wow. That seems like self-defeating behavior to me. Merging two lives and potentially two differing styles of dealing with money is hard enough without deception. And honestly, I cannot fathom a relationship without trust and honesty.

It *pains* me when I see my own parents do it in their own ways. I think some people rationalize the deceptions away thinking whatever they are doing isn't that big a deal, won't make that much of a difference etc. But to me, the lack of trust can be even more damaging than the financial consequences.

Mike,
Thanks a for a great article with a lot of real-life examples in it. I know I rant about this all the time, but these people need a budget. And they need to sit down each month which each other, hold hands, and decide where their money is going. Ramsey puts it best when he says you do that together, then spit-shake and swear you won't deviate from this newly appointed taskmaster.

Thanks for your work.

It blows my mind when I hear about one spouse or the other not being "plugged in" to what's going on in their finances - or feel powerless with their partner. Gimme a break. IMHO, this is a relationship deal-breaker. People with nothing to hide, hide nothing. Marriage is a team concept. Yes, one partner or the other may be better at managing bills than the other - but there has to be full accountability both ways. In this situation, at the very least, both partners need to have a quick meeting once a month to discuss where every penny came in and went out (supported by bills and receipts). As unpleasant a task as this may be, the ostrich-like spouse needs to get their head out of the sand and plug in to their family finances. For any budget to work properly in a marriage, there has to be complete honesty, no hiding, no unbearable budgets, no dictatorships. Both spouses need to feel happy about the budget and have a say-so in the process. Otherwise, this creates a parent-child relationship in the marriage... which is never a good thing (all children eventually rebel, and all parents get overwhelmed.)

Just my 1/100th of a latte's worth.

What to do with a spouse who forms an LLC and encumbers personal assets (life insurance cash value)to speculate on real estate?
I found out through a mailing announcing a zoning board meeting at which my spouse will request a variance to build a house. Was I told about this by my spouse? No, not until I confronted him with the ZB notice.

Perhaps it would not hurt so much, but he has accumulated almost 80K worth of credit care debt, a 300K business loan (with 300K collateral assets), and a collection of cars. So what, you ask? I wonder how to finance two college educations in the next eight years. I also wonder what or who else he is hiding.

Hello everybody - my wife just left me due to “emotional stress”. Over the last two week's, I’ve learned why she really left. In the last two years, she ran up over $43K in credit card debt behind my back. Finally, this financial finagling came to a head and our monthly expenses (mortgage, electric, car pmt’s, etc.) plus her multiple credit card minimum payments exceeded our monthly income. Before I knew it, checks were bouncing everywhere. As a stay at home mom, she had the luxury of getting to the mail first to hide any bills/collection notices. Calls from collection agencies were automatically call forwarded from our home phone to her cell phone. Now that she’s gone, I am here cleaning up the mess and finding out more as I go. It is frightful.

It started with a 5K transfer of funds from our Home Equity loan, and then she opened 5 more zero balance cards over the next six months all in her name. As I look thru the transaction history, it reads like an Enron accounting scandal. I trusted her to keep the books while I work during the week to support our family.

This is not the first time in our marriage that this has happened. It has happened twice before but with only 10-15K infractions of credit card debt. The first time I thought, hey, were newly weds and made a mistake. The second time this happened, I almost left her. I really wanted our marriage to rebound so we worked to rebuild things and got out of debt. However, the third time is a charm as they say. I never wanted to be a divorce statistic but life is too short. I do not trust her nor do I want to be digging my self out of periodic debt that I did not incur for the rest of my days.

I will never turn things over to this degree again. My new motto in life is simply, “Trust, but verify.”