That’s what I said when I called to tell Alex that the mortgage company had just called me to say they had yet to receive the August 1st payment . His voice rose and he started to say, “I …” But I cut him off at the pass.
“Spare me the indignation! Just deal with it.” Click.
It turned out that my transfer of funds to him to cover the mortgage, which was supposed to be automatically paid from his account, never went through. Which has an echo of yesterday’s call from the credit card company that hadn’t received payment since June — “I swear, I paid it.” Or the other credit card that was overdue a week earlier and which elicited a blank look, followed by, “What??”
Dear Reader, I am wellllllll aware of how this crap is messing up my credit rating. I had paid off our credit cards about two years ago – totally down to zero — and gotten rid of all but one, telling him that it was for emergencies only. Turns out he found many things to be an emergency. It also turns out that he kept another one that I thought was extinct.
I’m painfully aware of what little recourse I have. The credit card companies won’t take my name off of the acc’ts – even though the acc’ts are officially closed. As my credit gets jacked around by He Who Cannot Be Trusted (you may recall that the first words out of my mouth when he asked me to marry him were, “If you promise not to bounce any more checks.”), I am beginning to wonder what – if any – retribution I can get via the divorce process. There is no fair fix. I mean, Alex can’t wave a magic wand and repair my credit rating. But is there an apples-to-oranges gesture that could be made? One suggestion from a friend has been that he pay a portion (a large portion) of my legal feels. Any ideas?
In the meantime, I just want my financial karmic self to be completely, utterly CUT from this person with these toxic habits. Wow, ok, it just occurred to me that I need to practice compassion on Alex around money. Ooooohhhh, that makes me squirm. Which means it’s probably a really necessary place to go.
Gosh, guys, thanks for helping me figure this out! 
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August 21, 2009 at 2:27 am
Michele
Can’t remember if you are using a lawyer or a mediator or doing it yourselves. To me this is all a reason to get the divorce final sooner rather than later to stop the financial bleeding. Until you’re officially divorced you’re responsible for half the marital debt, although when I filed for divorce I specified that he was not to open any accounts using my name or credit and he was not to sell any joint assets.
Yes, I think you could ask for him to pay a portion of your legal fees. But I think you’d be better off asking for a larger portion of the assets, or possibly spousal support, or ask that he put $ into the kids college funds over a period of time. You can be fairly creative with these things.
August 21, 2009 at 2:30 am
Jeff
Well, that’s certainly scary in an out of control kind of way.
Alanon has been invaluable to help me take care of myself in the midst of the addict’s out of control behavior and it sounds like this guy is a compulsive debtor. There are meetings with childcare too, at least here.
I like what you said about compassion, but in order to not lose my mind or my right to my anger, I like to go to a version of it that looks like acceptance and gentle confrontation. I work on accepting the situation as it is and then give the addict the dignity to ask him, “How do you want to make this right. What are you going to do? When are you going to do it?” I try to stay involved until I can get clear of the wreckage.
For more big picture stuff on assuaging my kid inside who asks why:
http://www.truespiritualpath.com/
I put up a new post today.
So sorry about this, just when you thought you were out of his wreckage . . .
August 21, 2009 at 3:15 am
Shell
Reading this made me squirm too. Having struggled to make the bills myself and knowing the stress that causes, I was left the most concerned for you. Seems to me (and many an alanon meeting) that there is a fine line between compassion and excusing/enabling. You can have compassion without turning over your credit to his full control (or lack thereof), forgiveness without forgetting. Obviously, Alex has money issues. Lots of people do (especially now). That does not excuse blatant misuse such as your putting the money in the account and it still not getting paid. That, for lack of a better word, is bull****. Is it his version of passive aggressive denial/manipulation?
Okay, I have vented in my protection mode. Always so much easier to come to the defense of someone other than myself. Hope I haven’t put in to much of my 2 cents…
xoxo