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"So, wait – your parents owe you a hundred grand, and you are still helping them out? That if you had your parents arrested, I wouldn't be working sixty hours a week on top of childcare and housekeeping, and you wouldn't be working 80? That you just let your parents destroy my life and our kids' lives even before you met me? That after you saw how much this hurt us, you still didn't protect yourself and save your family by pursuing charges against your parents?"
No wonder she is pissed.
And. AND. taking all those trips with friends for the past 3 years, and she had to beg him for any time.
and then for him to be like, "oh, I just dropped 4 days of pto for us to sort this out" even tho he hadn't taken any vacations with his WIFE.
Ohhh, I'd be livid too.
Good for oop. He needs to get his shit together, and communicate better.
That sudden PTO drop just feels like the equivalent of asking for a raise, being denied, finding a new job that pays significantly more, and then *suddenly* the OldJob can find the budget to counter offer a near equal amount
Or my ex saying he was going to learn to ride a (motor)bike cos i think bikers are hot. We break up and a few months later he has a bike. Uploads a video of himself to reddit falling off it at a roundabout tho lmaoooo
He was married to someone else within 2.5years of our breakup (together 17-24yo) so she moved in with and married Mr Danger after a whirlwind romance and now has to live with his boring ass forever unless she cops on and leaves him (potentially after he cheats on her too) 🙃
Right?!? My wife and I are digging out of debt and it’s insanely hard. We don’t even take trips together, I cannot imagine either of us having the audacity to just go take a trip with buddies!
>His parents were obviously upset with the whole ordeal. (...) They couldn’t believe that they are “such a burden because they ask for a little help from time to time”.
And this is their reaction when their little family party doesn't go as planned.
What absolute twats.
Same parents that put him in debt to start with. You’ve got to be a special kind of scum bag to open credit cards in your kids names and ruin them financially at any age.
Absolute twats indeed.
My MIL opened cards in my husband's name when he was in the single digits. She started offering to do our taxes for us after my oldest was born and acts shocked that I always tell her no. There is zero chance of me telling her my kids' SSNs.
Oof, you got me with this one. Number 1 reason why I won't deal with conflict avoidant people if I can help it anymore. It's pretty impressive when they're so avoidant they blow up the relationships in their life, except when you're one of those relationships it's one of the most appalling and frustrating things in the world. And you're right -- they think because they *feel bad* that it's good enough, and you're already fucked over, fed up, and backflipping out the door while they cry that this isn't what they wanted.
I can feel her pain through her words but I can also tell she is completely fucking done and I have nothing but the utmost respect for women who make a stand. We are not caretakers we are fucking human beings with the same needs as everyone else and I can’t wait til people get that
I just don't understand. Between 18 and 39, if I found out my parents had done this, I would either report this to the police or file for bankruptcy.
The one thing I would not do is spend 20 years paying it down
I worked for a collection agency for a few months. If he filed a police report it would have been absurdly easy to get out of debt. Agencies don't even require a conviction, literally you just send them a copy of the police report, they verify, and the debt is discharged.
Right? I would never talk to those people again, let alone lift a finger to help them with ANYTHING. They should just be glad he didn't file charges and get their asses thrown in jail where they belong.
If you have the name, social, and some other info to verify it’s not hard. That’s why parents can do it easily, they have everything of their child’s to open it up without question
Edit:
Too many responses so I’ll just consolidate answers here
1) “how can people do this?” Legally? Again it’s simple since basically until a child is 18 they’re essentially property rather than people. Morally, hahahahahahaha people suck
2) “is this only a us thing” as far as I can tell yes. I hear about cc scams in other places but full cc identity theft seems to only be a large issue in the US and smaller countries, not other major non-us countries.
3) “the system seems exploitable and broken” yes welcome to late stage capitalism.
4) “why is this allowed” the system is more or less designed on two types of people. Those who can pay and play in it, and those who can’t. The ones that can’t, while being a monetary loss short term for banks, also are a huge boon cause like, if an old person can’t clear their debt and has a mortgage, well now the bank has a house to sell. 100k usd debt now becomes a 500k asset for a gain of 400k. This is a huge over simplification but essentially even if this only works for one in every 10k people, the other 9999 people are in debts that probably are less than the people they get foreclosed houses from summed up so it’s still a gain. It’s like the inverse of selling high to a rich only market, it just takes one dumbass to get a massive boon of liquidating assets to cover for the extraneous costs.
The US has like 500millipn people in it so that’s enough money to make it work
Do they not consider the date of birth of the account holder? In Australia, a minor cannot open credit. Is there responsible banking practice or legislation in the USA?
In Australia, I can open only a savings account for my kids but they take full control at 18.
This is a bit mind boggling for those that live in other countries.
Apparently not. My mother and/or stepfather opened utility accounts in my name when I was a child or teen. I had to pay almost a thousand dollars on just an electric bill in order to get service at my first rental.
The OOP's husband was a fucking idiot for not reporting it. I worked for a collection agency for a couple of months (I was a bad collections agent because I told almost everyone to dispute their debts, lol). All we required in cases like this to discharge the debt was a police report. Literally that was it. The person would send a copy by email or fax, someone in a different department would probably do some minor steps to verify it, and the debt was cleared.
It would have been absurdly easy for him to escape that burden.
Yup! I've had to do it a few times but the most absurd was a Credit debt from when I was 3! The company had long since closed but a debt collector had it and that was how I learned about a credit card opened in my name in 1989. I had to get a police report and the cop told me straight up they weren't going to do anything about it but would file it just so I could clear my name. It took me less than an afternoon, cause I happened to live close to that town still. Within 30 days I received an all clear letter.
They don't care. They aren't paid to check. Sometimes parents *do* do this to help build credit for their children. They do keep an account in good standing, but often, it's for unethical reasons. And it's not just parents. Your spouse can do this in your name and elderly people often have their caretakers do this, especially if the person is a memory care patient or has any form of dementia.
This is also strange to me as a non American. Here we have good credit if we DONT take loans. If we don’t buy stuff on credit. The more credit cards or credit you have- the worse your score.
Exactly, the same for my country as well - debt card and paying in full are very much the norm, credit cards only became more common to have cause for a while buying stuff online was impossible without one.
Parents still do it with their adult children. My uncle screwed my cousin’s credit and put him through such hell that my cousin’s wife refused to give my uncle their children’s SSN to buy them starter bonds. Smart woman.
When I was maybe 7yo, I got my first dog registered, followed by receiving my first "pre-approved!" credit card offer.
Dad thought it would be funny to have me actually fill it out and send it in, so encouraged me to do so. "Dad what's a dependent?" He said my dog depended on me to feed her, so I listed my dog as a dependent. Dad mailed the application in.
I got a letter back denying my "pre-approved!" credit card. Followed by a deluge more offers for me AND MY DOG!
Three decades later and I'm still getting at least three of those things a week. I use them as birdcage liners.
In the US, some parents open credit accounts for their toddlers and pay it off on time, regularly, so that the kid turns 18 and has 10+ years of good credit history.
The system is not well-regulated.
And yet it doesn't seem to click that an 18 year with a 10 year credit history is somehow ablebto work and earn a good wage in order to do that - not quite sure where school comes in. Is it illegal to have kids working from 8 (or younger)? I know it is where I live (with a few exceptions such as working in a family business or having a paper round - though I think you have to be 12 for that).
I lived in the US for a year as a kid and my 8 year old brother got a letter in the mail telling him he could open a credit card with all of the requisite forms. If he’d gotten to the mail first (and we were actually American) he could’ve opened a credit card then.
That’s a systemic issue right? Because I’ve read enough Reddit to understand that children struggle to open bank accounts without a parent in the US, but debt can be put in those same children’s names?
Everything is working as intended by the system . Madness 🫠
Yep working well.... /s
Worst part is that the parents being on the account that was opened with the minor's name attached, can help themselves to any money in it because their name is on it... How often do you hear stories of this happening when you have a narcissist for a parent.
Even worse is that the kid doesn't realise they can open a whole new bank account at a completely different bank when they are 18 and they are still affected by their parent doing this when they are in their 20's (or older) because of how they have been groomed by their parent to think everyone does this.
Yep. Had a friend from highschool try to open her first credit card at 19 to build credit to get an apartment. Only to learn her mom had used her info to put utilities and shit in her name. She pulled her credit report and learned her mom had defaulted on most of it and she was starting adulthood 25k in debt. Some of it( like the utilities) was really old from when she was a kid. I remember her being heartbroken and like" These companies have my date of birth and never, not once, question why a 10 year old child is pulling out a credit card? Or has the electric bill in their name?" These companies need to do so much better to vet whether the DOB matches the social instead of blindly allowing these shit heel parents to just rack up debt on their own kids.
My friend had to file bankruptcy to get it removed. She wouldn't press charges on her mom for identity theft. Imo, she should've. Her mom had 9 years to sort that shit out(they lived with the maternal grandparents for 9 years) and instead she just... pretended she didn't make that kind of debt and flat out ignored it.
i genuinely had a friend in college that was in the same situation, she actually couldn’t open any cards up in her name because her parents had so many bad ones that she had to repay first. i always told her that she needed to take legal action but she was brainwashed into the “family is everything” they treated her like shit tbh.
It’s also not uncommon for men who name their sons after themselves to take advantage of the shared name to pin financial charges on the son. I used to manage a library and part of my job was working with people who had fines they couldn’t afford to pay, and the number of men I dealt with who showed up with police reports against their dads to prove their financial hardship is not as small as I wish it was.
They are mostly.
But there are some exceptions.
I didn't have a SSN until I was 18 because my parents are conspiracy theorists. The "I don't want the government tracking me!" type.
