Money and marriage

Perhaps I'm too naive to assume that couples ought to be transparent about money matters. Within this one year of marriage, we've been quarrelling over money matters, esp. about his debts. I have no idea he was allowing his credit card debts to snowball. Apparently, he's been waiting for me to start working and pay them off for him.

The scariest part of it all is: he can't give me an exact figure of how much he owes. He refuses to show me his invoices. He refuses to sit down with me to plan how he can repay the debts month by month. He knows I know nuts about credit card stuff and he would bluff his way through whenever we are on the subject matter.

I am very disheartened over the way he's handled his finances. I shouldn't have offered to help reduce his debts, bcos it gives him leeway to incur more debts, and it makes me financially destitute. Now he's actually expecting me to settle his debts for him. Like what Chujuan has said, I don't want to end up paying for his gambling debts or other debts I know not of.

I've scrimped and saved very hard in this marriage. Taking a cab is never an option for me while he spends at least $300 on cab-taking every month. I saved the meagre allowance he gave me by skipping meals so that I could buy some things to furnish the house. He retorted my effort with,"If you're able to buy all these things, then it means that $300 is too much an allowance for you." I don't see a doctor unless I can't even walk properly. He sees the doctor at least 16 times a year and refuses to make claims for it. I don't know - he always claims to be good with financial management while I am lousy. But he's the one who chalks up debts while I save up money.

I'm not going to get a divorce, but I'll just hang onto the marriage. I don't know what ground I can claim for such an irresponsible way of handling money. And I don't want to be stigmatised by a second divorce. I don't want to spend my life separating and divorcing. And I've learnt that men only want to take advantages of you the hard way. I think my family members were right about him after all. He was thinking of my money when he wanted to marry me. He's almost the total opposite of what he'd portrayed before marriage. I didn't think $20k would be something a man would be after. Apparently I'm very wrong.

I guess we would be like many couples out there who lead separate lives in marriage. When the day that I'm old enough to not be afraid of the stigma of a second divorce, I'll file for it. I don't know when the day will come. Perhaps it never will.