Then, because I was young and stupid, I married a man who was terrible with money. There would have been fewer red flags in Soviet Russia than what he was waving. He came from Old Money. The kind that had long since dried up in his family line, but because he still carried the name he felt like he had to keep up with his cousins. He thought that as long as there was money in the checking account, it was free game to be spent. I went from having no credit cards and some savings to having no savings and a couple of thousand in CC debt. I'm not blameless in this. I didn't have the lady balls to stand up to him. Any time I did, it turned into a full-on manchild tantrum and for awhile it just wasn't worth it.
I learned a lot about budgeting and being frugal during this time. I pretty much had to be frugal at this point in my life just to keep the balancing act going. I learned how to use coupons and stretch a grocery budget. I knew how to work the CVS system because it was the only way I could afford milk every week. I tweaked the budget spreadsheet into an early iteration of what became the cashflow tool. It was the only way to juggle bills and make sure that nothing got cut off and that the mortgage got paid.
When I was 26 I left him and moved back home. I walked walked away from the house, the mortgage, his car loan. I figured that in seven years I could have a chance to be happier and have terrible credit that was getting better or I could be miserable and have terrible credit that was getting worse. I knew that he wouldn't pay them and I was mostly right. The mortgage payment I made before I left was the last one that ever got made. The house was gone before the divorce was even finalized. Luckily, this was at the very beginning of the housing crisis, so the bank was still issuing full-credit bids on foreclosures so there was no deficiency on it. I suspect that things would have been much worse just a few months later.
At that point, we had about $10k in credit card debt. Half of it was on cards that were in my name with him named as the authorized user and half in his name with me as an AU. The first draft of the divorce decree that his attorney sent over demanded that I cut a check for "my half" of the credit card bills and he would take care of paying them. I'm not sure my attorney has ever seen someone laugh that hard in his office before. Even if I could have conjured that kind of money out of my ass, I trusted him to pay my bills about as much as I trust gas-station egg-salad sandwiches. In the end, we each got the ones in our respective names. I had some late (very late) payments on them, but eventually got them paid off about four years later.
He managed to keep his car for about 8 months, but it eventually went too. It sold at auction and there was a deficiency, but I was never contacted about it. He filed for bankruptcy a few days after the car was picked up, so it's likely that that helped me out. I also spent several years under the radar. On paper, I owned nothing. I sold my car to my dad. I lived with my parents or in my grandparents' house. I had a checking account that was always empty because I went back to school.
I'm on the other side now. My credit is awesome again. I'm remarried with a kiddo. My new husband is...better....with money. But we still have separate finances. He does have some issues with impulse spending that can be serious if not kept in check. I know that if shit hits the fan that I can take care of myself and my son. Life is good and getting better. I'm never going back there again.
No comments:
Post a Comment