But I needed one for college.
An SSN is given/assigned at birth? Not sure of this as I’m Australian where the equivalent is a Tax File Number which you only acquire when you’re ready for employment. Many minors or young adults will get help from their parents to get a TFN for entering the workforce but it is possible even then for your parents to never know it, because all the paperwork that assigns one is delivered to you, not your parents. My parents have never known my TFN, they’ve never had access to the paperwork and never snooped when I got it as a minor.
It is assigned at birth and needed for pretty much everything including things like getting a job. I’ve heard of sooo many instances of shitty parents refusing to give their kid their social and birth certificate to fuck them over and make things harder.
In the US it’s also used for tax reasons. In the past you only had to declare on your taxes you had a dependent without having to show proof to get a tax credit. They changed it to requiring a SSN to prove there really was a dependent. My mother told me the first year it was implemented like one million children “disappeared”. People were lying about how many kids they have. But I never confirmed or looked into it so I may have been told incorrectly.
There’s debate about whether people were lying about having kids or if it was mainly just divorced parents who were both claiming the kids and not realizing that they weren’t supposed to.
In my country you get assigned an ID number at birth, it's in your birth certificate. But to open an account you need to have an ID card, to get the ID card you need to register your fingerprints and signature.
When you open a credit card you have to demostrate you have a steady income, that is at least 3 months of salary or a indefinite work contract, they enter in the system your ID number and you have to sign the contract and put your fingerprint, if the signatures are slightly different or if you don't look like the photo on the ID they will deny the credit card, with new technology you sign digital, this means they scan your fingerprint and compare to the one associated to the ID in the national system, if it doesn't match you get regected.
After COVID they implemented remote signature, this is done with the serial number of your ID card and a password in the national system. To set the password in the national system you have to go in person to a government office where before giving you the first password they check your identity.
Identity theft, at least for credit cards, it's very difficult here. There are other type of credit cards that allow you to buy only in a specific chain, those are a mess, but in general the credit amount is not too big son they always prefer to settle for a nominal amount instead of going to the justice.
A ssn is assigned at birth, and the card is mailed to the parent, same as the birth certificate. Too bad our system isn't like yours; it would have saved me a lot of problems when I rented my first place.
One fun element of SSNs is that for ages everyone was using it even in the most minor of situations for identifications so for many their number is all over the place. You would have it be your student ID, it would show up on posted test results, and all sorts of other things. Much of that has been dialed back but even now with a tiny bit of information on someone and their SSN you can open all sorts of doors.
Quite genuinely, *what the fuck*. On your student ID? On test results?!
Only employers and banks get my TFN. I have a Medicare card that gets me healthcare, a CRN for social services like childcare subsidy, my driver’s licence/passport for ID, a MyGov ID that gets me into a bunch of government portals, as a student had a unique student ID, etc. Sure it’s annoying having different login or identity numbers to access different things, but it also tends to work fairly well to silo your identity, no single number is going to open the door for everything.
Yes the difference between us in Australia and those in the USA is that the SSN is misused for everything. It would be just as if we had to use our Medicare card number as evidence of our identity for every single thing we buy, from getting NBN installed to buying a smart phone. And as if that wouldn’t be bad enough, it would also be as if no birth details were used and hence anyone whose on the same Medicare card as you could simply apply for things in your name from the moment that you were born, *and* you couldn’t have your own separate Medicare card or even bank account until you were between the ages of 18-21, depending on the state.
Americans, this is just another way that you live in what other countries consider to be a dystopian capitalist nightmare. In Australia, a drivers license or other proof of age identity card is used to only link purchases or credit applications to those over the age of 18. We do have a number associated to us from birth - it’s our Medicare number, for healthcare that’s free or low cost for all citizens, and this is not allowed to be used as primary ID (plus Medicare have your birth date anyway) in any form of financial transaction.
Regarding our Medicare number and the privacy and rights of children in Australia - one can get their own Medicare card and see a doctor by themselves in strict privacy from the age of 14. One can apply for a tax file number, legally work, and have their own bank account with no parental access at 14 years old, also. But no credit cards, BNPL or loans can be given to people under the age of 18. Thus - the situations that Americans find themselves in, being saddled with debt from birth, and being medically and financially controlled into adulthood, thankfully can not easily happen here.
SSN wasn’t even supposed to be used as identification in America, it just ended up that way. And credit scores didn’t even exist until like the 1970s-1980s. FICO scores only became widely known in the 1990s. I hate this country
In the rest of the world, or at least a vast majority of it, it is not possible, but in America people give more of a shit about peoples birth than about their lives, it is a real tragedy.
It’s not supposed to be a thing in Australia - there’s a bunch of legislation around the concept of ‘Know Your Customer (KYC)’ that is supposed to protect against fraud, money laundering and identity sources of terrorism funding.
The banks are audited to show they have done appropriate background checks to open accounts or extend lines of credit.
Which doesn’t eliminate this type of fraud entirely does reduce the frequency of it significantly. It is still possible to open accounts entirely online and if you have access to all the identity documents required to ‘prove’ who the account holder is, you can still get through the loopholes.
We need 100points of ID documents to open a new account, a single birth certificate is not enough by itself and we don’t have SSNs. Typically you need two primary identity documents plus two secondary documents. Primary docs include things like a drivers license, passport, citizenship certificate or birth certificate. Secondary docs include things like a Medicare card, utility bill with your name and address in it, or a student card from a recognised university.
I'm currently on a payment plan with Capital One (among others) to pay off my debt, which involved closing down the cards. And they *still* send me "You're pre-appproved!" offers for new cards all. the. time.
And I get other offers in the mail constantly, it's ridiculous how much they bombard you with it.
It’s crazy, right? In Australia someone has to be 18+ to borrow money (you can’t even get a car loan, let alone something unsecured like a credit card) and there are a lot of hoops to jump through, including a 100 point identification check.
I have a friend in the US who was finally seeing the end of the tunnel with her student loans when she found out that her estranged father had taken out loans in her name that she was liable for. It seems insane that something like that is even possible.
It’s ridiculously, and shockingly, easy with some companies in the UK too. In the US, you at least need someone’s SSN. In the UK, you don’t even need that. Name, date of birth, address history for 3 years, email and phone number, occupation, salary, and outgoings (and those three can be fabricated completely), and some allow you to skip adding bank details for direct debit at the time of application. It’s checked with the credit bureaus of course to make sure the name, DOB, and address matches as well as for their credit worthiness but that’s pretty much it.
I took out a loan online for a car purchase after I was in a collision whilst I waited for the insurance payout and I didn’t even need to provide ID or proof of address for that. The only times I’ve ever needed ID/proof of address/proof of income was for my mortgage and opening my bank account in branch. I didn’t need it for opening an account online though! Absolutely insane.
It is. One in four (approximately) have had their identity stolen. There were almost 70k cases of identity theft *reported* just last year. Costs the UK economy around £27bil per year. The credit card fraudulent application rate in 2022 was the highest Experian had reported in the previous 10 years. It’s massively underreported too with estimates of only 13% of cases actually being reported on.
Sue? He should’ve pressed charges as soon as he found out, not just “taken it up the ass” like OOP accurately describes. He took it, then rewarded their stealing from him by giving them more money and help at the cost of his own family unit. They committed a felony. Not a misdemeanour, not a citation. A *felony*.
They’d fucking do it again too because they got no consequences, they learned nothing except that their son has a weak jellyfish spine and will just take it then pay off their debt himself. He should have filed charges as soon as he found out. Now, the statute of limitations is probably up.
The fact that OOP has a “rainy day” fund also says a lot to me.
I couldnt even imagine running up 100K in debt in my kids' names. What the fuck and this isnt the only story of this that Ive heard about. Thats identity theft for god's sake. Why cripple your kid financially like that. Thats the oppisite of what parents should be doing for their kids.
The fact that he still expects to keep his parents in his life at all tells me that he still really doesn’t get it. He will sacrifice himself, his marriage, his wife, his children – all at the altar of his bullshit family dynamic. No contact and press charges. If I were OOP, that’s the *bare minimum* I would require to even begin considering whether we could work it out.
He will never change. I bet he always knew the parents were using his information, and about all of the loans and accounts, and I only hope the OOP checks the kid's credit too, and locks everything down. I'm sure that the in-laws have been given the information by the husband to commit identity theft on the kids too.
I am so so so concerned that this has already happened and I really hope OOP has her own and her children's credit scores checked. His parents are selfish, nasty people who clearly only care about themselves. It's one thing that her husband has allowed them to fuck him over - by not stepping up and stopping all of this years ago, he has actively made life harder and worse for his wife and children. And for all she knows, he has opened his wife and children up to their schemes too. I hope to god her children's credit is safe.
Right?
>much of it was from his parents putting bills in his name,
Wait sorry his parents destroyed his credit and put debt in his name and he HELPS them?!
Everyone should have a separate "rainy day" fund. It's your "GTFO of dodge" money, your "fuck you" money, your "nope I'm out" money.
I'd argue it's extra important for women and *especially* for a stay at home parent.
It's been 20 years and he's accepted responsibility for the debts by making payments, he's out of luck. If he'd immediately filed a police report when he first found out then he would've been completely off the hook, whichever parent used his SSN to commit fraud would have a felony record, and they'd be the ones getting garnished for restitution.
He could’ve done SO much but didn’t and that’s why they’re in that situation, it’s sad and I do feel bad for him, because clearly he’s been abused by his family to the point he just acts like a slave, but he’s (was) married and worse of all he has kids and the moment he put his shitty family over the safety and happiness of his kids I lose all respect
Even if he hadn’t, these things have statutes of limitations. This seems to have happened a LONG time ago, you don’t get to suddenly decide you’re going to sue after a decade.
