How to Deal With A Spouse's Financial Infidelity

When you find out your spouse has been hiding things from you financially, it can feel like a huge violation of trust. Whether they've been hiding debt or a serious shopping habit, dealing with a financial infidelity can be just as difficult as dealing with an affair. If your marriage has suffered a financial indiscretion, here are some tips for getting it back on track.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Copies of you and your spouse's credit reports
• Copies of bank statements
• Copies of all bills

1. Take a deep breath. Finding out that your spouse has been keeping money secrets from you can make you feel betrayed, angry, and ready to point the finger. Resist the urge to immediately blame your spouse for your financial problems until you have a clear picture of what the damage really is. If your gut reaction is anger, then you need to cool off before even attempting to talk about it with your spouse.

2. Acknowledge your responsiblity for the situation, if any. If you put your spouse in charge of managing the money and never offered any input or help, then you have to realize that by putting your head in the sand you may have contributed to the problem.

3. Assess how bad the damage is. Pull your credit reports and go over them in detail. Make note of all creditors and outstanding balances, as well as any accounts that are past due. Whose name is the debt in and what of it is secured and nonsecured? Are you on the verge of bankruptcy or can the situation be made manageable?

4. Sit down with your spouse and talk about what's been going on. Rather than simply accusing or placing blame, try to figure out together what the real cause of the financial problems are. Overspending and compulsive shopping will certainly lead to debt but unless you can figure out what caused the initial behavior, you're not really addressing the problem.

5. Create a plan for getting your finances back on the right track. If your spouse has been the sole money manager then it's time for you to step up. While you may feel the need to take over complete control of the finances, you need to keep your spouse involved. Together, you need to create a budget, figure out how you're going to repay your debts, and develop a list of long-term financial goals. Once you've got your plan in place, you need to work it together so that you are both equally accountable for your finances.

6. Work on the marriage. Oftentimes, money problems only reflect a larger problem in the marriage as a whole. You need to figure out what issues in the marriage may have contributed to your spouse's behavior and deal with those as well if you want to save the marriage. A marriage counselor can help you talk through your issues and help you to rebuild the trust and honesty your marriage will need to survive.

Tips & Warnings

• If your finances are beyond the point of repairing yourself, seek the advice of a financial professional to determine how you can get yourselves out of trouble.
• Don't expect things to get better overnight. Repaying debt and rebuilding trust will both be a long and labor-intensive process for both of you.
• Seek professional help if your spouse's financial troubles are motivated by an addiction to drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. These are serious issues that cannot be resolved on their own.