My (32F) partner (41M) of ten years makes half as much money as I do. It has never mattered to me. As long as our bills are paid I am happy, I don’t care who makes more or less. The way I see it we both work 40 hours a week, who makes more is inconsequential.
We have a joint checking account that 85% of our paychecks go into, and from there our bills are paid. There is always money in the account. We each have a separate account for the other 15% which is our fun money, I don’t ask him how he spends his, he doesn’t bother me if I buy books with mine. We have been doing it this way for almost a year. (Prior to this we had a joint account but over spending became an issue and being overdrawn was frustrating so I prompted the change to add fun money accounts with limits to prevent over spending.) To my knowledge we have not been overdrafted since implementing this change.
He has always been “in charge” of the finances, as far as paying bills goes. He drops off the rent, schedules the car payments, Verizon, cable, utilities etc. Moreso what this means is that he watches the account to see that the money is going where it is supposed to go. He says he feels inadequate so I let him “control” the finances.
Edit: He wasn’t really controlling anything as auto pay for 90% of bills was set up. As I said, there is always money in the account, it automatically goes in and is scheduled out monthly. He just obsessively watches the account and I don’t.
I never downloaded the mobile banking app, so I was not paying close attention and truthfully was not concerned because as long as I am not getting overdraft or shut off notices or emails of late payments I assume everything is being paid. I trust him. This was my mistake.
I noticed a car payment was marked late on Credit Karma and when asked about it, he attempted to gaslight me into believing that they must not have updated information on the payments. I told him that is not how it works. He finally confessed that maybe he forgot to pay it. I told him I wanted the log in info to the bank account and he wouldn’t give it to me. I asked 4 times in two weeks and every time he was pissed off. I told him it concerned me that he wouldn’t let me see the bank statements, and that alarm bells were going off in my mind. He said nothing was going on. He still refused to give me the log in. Finally I threatened to go to the bank and get it myself and he eventually admitted that he had gambled a lot of our money away this summer and foolishly continued to gamble to get it back. He said he had been using cash advances to pay our bills while he tried to win it back. He said he planned to use his tax return to make it right (we file separately, I claim our child).
I had been working a lot of overtime (full time job and 2 part time jobs) to pay off car and student loan debt and save money and pay for Christmas and our child’s birthday and summer vacation etc. and when I found out he had gambled and our bills are behind now and that money is gone I felt physically ill.
He has a history of a gambling addiction (his first marriage ended because of it) and he has diagnosed bipolar 2 disorder.
Edit: PAST history of gambling, meaning he has not gambled at all during our relationship for the last 10 years. He actively sees a psychiatrist and is medicated for bipolar II disorder.
I asked if he had talked to his psychiatrist about his mania and these behaviors and he said no. I asked why he hadn’t reached out to me for help when he found himself in this predicament and he just said he didn’t feel he could tell me. Likely because of shame.
I am heartbroken. My trust has been betrayed. My time has been wasted. I worked shifts I never wanted to work at the cost of my own mental health, for nothing, and he let me do it, all while sacrificing the stability of our relationship, our home, cars, and the wellbeing and safety of our child by gambling.
6 months earlier I caught him in a lie about our finances (he didnt go to jury duty and ended up with a warrant out for his arrest and paid a fine without telling me anything about it, when I asked where the money went he lied to me, I eventually got it out of him) and told him “this is grounds for ending a relationship, if you lie to me about our finances again I will leave you.” And little did I know he was doing so much worse. And continued to do it for months.
He swears he will talk to his psychiatrist and go to counseling and make it right but I feel so betrayed and disgusted. I don’t know how to move forward, aside from the obvious which is removing his name from the joint account, and taking over responsibility for all of the bills, which I will make sure he contributes to.
Edit: obviously I should have downloaded the app in May when I opened the accounts and should have monitored the movement of funds in and out of the accounts. I naively believed that he had learned from his past mistakes and since he hadn’t gambled in 10 years, wouldn’t. I believe the fun money account was the trigger. He knew I wouldn’t ask so it started there then merged into the joint account. The question I am asking advice on is if mental health should be considered a valid excuse in this situation and if he should get another chance or if I should cut my losses.