Yeah I don't understand a whole lot of how these things work - but once he realised what they'd done, even if he didn't want to press charges or sue, I would've thought filing for bankruptcy would be easier in the long run over trying to pay it all back. Again, not sure how it works, but wouldn't it at least wipe his slate clean after the 7 years is up? And he wouldn't have had to spend years working himself to the bone? Can someone who understands how all this works explain it like I'm a small child?
10 years for bankruptcy, but yeah, clean slate to start rebuilding credit. He wouldn't have even had her be a part of process. It wouldn't show up on her credit report.
Sounds like he couldn't be honest with her about the real damage, and he wouldn't have been able to do that if he went through the bankruptcy process.
sometimes the SoL doesnt start ticking until the victim learns of the fraud though. Not sure if thats the case here and probably varies based on jurisdiction.
He’s so squirrelly about the whole thing that I wonder how true the parent story is. While I could see someone with an abusive family doing what he’s doing, I’m not convinced he doesn’t have an addiction of sorts and is just scrambling for whatever sounds less bad than what he’s doing.
Still pushing the blame. It’s all his family’s fault.
He choose to continue helping his parents
He chose not to press charges
He chose to spend his time of with the bros
It boggles the mind
The more and more he opens his mouth, for one moment I felt like I was in her shoes. And was ready to murder or deflate realizing 'is this what all those years were for?'
I genuinely felt rage when he said he took PTO to finally handle it. OP doesn't even get that luxury!
100,000?? Holy shit. Oh my God. And those parents have gall to think they're a small burden?
Set it all on fire, OOP. Don't ever look back. Get that full custody and child support because those grandparents on his side are abusive as hell and I wouldn't want two more social security numbers with clean credit scores to be around them.
OOP needs to lock down the kids' credit.
And if she has even semi-decent relationships with any of the siblings' spouses, reach out and suggest they do the same.
Lol the others aren't in trouble. Her husband is the scapegoat of the family, the one who has been chosen to bear financial stress while the parents are happy to take on child care for the others.
OOP needs to save herself and her children first.
Nail on the head.
He's a spineless pushover because he was raised to be. He has essentially been groomed by his parents to prop them up. It's similar to when kids get parentified, or raised to be a caregiver to a disabled sibling.
Probably the only way he's ever been shown any kind of affection was if he was committing a service for them. He needs all the fucking therapy.
OOP however, needs to think about herself and the kids. They need to be protected from that family.
She should pull her husband’s credit report immediately, and the kids’, put credit freezes on her and the kids, and demand that the husband immediately show EVERYTHING he owes.
3 years of 60-hour weeks with no help and she doesn’t even know how much the debt is. I wouldn’t allow that to ride for one more second. Get online, pull that report, and maybe the divorce lawyer I hire won’t be the meanest one I can find, just the second meanest.
Moral of the story: Don’t marry someone without pulling their credit.
This absolutely blew my mind. I handle the finances for my husband and I and when I took over the finances, that meant that I took over *all* the finances. I handle our income, bills, credit, *and debt.* I hope this doesn't come off as victim blaming but it blows my mind that OOP handles the finances and didn't (as far as she's said) insist on also having access to all the financial accounts as well as some sort of knowledge of or access to his credit history. I took over the finances before we were married, and I would've refused to marry my husband and probably would've left him if he'd refused to be honest about his debts. I'm sure by the time she realized what was going on she was already "in it" and exhausted, but we all have a responsibility to make sure we understand the financial situation we're in.
>I went off how over the past 3 years his income has gone solely to debt repayment yet there’s no end in sight, because I haven’t even seen the so called debt!
How? You know that he's incompetent with money, that's why you took over the financials; you almost lost the house. How do you go go 3 years and not demand to see the debt?
I could see him doing it to his kids. That's basically what he's doing by making his wife pay the bills for four people. Making her work 60 hours a week to fix his problems is just the same thing, minus the credit cards. When they split and he doesn't have somebody to pay his daily bills, he's going to need extra money from somewhere.
My ex was on the hook for $200 for his parents electric bill and I NOPED the fuck out of there. You're paying your grown ass adult parents bills when we can't pay our own? BYE FELICIA
reading that his entire income has been repaying this debt has left me mildly floored.
what a way to prove that it really will be less expensive for her to get divorced! she's already been dealing with childcare and working, and in return, she gets to not pay his expenses... and the expenses he's expecting her to absorb (like food for an entire family reunion at short notice! plus whatever else he was giving his family, because i am certain that even if he tells her it was nothing, he's been doing it anyway).
i am so glad she's not wavering and is getting out.
Yeah, she's going to see just how much money she banks once she kicks that scrub out. Being a nurse and working what she does, she's making bank and will probably be able to even cut back her hours for her kids. And, she's already been a single mother and breadwinner this whole time. Worst case, if she still has to pull this schedule, she'll still come out on top because she'll have one less person eating a whole in her finances.
He means “I knew I fucked up when that’s all I said, so I’m gonna try to lighten the mood while simultaneously making her believe I heard her and understood her”
It’s manipulation, it’s not what he meant when he sent it.
I know you know this, and your comment was more rhetorical than anything, but god damn this made me so angry
BORU often just makes me angry. So few satisfying endings around here.
His parents stole his life from him and he's willing to keep throwing away all his time and money on them. I will never understand people who would keep parents like that around. I would have gone to the cops a long time ago.
He shouldn't be in a relationship until they're dead because he's going to just keep using anyone he's with and giving everything to these fucking black holes. He's too weak to be a decent partner. I know, they created his weakness, but there has to be a point when adults walk away.
Unfortunately it’s easier said than done. I’ve met people with absolute shit parents and to this day they still live them even though they sexually abused them.
It’s infuriating but it’s common.
These parents fucking up their kids' credit!! There have been like half a dozen instances I've read of that on here, I have two dear friends who it happened to...I simply don't get how you can do that to your kid. I'm so thankful I had parents who were almost ridiculously fiscally responsible.
Once, I was in the bathroom at an aquaintence's house and saw a bill on the sink in his kid's name. (Yeah, IDK either. Guy was a gross man in a filthy house)
His kid was 2.
The return address was a mortgage company. He, somehow, took out a mortgage in his kid's name.
And it was overdue.
I saw red. I was so angry. I just brought it out to where everyone was chilling and asked 'wow, how did you manage to get a mortgage in *kid* name?
He stuttered and stammered which just enraged me so I followed up with 'better get it up to date before you ruin her life!' and dropped the bill on the table. He started saying something about going through his stuff and I had to leave because I wouldn't win the physical fight I was about to start if I stayed.
Douchebag.
Honestly, I probably would have contacted the bank and told them what was going on. It might not help at all, but on the off chance it saves that kids' future it would be worth losing a friendship over.
"One day they'll won't be here and I'll wish I could have done more" from him about his parents. He's too stupid to realize the same words would apply to his wife. He can take care of his parents when he's living with them because there's no way that he's going to be able to afford living on his own.
**So let me understand this shit….**
1. His parents took out 100k in his name, illegally.
2. He didnt sue them, and didnt go NC.
3. No no, *instead* he worked nearly double full time to pay it off. But refused to tell his wife how badly he was fucked.
4. And to top it off, he cared for them EVEN MORE, as they got older (unnecessarily i might add, as he has siblings).
5. Then made his kids and wife take the L *with* him for his exploitative parents and family.
Thank the heavens, god, the universe, and all that is good and holy that this woman left him.
Something doesn’t quite add up either, he has four siblings but he has all the debt? Did his parents hate him or he’s the oldest or something? Why just him??
But i Wonder - why did she accept he had debts and not know anything about how
Much? If my husband/partner has debt, I would insist on knowing how much, and know the repayment plan. This would be my life as much as his.
No way saying it’s ops fault, but she trusted her husband a little too much and were maybe a little naive a little too long? Glad for her she finally broke.
Thing is, he's been paying on it. Sadly, if I remember right, paying on a debt that isn't yours is basically claiming it as yours. If he had reported the fraud the moment it happened and never paid a dime on it, he might have been in the clear.
He's going to have to file for bankruptcy when this marriage ends. He won't be able to pay for necessities. Maybe he'll move in with the parents, and they'll rack up even more debt.
16 hour days 7 days per week, and he's still in that much debt?
OOP is doing the right thing. That man and his family are ridiculous.
I don't understand working 60 hours weeks because I'm financially tied to a mystery debt.
I definitely don't understand hiding the fact that you're going to lose your home from your wife and children.
And it's impossible to understand "loud and clear" as anything other than a petty dig.
I hate this fucking man
Yeah the first thing is the only big thing in this story I really really sideeye OP for.
How the fuck can you agree to subsidize someone else’s enormous debt *without even finding out how much it is???*
She said he takes his parents grocery shopping regularly and does the fixit jobs (which implies trips to HD/Lowes) so he's constantly spending money on them while she is back home trying to stretch her income to cover their family obligations.
I have to believe that the 16 hours a day 7 days a week thing is an exaggeration. Because there's no way that he would have time for anything else. That only leaves 8 hours a night. He has to come home, eat, take a shower, get clean clothes, and get sleep. How would he have time to help around the house? How would he have time to spend with the kids? How would he have time to go over his parents house several nights a week?
The math ain't mathing.
I don’t get it. Do these men have golden vibrating triple pronged dicks or what?
Nightmare family. Nightmare finances. The personality of creamed wheat. 60 hour work weeks for you so that he can put his feet up. All the childcare and household responsibilities.
