Sunday, October 28, 2007

Poll: Lying to a spouse

72% of people say they never lie to their spouse about finances and 27% say just a little lies to their spouses. Very interesting. No one actually admitted to lying to their spouse.

I find that strange because there are many people who are in debt, and say their spouse refuses to listen or participate. On the Women In Red message board, there are women who hide their debt from their spouses. Often afraid of letting their spouses know the real truth.

For example, on Oprah this past week there was a woman $135k in debt. Yep you read that right, not a mortgage, but CC debt. And her husband had no idea. He had ignored their finances and left them entirely to her. So is it considered lying or denial on the part of the husband?

So I find it great that most people don't lie to their significant others. So if you have debt then your SO knows all about it?

Personally I think DH and I both tell over/underestimation of costs. We never sit there and lie but we do forget to metion some expenses etc. But nothing big, anything over $20 we discuss. But the details are sometimes fuzzy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I must be the world’s biggest sucker!

For the third time in our seven year marriage, my wife has racked up multi-thousand dollar credit card debt behind my back. This third and most recent time amounted to 53K. More than the first two times combined! The rate on some of these cards is 31% and total minimum payments are more than my mortgage.

It is the single most dehumanizing and frustrating experience to a) find out that your spouse has lied to you repeatedly about a spending issue you thought was behind you and b) your back in the hole again for the foreseeable future. Oh yeah, and let me add c) my credit rating is in the tank too. She took out two cards in both of our names that I was not aware of. I now spend my Saturday’s following up with collections agencies and negotiating payment plans.

I wrote it off the first time this happened as just a mistake, the second time I almost left her but decided to work it out since she swore it wouldn’t happen again, and now a third time. I regret staying because this time around we have a two year old child and this is the last thing we need.

Here I go again, into the debts of Hell.

Living Almost Large said...

I thought more people lied myself. Trust me I sort of get where you are coming from. My mom spent months dealing with CC after my grandfather ran them up without telling my grandmother and they had no money. Sigh.