Sorry, this is really long. I'm just in shock and I need to process this
I [32F] have been with my husband [34M] Jay for 10 years. I am the "breadwinner" of the family and likely always will be, based on my career. Jay is a graduate student, and makes a stipend. We have always been open about our finances with each other. We have each other's bank account passwords and have never restricted access. We don't carry any credit card debt. We do have quite a bit of student debt, anticipated to be paid off in the next 5-10 years.
Our lifestyle is a big step up for us as we both came from financially unstable childhoods and have a lot of residual trauma from that. I definitely am a little more conservative with money.
Jay's brother Tom is not as responsible with money. He has gotten himself about 30k into credit card debt over the last year. He buys a ton of stuff beyond his means and is overly generous with his friends (paying their car payments and other stuff) despite not having much money on his own. Tom keeps getting deeper into debt without attempting to curb his spending.
Jay, Tom, and their family freely shared finances before we were living together or married. When Jay and I started living together, we agreed that this would stop, and we would discuss any "money sharing" together, and most likely it would come out of Jay's account if it did happen.
About 1 month ago Jay approached me regarding his brother's credit card debt. He wanted to help him pay it off and asked if we could give his brother 10k and he would pull together the rest from their family living overseas. He said his brother would "pay us back" when he was able. I flat out said no. I don't believe you can "loan" money to family, and if you give that much you have to give it as a gift. I don't feel like we are in the position to gift someone a large amount of our savings. Plus, his brother hasn't changed any of his habits or demonstrated that he is making legitimate changes to not get back into debt. We didn't fight about it, and the issue was dropped and things have been going well between us.
Today I was going through all the bank accounts to check on our finances (I do this about 1-2x per month) and I see that Jay's bank account is drained. Like, only a few hundred dollars left, which is abnormal for him, since he usually has some padding in his account. Worried that his account had been hacked, I looked through his expenses.
He took out a 10k student loan and gave all the money to his brother, plus most of the money in his bank account. I don't know the exact APR (because he didn't discuss this with me!) but I would assume it's around 5-6%, unsubsidized. Obviously this is going to come out to a lot more than 10k. As a bit of background knowledge, my dad would do this type of stuff behind my mom's back all the time, and it's part of the reason my parents were always in a screwed up situation financially. Jay knows this and has always been so open about money with me. I just can't believe he took out this loan without talking to me.
I'm pissed. Since we're married, a loan impacts both of us. His brother is never going to pay us this money back. This slows down our plan to pay down debt, which has always been a priority for us. I feel really betrayed.
When I talked to him about it, he basically said, "You can be mad at me if you want, the money's gone". I don't know if I can get over this. I think if Jay had just drained his own bank account, it'd be one thing, but it's the fact he took out the loan that makes me upset.
If anyone has been in similar situation, how did you handle it? Am I in the wrong here? How do I move on from this?
TLDR; Husband took out a large loan to help his brother without asking me. We are typically very open with each other about money. Feeling betrayed, what do I do?
Edit:
Thank you to everyone for your thoughts. I have spent most of the last two hours discussing the situation with Jay. I want to make something a little more clear--other than this issue, our relationship has been nothing but outstanding and a joy in my life. We obviously occasionally argue, but certainly the good/great days far outweigh the bad. I believe with all my heart that he is a good man, and while he made the wrong decision, he did do it out of a naive sense of love and duty to his brother. For me, this incident today could have been an issue that resulted in divorce, given the size of the betrayal. We will not be divorcing over this, however.
About 45 minutes ago, Jay came to me and apologized. Sincerely, and repeatedly, he apologized. He accepted full responsibility and admitted how wrong he was. He apologized for his initial reaction as well. He understands that if anything like this ever happens again, divorce is imminent. He understands, now, that his first duty is to our immediate nuclear family. I will be taking some actions to protect myself financially, but otherwise I am choosing to accept his apology. We are working out a plan with his brother to payback what he owes us. Thanks again for the support and advice, r/relationships.
Submitted December 30, 2020 at 02:15PM by angryloanthrowaway https://ift.tt/3hzytTp
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