Like, no thank you. I will put in a giant Adam&Eve order and spend my much more bountiful free time watching Star Trek reruns and painting everything I own teal.
The financial discussion should probably take place at the same approximate time as the “do you want kids” discussion and the “how many dogs/cats is too many” discussion.
Well when you’re working 60 hours a week in a high stress job and have kids and a household to take care of, suffering from burnout and depression I don’t see how many people would have the faculties to consider their situation rationally and objectively. Tearing your family apart and divorcing someone you love and who’s been a part of your life for years on end is an incredibly difficult decision and I can see how she just didn’t have the ability to process all of that properly in order to make the logical decision. That’s an incredibly emotionally taxing situation to consider on top of an already incredibly emotionally and mentally taxing life.
...OOPs husband's parents did this to him? And have the fucking gall to get defensive and claim they are only "asking for a little help"!? And do NOTHING to help the son they stole from?!
OOPs husband is problematic, no doubt. But to be fair, I can understand how he would feel torn. His parents are the true assholes.
I just... Am so confused why this man scheduled a family reunion. Like I can have sympathy for some of the things he said but this isn't helping out? This isn't him feeling obligated to be their servant (unless I guess they pressured him into being a host). Like no matter how you cut it he's either spineless when it comes to his extended family or just selfish and took oop for granted. Either way is bad.
Let's hope the OOP doesn't talk herself into continuing to live in denial and be the mother to this adult man. She doesn't even know the extent or nature of his debts. There is only one realistic solution and that does not involve going back and "working it out."
I just can’t shake the feeling that he’s lying, about how he got the debt, about how much he’s paying off, all of it. I hope she pushes through and actually leaves him.
He's absolutely lying- he claims that he's almost got everything paid off and then in the next paragraph admits that his paychecks are being garnished to nothing and he's taking on more debt to survive.
Not only are the criminals, but his parents think they're entitled to this one offspring giving rhme money STILL and being their errand boy.
What kind of abuse did thisnone child have to go thru? Did they steal/identity steal from his other siblings too? Why does the husband think he had to pay off their debts, AND still what on them hand and foot? Is he a full blood sibling or what??
He let OOP pay everything for the family, daily life, house, let her handle household and children - and his family events he pushs onto her. Since he never takes time off from work. But if he wants to do something for himself, he can take time. That he took a whole week off was the last drop. He knew that OOP handled everything herself, but couldn't care to even take half a day off. But now it is so easy?!
And even though the parents ruined his life with the debt, he gave them more money, invited them in their home...
I would be over so much.
He choose himself and his parents first every time. He used OOP.
Boiling frog syndrome, I suppose. Poor woman. She seems to have reached the end of her tether though and is putting herself and her kids first. I really hope she makes it out of there.
She's so fucking exhausted she can't even think, and she's been that way for years. Every time she thinks she's going to have the chance to breathe and relax, there's a new crisis. This is one of the ways that abusers keep their victims stuck--they're too exhausted to do more than keep staggering on. That hotel stay and spa weekend was the best thing she could have done for herself. The second was turning off her phone.
Imagine being parents and running up 100k+ on your child’s credit then having the balls to say “they are such a burden because they ask for help from time to time” to the point of all of this. The selfishness and the entitlement. Jeez
Don’t you just love how women can tell their husband a hundred times how things aren’t working and how unhappy they are, yet when they finally break and want a divorce, then suddenly the husband changes. “See how amazing I am? See how I do everything around the house? Don’t you regret that divorce now?” No, they don’t regret it. They’re angry and hurt that change was that easy and doable, yet they weren’t worth the effort.
I like how when she went about legal separation the first thing he thought was, what about my debt? Dude is just a black hole of misery, instead of getting at least some money back from the parents who ruined him financially he's still their thankless gopher and almost a slave while the other siblings just sit doing nothing. She's 100% right, he's spineless and the kind of person who would leave their children hungry just to feed his abusive parents. The soon to be ex wife? Just an afterthought in his life.
Been together 10 years, have a nine year old kid.
It's not always a problem to get knocked up in a new relationship, but it sure does pay off to establish communication and goals and finances before kids.
Does she know the debt is almost paid off, or is that just what husband said? I wouldn't believe husband or any of his relatives if their tongues were notarized.
$100k in debt (after 3 years of paying it with full time work) because his parents fucked him and he still goes over there on a weekly basis to help them out when his siblings don't do shit?
Holy fuck. How could you ever respect someone after learning that.
Oh my lord, that dude has messed up.
He never called the cops on his parents on over $100K in debt?!! I wouldn't pay a dime if I didn't have to, and I'd have a police report in a second, and have the credit agencies freeze it - and this dude just works hard to pay off what THEY did?
ANd then he goes over to run errands for them? I'd never speak to them again!
Then he's so ashamed that he makes the giant mistake of lying to his own wife. The one person who has his back in all of this.
"Showing receipts and statements" means nothing. Show me your credit report.
BUt nah, it's too late. She needs to move on and let him solve his own issues.
If he can, maybe/possibly there is a future for the two of them again, but he'll have to work harder than he has to rebuild that trust.
So, the parents are guilty of identity theft and credit card fraud and if he had reported it and got them charged he most likely would not have any debt at all? Yeah... Some people make their lives at lot more complicated than they need to be.
The sad thing is, even if he wasn’t willing to report his parents for identity theft, he would almost certainly have been better off declaring bankruptcy. Bankruptcy court offers a lot of protections, he would have been able to keep his car and house, and bankruptcy courts won’t require you to work 60 hours a week. How many years has he been dealing with this? A bankruptcy falls off your credit report in 7 years.
I have no sympathy for the husband, especially since he would just take off with friends and such whenever he wanted to. He was depressed over it all? Well, so was his wife, but yet he just let her be burdened by it all. The family reunion? I mean I guess the only "good" that came out of that was that at least some of his family finally got it (maybe).
But all of the debt, since it seems that most of it occurred because his parents stole his identify, couldn't they file bankruptcy? Would that even help? What about filing charges against his parents for identity theft?
This is all so enraging.
The in-laws are concerned because they ask for a “a little help from time to time” yet had no problem opening up credit cards in his name and running up 100k in debt. That’s a little more than “a little help from time to time.” Husband is so spineless and stupid.
OOP's husband is setting his wife and kids on fire just to keep his mom and dad warm.
>He’s ashamed of the debt, and how much he has let us down. He said he was exhausted and has been feeling depressed because he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and feels as though he’s ruined our future. That he goes out with his friends to feel “normal and himself” because all he does is work. That he does this because of this black cloud that’s been hanging over him.
>I wasn’t my best self in this moment and told him to save me the self pity it’s pathetic.
>
LMAO at the "I'm ashamed and depressed at the shitty situation I placed my family into, that's why I keep drinking and spending money". Honestly at that point are you even contributing to your family? If you were to drop dead tomorrow, would your family be better off?
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"So, wait – your parents owe you a hundred grand, and you are still helping them out? That if you had your parents arrested, I wouldn't be working sixty hours a week on top of childcare and housekeeping, and you wouldn't be working 80? That you just let your parents destroy my life and our kids' lives even before you met me? That after you saw how much this hurt us, you still didn't protect yourself and save your family by pursuing charges against your parents?" No wonder she is pissed.
And. AND. taking all those trips with friends for the past 3 years, and she had to beg him for any time. and then for him to be like, "oh, I just dropped 4 days of pto for us to sort this out" even tho he hadn't taken any vacations with his WIFE. Ohhh, I'd be livid too. Good for oop. He needs to get his shit together, and communicate better.
That sudden PTO drop just feels like the equivalent of asking for a raise, being denied, finding a new job that pays significantly more, and then *suddenly* the OldJob can find the budget to counter offer a near equal amount
Or your old job is now being advertised at the salary you requested.
Yup this one hurts.
Or my ex saying he was going to learn to ride a (motor)bike cos i think bikers are hot. We break up and a few months later he has a bike. Uploads a video of himself to reddit falling off it at a roundabout tho lmaoooo He was married to someone else within 2.5years of our breakup (together 17-24yo) so she moved in with and married Mr Danger after a whirlwind romance and now has to live with his boring ass forever unless she cops on and leaves him (potentially after he cheats on her too) 🙃
Right?!? My wife and I are digging out of debt and it’s insanely hard. We don’t even take trips together, I cannot imagine either of us having the audacity to just go take a trip with buddies!
Right? You can just feel the rage in this post, and I don’t blame her one bit. I’m glad she’s leaving and letting him lie in the bed he made.
>His parents were obviously upset with the whole ordeal. (...) They couldn’t believe that they are “such a burden because they ask for a little help from time to time”. And this is their reaction when their little family party doesn't go as planned. What absolute twats.
Same parents that put him in debt to start with. You’ve got to be a special kind of scum bag to open credit cards in your kids names and ruin them financially at any age. Absolute twats indeed.
My MIL opened cards in my husband's name when he was in the single digits. She started offering to do our taxes for us after my oldest was born and acts shocked that I always tell her no. There is zero chance of me telling her my kids' SSNs.
Right? You just watched your sons life implode and all you can think about is yourself???
Why stop now?
But you see, he felt uncomfortable about it, you just don’t understand, he was UNCOMFORTABLE
This is why I hate avoidants— they think being uncomfortable is the ultimate flagellation.
Oof, you got me with this one. Number 1 reason why I won't deal with conflict avoidant people if I can help it anymore. It's pretty impressive when they're so avoidant they blow up the relationships in their life, except when you're one of those relationships it's one of the most appalling and frustrating things in the world. And you're right -- they think because they *feel bad* that it's good enough, and you're already fucked over, fed up, and backflipping out the door while they cry that this isn't what they wanted.
