Pretty good you got paid off so quickly tough! I rocked ripped leather seats for a handful of years myself… Was a sad day when I had to give ‘er up.

While my car purchase was a bit more expensive ($33k purchase price, ~$36k with all of the charges; 6% APR or something, but paid off in under 1.5 years), it’s been just over 10 years now and my beautiful front leather seats are torn up and I don’t have the desire or money to get them all fixed up nice. I really should get some seat covers at some point. No other major dings on it thankfully, but not too worried at this point. I’ll be driving her around for the long haul.

Love hearing this, Tam – thanks so much for popping in!

I just wanted to let you know that I have been through something very similar recently with my husband – and I wish I’d had access to something as amazingly positive as this (and your incredible response!) when I was looking at how to deal with it.

All I found online about financial infidelity was from professionals/counsellors and nothing from REAL people going through it – it was really disheartening. After it all calmed down I actually sat and wrote a blog post about my experience as a way to “get it all out” and to hopefully help any others out there struggling with the same thing.

You guys are in a fantastic position, generally speaking, to move forward quickly and relatively painlessly, especially if you’re taking some of the great advice from the awesome peeps commenting here. You don’t have children yet, you both earn great money, you have good savings, and now you are both on the same page.

What’s more – your husband actually wants to change and has taken care of the biggest issue by himself, his spending habits. (Johnny, did you really spend a bunch of cash on strip-clubs?!?!?! Shame on you, with such an amazing woman at home!)

If you want to, you can find my post here: https://www.coloursofyourtruth.com/single-post/When-Times-Get-Tough-Hold-On-Tight
(Hope it’s ok to link here, J$?)

What’s most inspiring to me is that MY HUSBAND emailed me J’s latest email all about your situation, and suggested I pop in here and share! So I’m pretty stoked about that. We are lucky to have such great men by our sides. Not perfect, but pretty darn amazing. And ultimately, they do stupid things like lying to us because they just want to protect us and make us happy, right? They can’t help it they don’t have the superior mental abilities us women do ;p

Bless you both on your journey together, and remember to have fun along the way too!
Lots of love to you both,
Tam x x

Hop that credit debt around to some new cards. Intro rate balance transfers at 0% for 12-18 months with 3% or 5% transaction fee. Beats the heck out of 20%. Also, the hierarchy works again, because 6% + 3% match IRA beats 5% credit card debt. Sometimes its hard to get a large credit limit on a new card, which is where not canceling your old cards comes in handy. They’ll want you back and send you those intro rate balance transfer offers, so you just swap the debt back and forth every 12-18 months until paid off.

Heyyy you!!!! I’m so glad to see this!! He told you! YES!!!! And you seem so supportive and encouraging about it all – so beautiful :) Really wishing the best for both of you over the years and I hope you’ll keep us updated. Thank you so very much for popping in and sharing with us!

Yeah that’s what I was thinking as well, especially if he’s trying to hide it.

An update on our situation:

He came clean to me tonight, followed by showing me this post. I read through it, and I read through all of your comments. Thank you for the positive feedback and advice. Many of you share my thoughts/have similar ideas of how to take care of this situation. It is comforting to see these thoughts because I am a bit ignorant when it comes to financial things (I’m an elementary teacher). I know the basics, and I’m pretty good with my money but don’t know much about tracking and keeping solid financial records like some of you were mentioning. Luckily I have no debt of my own, so we will be able to just focus on solving the situation at hand.

My husband has made significant lifestyle changes, and now it makes sense as to why he was so insistent about it. I know that he and I will come out of this situation stronger and DEBT FREE.

Thanks again for all of your advice and encouragement. Sometimes it just takes enough people saying it to give you the courage to make the jump.

Sincerely,

The Wife (: