things.  He works, he pays the bills and I do the rest.  I am ashamed of myself.  I feel ignorant, like I put on blinders and just let life pass me by without a care in the world.  There were signs but I have so much on my plate every day I wanted to make excuses and ignore them.  I know all moms/women have the same full plate but somehow I've always felt less equipped to handle it.  The responsibility of making sure three people have all of their needs met, day in, day out for 17+ years now has been overwhelming.  I never wanted children because intrinsically I am selfish.  I like to worry about myself, my wants, my needs.  Trying to always put the kids first and make sure EVERY need, EVERY day is fulfilled is emotionally draining.  Some people are nurturing by nature, they have that gene to care for and worry about everyone around them.  That is not me.

When my husband began to completely change his personality I knew it was time to address my suspicions.  While he never said exactly what our situation was he admitted he was struggling.  Alot of the debt was my fault.  I had started a career as an independent jewelry consultant.  I did great at it!  Every show was excellent.  Eventually it became less and less of a priority in our household.  I couldn't do shows on Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays because my husband worked at a bar where he made great money so he couldn't give that up.  I couldn't do Mondays because he played hockey.  I couldn't do Wednesdays because that was the day each week we ate at his parents house.  See where this is going?  Noone wants to do a Sunday or Tuesday night home party, trust me.  I decided to stop (much to the dismay of my customers, it was GREAT stuff!).  Now I had alot of inventory that wasn't going to sell and debt.  I put half of that debt on a zero percent credit card.  I told him to pay that off and when it was done, we would transfer the other half.  Great plan, if you pay the bill on time.  My husband was late with a payment and the APR went up somewhere over 20%.  We were never going to pay this off.

I came up with a new plan.  We borrowed from my husband's retirement.  It's his money going in there so we could borrow it and just pay it back over 5 years, no problem.  We got the loan, I assumed things were fine.  Well, come to find out, my husband put that money in a bank account and paid our bills monthly until it ran out.  The whole point was to pay off those bills so we would only have the loan payment.  I made that abundantly clear.  It's like his brain could not compute this simple fact.  If he had paid the debt, he would not need a stash of cash to make sure we could meet our bills every month.  I did not find out that he had done this until about four years into the loan payback.  So now we are paying the loan, paying the debt and the hole is getting deeper.

Now, I decided we need to get a home equity loan and get this resolved once and for all.  I explained how we would get the loan, I would SIT WITH HIM while he wrote out the checks and we would finish this.  I have been telling him this for over a year.  I have sat down calmly and explained how really this is our only option, I have screamed and berated him for not taking care of this with my last two plans, I have cried because I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall.  He cannot see this is ruining us.  Everything comes down to money in our lives.  We have two paid off vehicles, our mortgage is ridiculously low and we can't do or buy anything.

My husband has been off on comp for almost a month now.  He is not working any overtime.  The noose is tightening.  He approached me the other day and told me he was calling the bank to get a home equity loan.  He said he always felt more secure before having savings in the bank but now he sees that if our credit cards were paid off he wouldn't need that stash to make sure our bills are paid.  He also realizes he could build savings more quickly if he didn't have so much money going out every month.  After I picked my jaw up off the floor, all I could do was stare silently at him.  Really?  He was saying all of this to me like he was just sitting on the couch and came to this revelation.  My first reaction was pure joy.  This nightmare was finally going to be over.  Like an alcoholic, he had to come to this decision on his own. 

My second reaction, pure rage.  We have been living in Hell, literally for years now because he is always stressed, always pinching a penny, always telling the kids no and that they have to use their own money for everything.  We NEVER go out, ever.  I can make a meal out of anything I have in this house.  My grocery bill is around $25 a week to feed a family of four because I can create a meal out of thin air.  I have done everything in my power to ease his burden and I have lived in sheer hell.  I don't sleep, I eat compulsively, I am shakey inside because we have this problem and I can not get him to see his way out of it.  I wanted to help him but he would not let me. 

Ironically, we have applied for the loan.  My credit is excellent, my husband's is above average.  His embarrassment and shame was the reason he never sought help.  He didn't want anyone to see he had messed up.  When his brother died he paid all of our bills late, every month.  He couldn't cope.  Instead of asking for help, he stayed in the catch up mode for years.  He didn't take my advice when I tried to offer it.  Again, I think it was a pride thing.  He was supposed to be taking care of his family and he was going to do it his way.  I don't know what our debt is.  Even when I was signing the papers I didn't look.  Since my husband would consider owing ANY money shameful it could be anything.  I don't care at this point.  I just know I will be writing out the checks this time.  The blinders will be off and I am taking control of this, even if I have to wrestle him to the floor for the pen.  This is over.

Can I forgive him though?  Yes, I agreed to stay in a union with this man for better or worse, till death do us part but can I stay in a relationship where I have no voice?  How much is too much?  I want to be married to one man until I die.  I don't want to start over in my 40's.  Do you have any idea how much dieting, working out and waxing that would require?  I would have to hunt again and let's face it,  I've been married a long time, I'm not exactly at my fighting weight.  I have told him and told him how to fix this and I was ignored.  I couldn't MAKE him do it.  I did tell him I was calling the bank and we WERE getting the loan.  I think that's why he finally did it, he knew it was happening with or without him and he wanted to be the one to say he solved it.  I am patient.  I am kind.  Am I just crossing the line into pathetic if I stay? I do have some pride too.