I am in desperate need of advice, please!
My husband and I got married in September. Prior to our wedding he told me all these great things he was doing financially to benefit us. He said he had a savings account he was putting some of his paycheck into, he was paying off the smaller parts of his debts, and he was budgeting his money. ( Little history I broke off our engagement due to his financial instability and hiding it from me when we lived together, prior to marriage). Anyways, I truly trusted him and thought he had started to make a change for the better. We discussed (BUT not in depth, future brides please don't make this mistake if you see this) how we would handle finances and decided the best way was for each of us to have a separate account for our fun money, and a joint for our bill money. I really thought this would make things easy. We opened our joint account in November, since then my husband hasn't put any money into the joint account. I have asked multiple times and he just simply likes to say, "I forgot" when does this excuse end? Fast forward a few months into our marriage, and I begin to use Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps to help us budget. I asked for his personal bank information so I could track spending to find out what we are spending and on what. After I tried to sync his account multiple times without success, when questioned he stated he still had his old cell phone # on his account. I requested he change the primary # to his new phone #. He claimed he did and yet again the account wouldn't sync. He kept saying he didn't understand why it wasn't working. I let it go and just moved forward utilizing the Baby Steps for my own personal financial growth. I am seeing a counselor every other week to discuss how to communicate more effectively, how to deal with new marital changes, anxiety, depression, etc. Anyways, about a month ago on my way home my husband calls and stated that the power was turned off at our house. He was able to get it turned on the same day, but when I asked why it was shut off he stated it was because the bill said we owed over $1000, but that wasn't true because he had paid $300 on it yesterday. ( History, we decided I would cover half of rent, auto insurance on both vehicles, and since the medical insurance is in my name that would be my responsibility. He stated he would cover the electric, water, and cable, which we dropped cable the previous month of the electric being cut off). I asked him to explain why the bill wasn't paid in full? He simply stated that since we had a $600 bill right after Christmas he was unable to pay. Which in reality our portion of the $600 bill was only $300 because our landlord gave us $300 to put on it because it was discovered that the air/heat unit wasn't working correctly. Anyways, come to find out he spent all but $140 of the money our landlord gave him on other things and gave me the $140 to put in the joint account. He then asked me where I put the $300 he gave me from our landlord. I had to print out the bank statement to prove I only put $150 in the bank bc I added $10 he got from my grandparents from Christmas into the account. Fast forward to this week, he text me Wednesday and stated he didn't have lunch money. I told him he could meet me at our local park where a function was going on that I was attending and he could get $ or eat lunch with me at the park. He drove by the park and called me stating, " There's too many people for me, I have about $7 so I am going to just go get me something." I responded with, "OK." Yesterday, he sent another text stating he was again without lunch $ I told him to meet me for lunch. Now, at this point I was curious as to what his bank account was really at, so since I had his info from trying to sync to Dave Ramsey Baby Steps I logged on. I honestly thought I would see his account with like $3-$4 left. Which would have been okay, Nope his account was negative by 80 cents because he spent 80 cents more than what he had in his account which means now he's getting a charge for being negative. And he does not have a savings account? Talk about a double whammy. I couldn't resist so at lunch I asked him, " I have a stupid question, but How do you overdraft your account for 80 cents and at McDonalds no less? He then tried to say that he didn't know how that happened, and that he checked his account prior to getting lunch and the money should have been in there. I couldn't believe that I was hearing, but I didn't want to cause a scene. I left it alone and went back to work. When I got home, he was looking for his W2 because we are going to file taxes soon. He forgot I had put it up, so I found it while he was still looking. Now, the kicker here is I found out what his annual salary is and his bring home. I couldn't believe the numbers I was seeing especially after discovering he was over drafted. I then told him that our combined income puts us into the upper middle class range on taxes. Which concerns me because I have student loans which are being paid back according to income. Now I don't know how those will be effected because of his salary, which he has nothing to show for it, and yes I mean NOTHING! I then asked his debt to income ratio, and he doesn't know. He simply stated that our CPA can figure that out when we do taxes? I don't know what to do. I feel so betrayed and hurt by this, and he thinks it's all fine and dandy. Ladies, please advise.
