HIDING DEBT from your spouse is in the SAME category as CHEATING! It is a deception, a breach of trust on the same scale. No, your spouse does not run the risk of bringing home cooties, or getting some bimbo knocked-up as in the case of an adulterous affair. However, your spouse will most likely bring home hardship, disgrace, instability, struggle, distrust, great expense, and the ringing of bill collectors all day and all night. Oh yeah, and don’t forget all of the missed opportunities that go by while your working two jobs to pay back credit card companies at 29% interest. Worth it? C’mon people, has the collective character of our great country stooped so low in recent times? Are unnecessary goods, services, and keeping up with the Jones of more importance than the psychological, financial, and emotional stability within your very home?

I am what you would call a saver. This is the fashionable distinction to make these days; either you’re a SPENDER or a SAVER…whatever. Let me just say that I think this distinction is a load of crap. Either you are a responsible adult accountable for your actions, or you are behaving like an out of control child. The laws of money are based on simple mathematics that you learned in grade school. Apply them and you will reap success, forgo them and you will suffer more or less like those other fools out there right now getting foreclosed on. The banks and credit card companies don’t care how emotionally needy you were while you drank your $6 latte’s, bought a hummer, or just had to impress the neighbors with this, that, and the other thing. Unless you file for bankruptcy, you are basically on the hook, a slave to the lender. And another thing, the banks and lenders are smarter than you, they hire finance MBAs and PhDs who will work 80hrs per week figuring out how to get you in debt and keep you there.

How do I know this – EXPERIENCE. I was married to just such a person; she duped me three times in our 8yr marriage. Each time with a promise to change and that it would never happen again. I bailed us out of it each time, and when enough time went by and I let my guard down, she did it again. This third and final time I am forced to file bankruptcy, attempt to sell my house in a down market (all offers have been less than I paid for the home), my credit is ruined because she put my name on some of the cards which she never intended to pay, and to forfeit all of the sweat equity that I put into this home over the past four years of back breaking renovations that were done on nights and weekends after my 60 hour work week.

You’re right that if you are lying to your spouse, then there is almost certainly a general problem.

You really have to be honest with your spouse regardless of the consequences. If you’re lying to your spouse your marriage is in trouble.

She has credit cards he doesn’t know about, and has the bills sent to the office–because she pays them late, they are at 32% interest…

He on the otherhand types out a list of what she is “allowed” to spend each week, and puts it into her wallet.

They are on totally different pages—have been married for 16 years too—

It’s like they are both walking around with blinders on.

I did not see this episode.

I am not yet married, but my parents went through something like this. Not excessive spending, but a business doinng poor and other issues.

True, there were plenty of things that did not add up – the shopping, the exorbitant spending on children’s parties – things the oprah hubby should have seen – but the minute the questions start coming, the defenses go up, and many men choose not to fight for the sake of the little eyes and ears in the room.

I am sorry, but that marriage I am afraid is doomed without a radical shift on the mom’s part. She seemed almost giddy at the idea of moving to Seattle, but she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. She didn’t seem to care about the prospects of uprooting six school-aged children and a husband whose family lived in the area. She was looking for another bail-out, and moving in her eyes would help her find that momentary peace.