My Finances

Sexually Transmitted Debt | Debt in Relationships

I was blind and in love and as I’ve spoken about in my video, a lot of other things happened to me as well and I ended up in a significant amount of debt, for me, which ended up costing me everything – pretty much. I’m not alone though and the statistics are pretty scary.

According to this research, men and women accumulate debt differently and women are more likely to acquire debt for their partner, rather than themselves. In my view this is not always the case as I’ve seen many cases of the male partner acquiring significant amounts of debt to please the woman in terms of the house purchased, shopping and creating a standard of living. In my view men and women are equally vulnerable to sexually transmitted debt.

Both genders are susceptible to pleasing the other partner in the relationship or being manipulated or forced into the situation of borrowing against their will for the long term good of the relationship and its goals.

For example, for me I just wanted to buy a small established home in the suburbs. My husband wanted land and a large home and wanted to be away from the suburbs. So we ended up there. Later I understood this to be a form of isolation but I got caught up in the dream and manipulated into it. I did find pleasure in creating my own vegetable patch and feeding my children organically home grown vegetables, but I had been taught this by my grandfather who did this in his own suburban back yard, so I didn’t need a huge plot of land to achieve this.

But I wanted to please my husband. I was terrified at the time, of doing the wrong thing and having him leave me. I did however make some deals with him about staying home with the babies if I put my inheritances into the property. This deal was of course denied as soon as I had to go back to work because he wouldn’t get a job. So two weeks after delivering my first baby I was back at work (albeit working from home) and I had to stretch $80 for groceries and bills each week because that was all I was earning.

Then came his business debt. He started his own electrical business and had to have all the bells and whistles in terms of tools of the trade and quickly built up $10,000 worth of debt that he thought he would be able to pay off with the money he was making from his clients. It didn’t happen. Either the clients didn’t pay, he lost contracts, and generally blamed the world for everything.

So I had to pay for that as well by borrowing money against the house – which was in both names because the land was originally – so now I had a mortgage when I shouldn’t have had any.

Then he needed a new car because work was beginning to pick up for him and he needed a bigger work vehicle with a cabin he could also use to pick up the picks. I can still count on my two hands the number of times he did this.

So I was looking at second hand vehicles because that was what we had always done. He comes home with a contract on brand new car and tells me to sort it out with the bank.

Another $40,000 gets added to the mortgage.

Eventually my car which I had bought in my early 20’s becomes unreliable and I think as the primary driver of the children, that I need a new car. I still cringe at that memory of that argument. It wasn’t until our social group mentioned it (and no I did not say anything) that he agreed that I needed a new car. I was given a budget of $10,000 and it had to be second hand.

Don’t even start I know – now – but at the time I thought that was fair.

I ended up finding a car for $15,000, got a few bruises for going over budget, but I had to sort out the mortgage which I ended up negotiating to the point where the repayments were exactly the same so we (me) didn’t even feel it in terms of repayments.

Yes, I was working and making all the repayments on the loans and buying all the groceries and he was doing whatever he wanted with his money, but demanding I put all my money into his account which I refused and got some broken ribs for it – over and over – but by this time I was protecting my children and I also knew where I was and I knew my only way out was to keep control of some of my money.

So by now I’m $80,000 in debt because he needed some other thingy for his business which he bought on contract and had to finance. In my mind I knew how to make money and I figured, eventually, I would be able to get myself out of this mess.

Then comes the internet and online banking in the form of ING and I could see a way. So I started collecting all the money at the bottom of the washing machine, and scraping off change here and there. Eventually he started asking for receipts for shopping so this became really hard, but I did get around $5,000 saved which was enough to get a rental and what I needed for the kids. Well of course, even though I had told ING not to send statements, they did send one and he found it. A few bruises later I told him it was a surprise and I was saving for a holiday for us. He booked flights and spent it all.

We were in Melbourne Victoria at the time and the only people are me were his friends and I knew leaving under that pressure would be very, very difficult and I wouldn’t escape him. He decided however that Queensland would be a good move for us because there was opportunity up there. I agreed because I knew with no-one around to pressure me I could possibly leave him up there.

The rest of this story is pretty grim and not something I’m quite ready to share, but at the time of his death I was $270,000 in debt with 3 children and not working.

By this point, even though I knew how to make money, I was only concerned with raising and protecting my babies and other than that, I was a pretty much completed shattered human being so I just did what I needed to, to provide for the kids until I lost everything.

I was so vulnerable I agreed to whatever loan he needed because I couldn’t stand up to him to say no. I know this is touted as a woman thing but I know it’s not. I know of many men who are in exactly the same situation, trying to keep the peace and their families together, by going into debt just to survive.

In my head I know that I should have got into a relationship with a person who has the same values as me in terms of money and that those conversations should be had early on. But I was young, naive and in love and thought that love could conquer everything. I think real love can conquer just about anything but the love I was in, was not real love – at least not from him. I was gullible and stupid and I know I’m not alone in this.

It’s been kind of cathartic losing everything because now I have no blood money or bad memory money getting me through life anymore. I have a completely clean slate on which to draw and I’m writing my way to wealth. It’s one of my skills that I have made a lot of money for other people with and now I’m doing it for me. Will I succeed? Stick around to find out.

Stay In Touch