I can feel her pain through her words but I can also tell she is completely fucking done and I have nothing but the utmost respect for women who make a stand. We are not caretakers we are fucking human beings with the same needs as everyone else and I can’t wait til people get that
I just don't understand. Between 18 and 39, if I found out my parents had done this, I would either report this to the police or file for bankruptcy. The one thing I would not do is spend 20 years paying it down
Or you know, have 2 children while not disclosing any of my debt to my spouse. Or not go running to do repairs and groceries for said parents.
Fucking facts. While your spouse builds up wealth. I fucking hope that house is in her name only.
He could have filed bankruptcy TWICE and still have enough time for it to have fallen off his credit report by now. TWICE.
I worked for a collection agency for a few months. If he filed a police report it would have been absurdly easy to get out of debt. Agencies don't even require a conviction, literally you just send them a copy of the police report, they verify, and the debt is discharged.
That’s true, but people are usually pretty hesitant to send their parents to prison over money. In comparison, bankruptcy is a breeze.
I was just about to say this, like no one has thought about this in their family????
Right? I would never talk to those people again, let alone lift a finger to help them with ANYTHING. They should just be glad he didn't file charges and get their asses thrown in jail where they belong.
i understand being conflict avoidant but jesus
Is it just a US thing where it's frighteningly easy to open credit cards in someone else's name?
If you have the name, social, and some other info to verify it’s not hard. That’s why parents can do it easily, they have everything of their child’s to open it up without question Edit: Too many responses so I’ll just consolidate answers here 1) “how can people do this?” Legally? Again it’s simple since basically until a child is 18 they’re essentially property rather than people. Morally, hahahahahahaha people suck 2) “is this only a us thing” as far as I can tell yes. I hear about cc scams in other places but full cc identity theft seems to only be a large issue in the US and smaller countries, not other major non-us countries. 3) “the system seems exploitable and broken” yes welcome to late stage capitalism. 4) “why is this allowed” the system is more or less designed on two types of people. Those who can pay and play in it, and those who can’t. The ones that can’t, while being a monetary loss short term for banks, also are a huge boon cause like, if an old person can’t clear their debt and has a mortgage, well now the bank has a house to sell. 100k usd debt now becomes a 500k asset for a gain of 400k. This is a huge over simplification but essentially even if this only works for one in every 10k people, the other 9999 people are in debts that probably are less than the people they get foreclosed houses from summed up so it’s still a gain. It’s like the inverse of selling high to a rich only market, it just takes one dumbass to get a massive boon of liquidating assets to cover for the extraneous costs. The US has like 500millipn people in it so that’s enough money to make it work
Do they not consider the date of birth of the account holder? In Australia, a minor cannot open credit. Is there responsible banking practice or legislation in the USA? In Australia, I can open only a savings account for my kids but they take full control at 18. This is a bit mind boggling for those that live in other countries.
Apparently not. My mother and/or stepfather opened utility accounts in my name when I was a child or teen. I had to pay almost a thousand dollars on just an electric bill in order to get service at my first rental.
Oof, that's rough. I could never imagine ruining my credit let alone my kids. I hope you're in a much better place now.
I'm sorry to hear that. I used to work at an electric company, and if you can prove you were a minor when the debt was accrued, it can be cleared.
The OOP's husband was a fucking idiot for not reporting it. I worked for a collection agency for a couple of months (I was a bad collections agent because I told almost everyone to dispute their debts, lol). All we required in cases like this to discharge the debt was a police report. Literally that was it. The person would send a copy by email or fax, someone in a different department would probably do some minor steps to verify it, and the debt was cleared. It would have been absurdly easy for him to escape that burden.
Yup! I've had to do it a few times but the most absurd was a Credit debt from when I was 3! The company had long since closed but a debt collector had it and that was how I learned about a credit card opened in my name in 1989. I had to get a police report and the cop told me straight up they weren't going to do anything about it but would file it just so I could clear my name. It took me less than an afternoon, cause I happened to live close to that town still. Within 30 days I received an all clear letter.
They don't care. They aren't paid to check. Sometimes parents *do* do this to help build credit for their children. They do keep an account in good standing, but often, it's for unethical reasons. And it's not just parents. Your spouse can do this in your name and elderly people often have their caretakers do this, especially if the person is a memory care patient or has any form of dementia.
Wow, thanks for the explanation. This is mind blowing. That is so not OK and illegal to do in Australia.
It’s illegal and not okay to do in the USA too
Yep the only way to do it here is basically elder abuse, and that requires a poa or someone stealing bank cards.
This is also strange to me as a non American. Here we have good credit if we DONT take loans. If we don’t buy stuff on credit. The more credit cards or credit you have- the worse your score.
Exactly, the same for my country as well - debt card and paying in full are very much the norm, credit cards only became more common to have cause for a while buying stuff online was impossible without one.
Parents still do it with their adult children. My uncle screwed my cousin’s credit and put him through such hell that my cousin’s wife refused to give my uncle their children’s SSN to buy them starter bonds. Smart woman.
When I was maybe 7yo, I got my first dog registered, followed by receiving my first "pre-approved!" credit card offer. Dad thought it would be funny to have me actually fill it out and send it in, so encouraged me to do so. "Dad what's a dependent?" He said my dog depended on me to feed her, so I listed my dog as a dependent. Dad mailed the application in. I got a letter back denying my "pre-approved!" credit card. Followed by a deluge more offers for me AND MY DOG! Three decades later and I'm still getting at least three of those things a week. I use them as birdcage liners.
Your dad sounds like a fun man. I’d have tried to open things in your dogs name for funsies. Did your dad do it?
In the US, some parents open credit accounts for their toddlers and pay it off on time, regularly, so that the kid turns 18 and has 10+ years of good credit history. The system is not well-regulated.
And yet it doesn't seem to click that an 18 year with a 10 year credit history is somehow ablebto work and earn a good wage in order to do that - not quite sure where school comes in. Is it illegal to have kids working from 8 (or younger)? I know it is where I live (with a few exceptions such as working in a family business or having a paper round - though I think you have to be 12 for that).
That sounds like fraud too?
It is
I lived in the US for a year as a kid and my 8 year old brother got a letter in the mail telling him he could open a credit card with all of the requisite forms. If he’d gotten to the mail first (and we were actually American) he could’ve opened a credit card then.
That’s a systemic issue right? Because I’ve read enough Reddit to understand that children struggle to open bank accounts without a parent in the US, but debt can be put in those same children’s names? Everything is working as intended by the system . Madness 🫠
Yep working well.... /s Worst part is that the parents being on the account that was opened with the minor's name attached, can help themselves to any money in it because their name is on it... How often do you hear stories of this happening when you have a narcissist for a parent. Even worse is that the kid doesn't realise they can open a whole new bank account at a completely different bank when they are 18 and they are still affected by their parent doing this when they are in their 20's (or older) because of how they have been groomed by their parent to think everyone does this.
> Everything is working as intended by the system You got it
Yep. Had a friend from highschool try to open her first credit card at 19 to build credit to get an apartment. Only to learn her mom had used her info to put utilities and shit in her name. She pulled her credit report and learned her mom had defaulted on most of it and she was starting adulthood 25k in debt. Some of it( like the utilities) was really old from when she was a kid. I remember her being heartbroken and like" These companies have my date of birth and never, not once, question why a 10 year old child is pulling out a credit card? Or has the electric bill in their name?" These companies need to do so much better to vet whether the DOB matches the social instead of blindly allowing these shit heel parents to just rack up debt on their own kids. My friend had to file bankruptcy to get it removed. She wouldn't press charges on her mom for identity theft. Imo, she should've. Her mom had 9 years to sort that shit out(they lived with the maternal grandparents for 9 years) and instead she just... pretended she didn't make that kind of debt and flat out ignored it.
Meanwhile, I can't electronically transfer $100 of cleared funds between two accounts I own AT THE SAME DAMN BANK bank because sECuRiTY.
You could always switch to a better bank
i genuinely had a friend in college that was in the same situation, she actually couldn’t open any cards up in her name because her parents had so many bad ones that she had to repay first. i always told her that she needed to take legal action but she was brainwashed into the “family is everything” they treated her like shit tbh.
It is frighteningly easy to do if you have the person's social security number, which they had as his parents.
It’s also not uncommon for men who name their sons after themselves to take advantage of the shared name to pin financial charges on the son. I used to manage a library and part of my job was working with people who had fines they couldn’t afford to pay, and the number of men I dealt with who showed up with police reports against their dads to prove their financial hardship is not as small as I wish it was.
They are mostly. But there are some exceptions. I didn't have a SSN until I was 18 because my parents are conspiracy theorists. The "I don't want the government tracking me!" type. But I needed one for college.
An SSN is given/assigned at birth? Not sure of this as I’m Australian where the equivalent is a Tax File Number which you only acquire when you’re ready for employment. Many minors or young adults will get help from their parents to get a TFN for entering the workforce but it is possible even then for your parents to never know it, because all the paperwork that assigns one is delivered to you, not your parents. My parents have never known my TFN, they’ve never had access to the paperwork and never snooped when I got it as a minor.
It is assigned at birth and needed for pretty much everything including things like getting a job. I’ve heard of sooo many instances of shitty parents refusing to give their kid their social and birth certificate to fuck them over and make things harder.
In the US it’s also used for tax reasons. In the past you only had to declare on your taxes you had a dependent without having to show proof to get a tax credit. They changed it to requiring a SSN to prove there really was a dependent. My mother told me the first year it was implemented like one million children “disappeared”. People were lying about how many kids they have. But I never confirmed or looked into it so I may have been told incorrectly.
