Money

We seem to be coming out of our economic “crisis” very rapidly.

Not that it hasn’t been over a year of pure hell!!

All the sudden, my business seems to be going well. I suppose it has been for months, but I don’t usually get paid on the loans I close until about 45 days after they close. So really, I am just now getting paid for the refinance boom that started in January.

My husband has been working very hard. I know he wants more credit than I seem to be able to give him right now, but I am still very angry.

My husband has always been good at making money. Part of that, I think, is being born into a rich family. First, he has the connections. Second, he grew up in a family that is obsessed with money. And lastly, he is a very charming and talented businessman.

In any case, it frustrated me when someone with so many resources basically wasted them.

When my husband relapsed 2 years ago, things quickly went to hell. We had zero debt, a lot of equity in our home, and over $100,000 in liquid savings.

Within months of his relapse, he lost his job. He did not get another job for well over a year.

Meanwhile, I had two very young kids to take care of, and we had made an agreement when we got married.

When we had our son, he was drinking heavily and he did not contribute anything financially until about 5 months after our son was born. Then, it was sporadic at best. When he got sober when our son was about a year-old, he started making amends, and really became more of a partner.

However, before I agreed to marry him, we went through a lot of counseling. One of my requirements of him was that he follow the rules of my primary religion, Islam, around money.

In Islam, a woman is free to work or not to work. But, whatever money she makes if she does work, is hers alone. The husband is entirely responsible for taking care of the family with his own income and resources.

This was very important to me, especially given our prior arrangement.

First and foremost, I have always regretted the time I have missed with my son. I was literally working from my hospital bed after he was born. I went back into the office, with him in his stroller, several days after he was born. Looking back, it seems crazy! But I had to work. There were bills, lots of them.

I never wanted to be in that position again.

And, I wanted to have another baby. I wanted a girl (which I got) and I wanted the opportunity to take time off and be a mother to her (which I also got, until recently).

But, like all things, it seemed like once my husband started drinking, there was little accountability or honesty. And I was livid. I still am.

In Islam, and in my personal opinion, Mothers are holy. Being a mother is the most important job in the world. It’s a shame that there is no pay for this job in the Western world. But for devout Muslims, when you raise your children, you are entitled to be taken care of. I still firmly believe that.

So, long-story short, when my husband relapsed, we spent up all the savings, then a credit line, and finally went deep into credit card debt. I was somewhat OK with that at the time, because my husband had me believe that we had assets worth nearly twice our debt level. But then my father-in-law told me that was not the case. I still have not gotten to the bottom of that story with either of them, but to some degree, I am more inclined to believe my husband.

My husband had declared bankruptcy six years ago, right before our son was born. Once my father-in-law and husband realized how much debt we had accumulated, they asked me to file for bankruptcy in my name only.

I refused.

I don’t agree in bankruptcy for our situation. I am not willing to take the brunt of my husband’s carelessness.

And let’s be clear here. For years, I had asked my husband to sit down with me and compose a budget together. I have been in finance for 11 years now and have an MBA with an emphasis on finance. I am a conservative at heart (liberal on social policies). My husband refused. He said he was not a "budget person".

I kept doing a budget on my own and our monthly expenses were alarming to me. He always said those numbers did not scare him and that he would just keep making whatever we needed. We went around and around this for a long time. For many years, it was no problem. I should have been tougher about it, but whenever I did cut back, he would just use the money to splurge on other things.

So, when my father-in-law and husband kept asking ME to file bankruptcy for debts that I did not feel so much responsible for, I found it insulting and ludicrous.

I felt that the only way both of us would learn our lesson is to pay the money back. And it has been painful. Our home used to have several hundred thousand dollars in equity. Because of the recession, there is very little left of that. In better times, we probably could have borrowed against our house and the payments at least would not have been so brutal. But now, we are paying every cent back with our hard earned dollars – plus interest.

The stress has been tremendous. But I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I have to say that I am very proud of myself.

I am proud that I stood up to my husband and father-in-law.

And I am proud that we didn’t take the easy way out. I know that a bankruptcy would follow me for 10 years on paper, and probably weigh on my heart longer than that.

There are good reasons to file for bankruptcy, but this was not one of them.