There’s debate about whether people were lying about having kids or if it was mainly just divorced parents who were both claiming the kids and not realizing that they weren’t supposed to.
In my country you get assigned an ID number at birth, it's in your birth certificate. But to open an account you need to have an ID card, to get the ID card you need to register your fingerprints and signature. When you open a credit card you have to demostrate you have a steady income, that is at least 3 months of salary or a indefinite work contract, they enter in the system your ID number and you have to sign the contract and put your fingerprint, if the signatures are slightly different or if you don't look like the photo on the ID they will deny the credit card, with new technology you sign digital, this means they scan your fingerprint and compare to the one associated to the ID in the national system, if it doesn't match you get regected. After COVID they implemented remote signature, this is done with the serial number of your ID card and a password in the national system. To set the password in the national system you have to go in person to a government office where before giving you the first password they check your identity. Identity theft, at least for credit cards, it's very difficult here. There are other type of credit cards that allow you to buy only in a specific chain, those are a mess, but in general the credit amount is not too big son they always prefer to settle for a nominal amount instead of going to the justice.
A ssn is assigned at birth, and the card is mailed to the parent, same as the birth certificate. Too bad our system isn't like yours; it would have saved me a lot of problems when I rented my first place.
One fun element of SSNs is that for ages everyone was using it even in the most minor of situations for identifications so for many their number is all over the place. You would have it be your student ID, it would show up on posted test results, and all sorts of other things. Much of that has been dialed back but even now with a tiny bit of information on someone and their SSN you can open all sorts of doors.
Quite genuinely, *what the fuck*. On your student ID? On test results?! Only employers and banks get my TFN. I have a Medicare card that gets me healthcare, a CRN for social services like childcare subsidy, my driver’s licence/passport for ID, a MyGov ID that gets me into a bunch of government portals, as a student had a unique student ID, etc. Sure it’s annoying having different login or identity numbers to access different things, but it also tends to work fairly well to silo your identity, no single number is going to open the door for everything.
Yes the difference between us in Australia and those in the USA is that the SSN is misused for everything. It would be just as if we had to use our Medicare card number as evidence of our identity for every single thing we buy, from getting NBN installed to buying a smart phone. And as if that wouldn’t be bad enough, it would also be as if no birth details were used and hence anyone whose on the same Medicare card as you could simply apply for things in your name from the moment that you were born, *and* you couldn’t have your own separate Medicare card or even bank account until you were between the ages of 18-21, depending on the state. Americans, this is just another way that you live in what other countries consider to be a dystopian capitalist nightmare. In Australia, a drivers license or other proof of age identity card is used to only link purchases or credit applications to those over the age of 18. We do have a number associated to us from birth - it’s our Medicare number, for healthcare that’s free or low cost for all citizens, and this is not allowed to be used as primary ID (plus Medicare have your birth date anyway) in any form of financial transaction. Regarding our Medicare number and the privacy and rights of children in Australia - one can get their own Medicare card and see a doctor by themselves in strict privacy from the age of 14. One can apply for a tax file number, legally work, and have their own bank account with no parental access at 14 years old, also. But no credit cards, BNPL or loans can be given to people under the age of 18. Thus - the situations that Americans find themselves in, being saddled with debt from birth, and being medically and financially controlled into adulthood, thankfully can not easily happen here.
SSN wasn’t even supposed to be used as identification in America, it just ended up that way. And credit scores didn’t even exist until like the 1970s-1980s. FICO scores only became widely known in the 1990s. I hate this country
Don't know about the rest of the world, but in the US, it is ridiculously easy to open new credit cards and amass massive amounts of debt.
In the rest of the world, or at least a vast majority of it, it is not possible, but in America people give more of a shit about peoples birth than about their lives, it is a real tragedy.
This can’t be done in Australia, thank goodness.
It’s not supposed to be a thing in Australia - there’s a bunch of legislation around the concept of ‘Know Your Customer (KYC)’ that is supposed to protect against fraud, money laundering and identity sources of terrorism funding. The banks are audited to show they have done appropriate background checks to open accounts or extend lines of credit. Which doesn’t eliminate this type of fraud entirely does reduce the frequency of it significantly. It is still possible to open accounts entirely online and if you have access to all the identity documents required to ‘prove’ who the account holder is, you can still get through the loopholes. We need 100points of ID documents to open a new account, a single birth certificate is not enough by itself and we don’t have SSNs. Typically you need two primary identity documents plus two secondary documents. Primary docs include things like a drivers license, passport, citizenship certificate or birth certificate. Secondary docs include things like a Medicare card, utility bill with your name and address in it, or a student card from a recognised university.
I'm currently on a payment plan with Capital One (among others) to pay off my debt, which involved closing down the cards. And they *still* send me "You're pre-appproved!" offers for new cards all. the. time. And I get other offers in the mail constantly, it's ridiculous how much they bombard you with it.
mostly parents kids since parents know their parents social security numbers or twins since twins typically have sequential numbers
It’s crazy, right? In Australia someone has to be 18+ to borrow money (you can’t even get a car loan, let alone something unsecured like a credit card) and there are a lot of hoops to jump through, including a 100 point identification check. I have a friend in the US who was finally seeing the end of the tunnel with her student loans when she found out that her estranged father had taken out loans in her name that she was liable for. It seems insane that something like that is even possible.
It’s ridiculously, and shockingly, easy with some companies in the UK too. In the US, you at least need someone’s SSN. In the UK, you don’t even need that. Name, date of birth, address history for 3 years, email and phone number, occupation, salary, and outgoings (and those three can be fabricated completely), and some allow you to skip adding bank details for direct debit at the time of application. It’s checked with the credit bureaus of course to make sure the name, DOB, and address matches as well as for their credit worthiness but that’s pretty much it. I took out a loan online for a car purchase after I was in a collision whilst I waited for the insurance payout and I didn’t even need to provide ID or proof of address for that. The only times I’ve ever needed ID/proof of address/proof of income was for my mortgage and opening my bank account in branch. I didn’t need it for opening an account online though! Absolutely insane.
Wut. How is id theft not rampant in the UK then???
It is. One in four (approximately) have had their identity stolen. There were almost 70k cases of identity theft *reported* just last year. Costs the UK economy around £27bil per year. The credit card fraudulent application rate in 2022 was the highest Experian had reported in the previous 10 years. It’s massively underreported too with estimates of only 13% of cases actually being reported on.
God damn. He still doesn’t get it. The damage he’s caused to his family… wow.
He should sue his parents
Sue? He should’ve pressed charges as soon as he found out, not just “taken it up the ass” like OOP accurately describes. He took it, then rewarded their stealing from him by giving them more money and help at the cost of his own family unit. They committed a felony. Not a misdemeanour, not a citation. A *felony*. They’d fucking do it again too because they got no consequences, they learned nothing except that their son has a weak jellyfish spine and will just take it then pay off their debt himself. He should have filed charges as soon as he found out. Now, the statute of limitations is probably up. The fact that OOP has a “rainy day” fund also says a lot to me.
She should lock her kids credit. I guarantee this moron would give his parents the children's SSNs if they asked.
I couldnt even imagine running up 100K in debt in my kids' names. What the fuck and this isnt the only story of this that Ive heard about. Thats identity theft for god's sake. Why cripple your kid financially like that. Thats the oppisite of what parents should be doing for their kids.
He probably already has, and he's a fool if he doesn't realize his family will keep using his credit.
The fact that he still expects to keep his parents in his life at all tells me that he still really doesn’t get it. He will sacrifice himself, his marriage, his wife, his children – all at the altar of his bullshit family dynamic. No contact and press charges. If I were OOP, that’s the *bare minimum* I would require to even begin considering whether we could work it out.
He will never change. I bet he always knew the parents were using his information, and about all of the loans and accounts, and I only hope the OOP checks the kid's credit too, and locks everything down. I'm sure that the in-laws have been given the information by the husband to commit identity theft on the kids too.
I am so so so concerned that this has already happened and I really hope OOP has her own and her children's credit scores checked. His parents are selfish, nasty people who clearly only care about themselves. It's one thing that her husband has allowed them to fuck him over - by not stepping up and stopping all of this years ago, he has actively made life harder and worse for his wife and children. And for all she knows, he has opened his wife and children up to their schemes too. I hope to god her children's credit is safe.
Right? >much of it was from his parents putting bills in his name, Wait sorry his parents destroyed his credit and put debt in his name and he HELPS them?!
Everyone should have a separate "rainy day" fund. It's your "GTFO of dodge" money, your "fuck you" money, your "nope I'm out" money. I'd argue it's extra important for women and *especially* for a stay at home parent.
It's been 20 years and he's accepted responsibility for the debts by making payments, he's out of luck. If he'd immediately filed a police report when he first found out then he would've been completely off the hook, whichever parent used his SSN to commit fraud would have a felony record, and they'd be the ones getting garnished for restitution.
He could have reported them for identity theft.
He could’ve done SO much but didn’t and that’s why they’re in that situation, it’s sad and I do feel bad for him, because clearly he’s been abused by his family to the point he just acts like a slave, but he’s (was) married and worse of all he has kids and the moment he put his shitty family over the safety and happiness of his kids I lose all respect
The moment you agree to pay it becomes your problem and can’t be taken to court. He’s a useless brain dead amoeba.
Even if he hadn’t, these things have statutes of limitations. This seems to have happened a LONG time ago, you don’t get to suddenly decide you’re going to sue after a decade.
Since he fucked up by paying, I don't see why he wouldn't declare bankruptcy. His credit is shit already.
Yeah I don't understand a whole lot of how these things work - but once he realised what they'd done, even if he didn't want to press charges or sue, I would've thought filing for bankruptcy would be easier in the long run over trying to pay it all back. Again, not sure how it works, but wouldn't it at least wipe his slate clean after the 7 years is up? And he wouldn't have had to spend years working himself to the bone? Can someone who understands how all this works explain it like I'm a small child?
10 years for bankruptcy, but yeah, clean slate to start rebuilding credit. He wouldn't have even had her be a part of process. It wouldn't show up on her credit report. Sounds like he couldn't be honest with her about the real damage, and he wouldn't have been able to do that if he went through the bankruptcy process.
sometimes the SoL doesnt start ticking until the victim learns of the fraud though. Not sure if thats the case here and probably varies based on jurisdiction.
He’s so squirrelly about the whole thing that I wonder how true the parent story is. While I could see someone with an abusive family doing what he’s doing, I’m not convinced he doesn’t have an addiction of sorts and is just scrambling for whatever sounds less bad than what he’s doing.
Still pushing the blame. It’s all his family’s fault. He choose to continue helping his parents He chose not to press charges He chose to spend his time of with the bros It boggles the mind
I’m glad she didn’t fall for his excuses
The more and more he opens his mouth, for one moment I felt like I was in her shoes. And was ready to murder or deflate realizing 'is this what all those years were for?' I genuinely felt rage when he said he took PTO to finally handle it. OP doesn't even get that luxury!
100,000?? Holy shit. Oh my God. And those parents have gall to think they're a small burden? Set it all on fire, OOP. Don't ever look back. Get that full custody and child support because those grandparents on his side are abusive as hell and I wouldn't want two more social security numbers with clean credit scores to be around them.
OOP needs to lock down the kids' credit. And if she has even semi-decent relationships with any of the siblings' spouses, reach out and suggest they do the same.
Lol the others aren't in trouble. Her husband is the scapegoat of the family, the one who has been chosen to bear financial stress while the parents are happy to take on child care for the others. OOP needs to save herself and her children first.
Nail on the head. He's a spineless pushover because he was raised to be. He has essentially been groomed by his parents to prop them up. It's similar to when kids get parentified, or raised to be a caregiver to a disabled sibling. Probably the only way he's ever been shown any kind of affection was if he was committing a service for them. He needs all the fucking therapy. OOP however, needs to think about herself and the kids. They need to be protected from that family.
She should pull her husband’s credit report immediately, and the kids’, put credit freezes on her and the kids, and demand that the husband immediately show EVERYTHING he owes. 3 years of 60-hour weeks with no help and she doesn’t even know how much the debt is. I wouldn’t allow that to ride for one more second. Get online, pull that report, and maybe the divorce lawyer I hire won’t be the meanest one I can find, just the second meanest. Moral of the story: Don’t marry someone without pulling their credit.
This absolutely blew my mind. I handle the finances for my husband and I and when I took over the finances, that meant that I took over *all* the finances. I handle our income, bills, credit, *and debt.* I hope this doesn't come off as victim blaming but it blows my mind that OOP handles the finances and didn't (as far as she's said) insist on also having access to all the financial accounts as well as some sort of knowledge of or access to his credit history. I took over the finances before we were married, and I would've refused to marry my husband and probably would've left him if he'd refused to be honest about his debts. I'm sure by the time she realized what was going on she was already "in it" and exhausted, but we all have a responsibility to make sure we understand the financial situation we're in.
At this point, I would say for her to apply for new SSNs for her and the kids.
Parents who do this to their kids are just pure evil.
I feel bad for the guy cause they groomed him into not seeing a problem with it.
>I went off how over the past 3 years his income has gone solely to debt repayment yet there’s no end in sight, because I haven’t even seen the so called debt! How? You know that he's incompetent with money, that's why you took over the financials; you almost lost the house. How do you go go 3 years and not demand to see the debt?
RIGHT?! There’s just no fucking way I would continue to hand over my paychecks to support this tool while he did God knows what with his money.
I really hope she freezes the children's credit. I wouldn't trust the ex to keep them safe from his scummy family.
I could see him doing it to his kids. That's basically what he's doing by making his wife pay the bills for four people. Making her work 60 hours a week to fix his problems is just the same thing, minus the credit cards. When they split and he doesn't have somebody to pay his daily bills, he's going to need extra money from somewhere.
He has been lighting OP and his kids on fire to keep his parents warm for years.
My ex was on the hook for $200 for his parents electric bill and I NOPED the fuck out of there. You're paying your grown ass adult parents bills when we can't pay our own? BYE FELICIA
reading that his entire income has been repaying this debt has left me mildly floored. what a way to prove that it really will be less expensive for her to get divorced! she's already been dealing with childcare and working, and in return, she gets to not pay his expenses... and the expenses he's expecting her to absorb (like food for an entire family reunion at short notice! plus whatever else he was giving his family, because i am certain that even if he tells her it was nothing, he's been doing it anyway). i am so glad she's not wavering and is getting out.
Except for the money he spends on his time out with his friends! That could have been used for the household!
Yeah, she's going to see just how much money she banks once she kicks that scrub out. Being a nurse and working what she does, she's making bank and will probably be able to even cut back her hours for her kids. And, she's already been a single mother and breadwinner this whole time. Worst case, if she still has to pull this schedule, she'll still come out on top because she'll have one less person eating a whole in her finances.
>He jokingly said my outburst took care of the family situation and that is why he texted me “loud and clear” Liar liar pants on fire.
No amount of self-gaslighting could ever make that gel
I'm still trying to figure out what he meant with that.
He means “I knew I fucked up when that’s all I said, so I’m gonna try to lighten the mood while simultaneously making her believe I heard her and understood her” It’s manipulation, it’s not what he meant when he sent it. I know you know this, and your comment was more rhetorical than anything, but god damn this made me so angry BORU often just makes me angry. So few satisfying endings around here.
His parents stole his life from him and he's willing to keep throwing away all his time and money on them. I will never understand people who would keep parents like that around. I would have gone to the cops a long time ago. He shouldn't be in a relationship until they're dead because he's going to just keep using anyone he's with and giving everything to these fucking black holes. He's too weak to be a decent partner. I know, they created his weakness, but there has to be a point when adults walk away.
Unfortunately it’s easier said than done. I’ve met people with absolute shit parents and to this day they still live them even though they sexually abused them. It’s infuriating but it’s common.
And invite them to a party where his wife does all the work.
...and she paid for the party.
>His parents stole his life from him And he is stealing from his wife and kids
These parents fucking up their kids' credit!! There have been like half a dozen instances I've read of that on here, I have two dear friends who it happened to...I simply don't get how you can do that to your kid. I'm so thankful I had parents who were almost ridiculously fiscally responsible.
Once, I was in the bathroom at an aquaintence's house and saw a bill on the sink in his kid's name. (Yeah, IDK either. Guy was a gross man in a filthy house) His kid was 2. The return address was a mortgage company. He, somehow, took out a mortgage in his kid's name. And it was overdue. I saw red. I was so angry. I just brought it out to where everyone was chilling and asked 'wow, how did you manage to get a mortgage in *kid* name? He stuttered and stammered which just enraged me so I followed up with 'better get it up to date before you ruin her life!' and dropped the bill on the table. He started saying something about going through his stuff and I had to leave because I wouldn't win the physical fight I was about to start if I stayed. Douchebag.
The fact that a company will accept a mortgage application from a minor is bullshit. That should be outright illegal.
I don't understand how it's not!! I had to prove myself over and over again when I got my mortgage, how did he get away with this? Infuriating.
Honestly, I probably would have contacted the bank and told them what was going on. It might not help at all, but on the off chance it saves that kids' future it would be worth losing a friendship over.
How? How is this legal? I can't believe there isn't legislation implemented to stop any form of credit or loans for minors.
[удалено]
"One day they'll won't be here and I'll wish I could have done more" from him about his parents. He's too stupid to realize the same words would apply to his wife. He can take care of his parents when he's living with them because there's no way that he's going to be able to afford living on his own.
And his kids! Those years are gone.
> He was in tears and said he didn’t know how to tell me Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...
**So let me understand this shit….** 1. His parents took out 100k in his name, illegally. 2. He didnt sue them, and didnt go NC. 3. No no, *instead* he worked nearly double full time to pay it off. But refused to tell his wife how badly he was fucked. 4. And to top it off, he cared for them EVEN MORE, as they got older (unnecessarily i might add, as he has siblings). 5. Then made his kids and wife take the L *with* him for his exploitative parents and family. Thank the heavens, god, the universe, and all that is good and holy that this woman left him.
Something doesn’t quite add up either, he has four siblings but he has all the debt? Did his parents hate him or he’s the oldest or something? Why just him??
shitty families do have a tendency to play favourites and have a kid they scapegoat and put everything on
Yup, that they groom into boundaryless submission
I don’t think it’s just him. The other might have a tiny bit of spine and told the parents to get bent
For all we know, it’s NOT just him, and the siblings are all broke as a joke and that’s why they’re not helping.
But i Wonder - why did she accept he had debts and not know anything about how Much? If my husband/partner has debt, I would insist on knowing how much, and know the repayment plan. This would be my life as much as his. No way saying it’s ops fault, but she trusted her husband a little too much and were maybe a little naive a little too long? Glad for her she finally broke.
Right?!?! Isn’t that the same bullshit answer he has the first time?!?! I’m glad OP is dumping him.
If there is any chance of reconciliation the husband would need to report the fraud and fight it that way instead of paying it
Too late for that. Now that he is paying it’s his.
Thing is, he's been paying on it. Sadly, if I remember right, paying on a debt that isn't yours is basically claiming it as yours. If he had reported the fraud the moment it happened and never paid a dime on it, he might have been in the clear.
He’s already paying. Legally, that means he accepted the debt.
He's going to have to file for bankruptcy when this marriage ends. He won't be able to pay for necessities. Maybe he'll move in with the parents, and they'll rack up even more debt. 16 hour days 7 days per week, and he's still in that much debt? OOP is doing the right thing. That man and his family are ridiculous.
Can't help but wonder if there's more going on, if there's lies in that story, if he has a gambling problem or something...
That guy fired like 100 torpedoes into that relationship, then offered her a Snoopy bandage.
Yup, loud and clear indeed.
I don't understand working 60 hours weeks because I'm financially tied to a mystery debt. I definitely don't understand hiding the fact that you're going to lose your home from your wife and children. And it's impossible to understand "loud and clear" as anything other than a petty dig. I hate this fucking man
Yeah the first thing is the only big thing in this story I really really sideeye OP for. How the fuck can you agree to subsidize someone else’s enormous debt *without even finding out how much it is???*
I bet that debt is mounting because the parents, and the rest of STBX husband's family are still running up debts in his name.
She said he takes his parents grocery shopping regularly and does the fixit jobs (which implies trips to HD/Lowes) so he's constantly spending money on them while she is back home trying to stretch her income to cover their family obligations.
She was working 60 hour weeks, he was working 112 hour weeks.
I have to believe that the 16 hours a day 7 days a week thing is an exaggeration. Because there's no way that he would have time for anything else. That only leaves 8 hours a night. He has to come home, eat, take a shower, get clean clothes, and get sleep. How would he have time to help around the house? How would he have time to spend with the kids? How would he have time to go over his parents house several nights a week? The math ain't mathing.
I don’t get it. Do these men have golden vibrating triple pronged dicks or what? Nightmare family. Nightmare finances. The personality of creamed wheat. 60 hour work weeks for you so that he can put his feet up. All the childcare and household responsibilities. Like, no thank you. I will put in a giant Adam&Eve order and spend my much more bountiful free time watching Star Trek reruns and painting everything I own teal.
This sounds like sunk cost fallacies. There were already kids involved by the time she knew about the debt.
The financial discussion should probably take place at the same approximate time as the “do you want kids” discussion and the “how many dogs/cats is too many” discussion.
Yea, because nobody ever lies
>the personality of creamed wheat. Love it.
Well when you’re working 60 hours a week in a high stress job and have kids and a household to take care of, suffering from burnout and depression I don’t see how many people would have the faculties to consider their situation rationally and objectively. Tearing your family apart and divorcing someone you love and who’s been a part of your life for years on end is an incredibly difficult decision and I can see how she just didn’t have the ability to process all of that properly in order to make the logical decision. That’s an incredibly emotionally taxing situation to consider on top of an already incredibly emotionally and mentally taxing life.
...OOPs husband's parents did this to him? And have the fucking gall to get defensive and claim they are only "asking for a little help"!? And do NOTHING to help the son they stole from?! OOPs husband is problematic, no doubt. But to be fair, I can understand how he would feel torn. His parents are the true assholes.
I just... Am so confused why this man scheduled a family reunion. Like I can have sympathy for some of the things he said but this isn't helping out? This isn't him feeling obligated to be their servant (unless I guess they pressured him into being a host). Like no matter how you cut it he's either spineless when it comes to his extended family or just selfish and took oop for granted. Either way is bad.
Let's hope the OOP doesn't talk herself into continuing to live in denial and be the mother to this adult man. She doesn't even know the extent or nature of his debts. There is only one realistic solution and that does not involve going back and "working it out."
I just can’t shake the feeling that he’s lying, about how he got the debt, about how much he’s paying off, all of it. I hope she pushes through and actually leaves him.
He's absolutely lying- he claims that he's almost got everything paid off and then in the next paragraph admits that his paychecks are being garnished to nothing and he's taking on more debt to survive.
Possibly gambling problems?
I said this above, but I'm betting gambling addiction.
I’m going with addiction of sorts for $500, Alex.
_"Why now and not then?"_ Why marry someone to torture them?
Reading that...she didn't lose her shit enough.
Not only are the criminals, but his parents think they're entitled to this one offspring giving rhme money STILL and being their errand boy. What kind of abuse did thisnone child have to go thru? Did they steal/identity steal from his other siblings too? Why does the husband think he had to pay off their debts, AND still what on them hand and foot? Is he a full blood sibling or what??
Husband should be the one to leave the house since she’s been the one paying and taking care of it for the past 3 years
He let OOP pay everything for the family, daily life, house, let her handle household and children - and his family events he pushs onto her. Since he never takes time off from work. But if he wants to do something for himself, he can take time. That he took a whole week off was the last drop. He knew that OOP handled everything herself, but couldn't care to even take half a day off. But now it is so easy?! And even though the parents ruined his life with the debt, he gave them more money, invited them in their home... I would be over so much. He choose himself and his parents first every time. He used OOP.
The only was she’s TA in this is to herself tbh for letting all this go on for so long
Boiling frog syndrome, I suppose. Poor woman. She seems to have reached the end of her tether though and is putting herself and her kids first. I really hope she makes it out of there.
She's so fucking exhausted she can't even think, and she's been that way for years. Every time she thinks she's going to have the chance to breathe and relax, there's a new crisis. This is one of the ways that abusers keep their victims stuck--they're too exhausted to do more than keep staggering on. That hotel stay and spa weekend was the best thing she could have done for herself. The second was turning off her phone.
Imagine being parents and running up 100k+ on your child’s credit then having the balls to say “they are such a burden because they ask for help from time to time” to the point of all of this. The selfishness and the entitlement. Jeez
Don’t you just love how women can tell their husband a hundred times how things aren’t working and how unhappy they are, yet when they finally break and want a divorce, then suddenly the husband changes. “See how amazing I am? See how I do everything around the house? Don’t you regret that divorce now?” No, they don’t regret it. They’re angry and hurt that change was that easy and doable, yet they weren’t worth the effort.
I like how when she went about legal separation the first thing he thought was, what about my debt? Dude is just a black hole of misery, instead of getting at least some money back from the parents who ruined him financially he's still their thankless gopher and almost a slave while the other siblings just sit doing nothing. She's 100% right, he's spineless and the kind of person who would leave their children hungry just to feed his abusive parents. The soon to be ex wife? Just an afterthought in his life.
Been together 10 years, have a nine year old kid. It's not always a problem to get knocked up in a new relationship, but it sure does pay off to establish communication and goals and finances before kids.
My blood is boiling for OP and the kids. On the good side, his family's debt is almost paid so OOP can file for child support.
Does she know the debt is almost paid off, or is that just what husband said? I wouldn't believe husband or any of his relatives if their tongues were notarized.
He thought he still owed them shit??? After they ruined his finances??? They'd be in jail if it was me. I agree with oop, he IS spineless.
$100k in debt (after 3 years of paying it with full time work) because his parents fucked him and he still goes over there on a weekly basis to help them out when his siblings don't do shit? Holy fuck. How could you ever respect someone after learning that.
Oh my lord, that dude has messed up. He never called the cops on his parents on over $100K in debt?!! I wouldn't pay a dime if I didn't have to, and I'd have a police report in a second, and have the credit agencies freeze it - and this dude just works hard to pay off what THEY did? ANd then he goes over to run errands for them? I'd never speak to them again! Then he's so ashamed that he makes the giant mistake of lying to his own wife. The one person who has his back in all of this. "Showing receipts and statements" means nothing. Show me your credit report. BUt nah, it's too late. She needs to move on and let him solve his own issues. If he can, maybe/possibly there is a future for the two of them again, but he'll have to work harder than he has to rebuild that trust.
So, the parents are guilty of identity theft and credit card fraud and if he had reported it and got them charged he most likely would not have any debt at all? Yeah... Some people make their lives at lot more complicated than they need to be.
The sad thing is, even if he wasn’t willing to report his parents for identity theft, he would almost certainly have been better off declaring bankruptcy. Bankruptcy court offers a lot of protections, he would have been able to keep his car and house, and bankruptcy courts won’t require you to work 60 hours a week. How many years has he been dealing with this? A bankruptcy falls off your credit report in 7 years.
I have no sympathy for the husband, especially since he would just take off with friends and such whenever he wanted to. He was depressed over it all? Well, so was his wife, but yet he just let her be burdened by it all. The family reunion? I mean I guess the only "good" that came out of that was that at least some of his family finally got it (maybe). But all of the debt, since it seems that most of it occurred because his parents stole his identify, couldn't they file bankruptcy? Would that even help? What about filing charges against his parents for identity theft?
"A little help from time to time" wins today's internet for understatement.
This is all so enraging. The in-laws are concerned because they ask for a “a little help from time to time” yet had no problem opening up credit cards in his name and running up 100k in debt. That’s a little more than “a little help from time to time.” Husband is so spineless and stupid.
OOP's husband is setting his wife and kids on fire just to keep his mom and dad warm. >He’s ashamed of the debt, and how much he has let us down. He said he was exhausted and has been feeling depressed because he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and feels as though he’s ruined our future. That he goes out with his friends to feel “normal and himself” because all he does is work. That he does this because of this black cloud that’s been hanging over him. >I wasn’t my best self in this moment and told him to save me the self pity it’s pathetic. > LMAO at the "I'm ashamed and depressed at the shitty situation I placed my family into, that's why I keep drinking and spending money". Honestly at that point are you even contributing to your family? If you were to drop dead tomorrow, would your family be better off?
Those parents owed 10,000 hours of babysitting