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agonyaunt2018-12-23 03:05 pm
fairestcat) wrote in agonyaunt2018-12-23 03:05 pm
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Dear Prudence: My Husband and I Blew Through $3 Million. Now We’re Broke.
Dear Prudence,
My husband and I met working at a major tech company. He left with more than $2 million at age 36. On the outside, our life looks great. But he hasn’t worked since we got married nearly 20 years ago, and as a result, he’s blown through all our cash. I knew he was selling off stock but was unaware of the extent until a few years ago. I never expected he would not work again. Now he resents watching colleagues advance to senior roles, making good money, and working on exciting tech products. A few friends are starting to retire. That would have been us, too. But now we’re in our 50s with no savings.
I’m a best-selling author, and my early books netted nearly $1 million from book sales. Today, I still hustle for editorial projects. He claims he couldn’t work all those years because he was too busy setting me up in my writing career. He has been helpful, no doubt about it. But I never asked him to forgo working for years. Now he’s deeply depressed. He keeps me up at night bemoaning how he’s a loser, and messed up his life, and I should leave him, or blaming me for it. I’m exhausted the next day but work on various projects—while he sleeps all day—and then the cycle starts again. I haven’t sold a book in years, and I know it’s partly due to the stress.
We have a second home that I inherited a few years ago. He’s pressing me to sell it so we have some cash. I really don’t want to sell it. I know we’ll blow through the cash in a couple of years, and then we’ll be in the exact same position. That house is the only asset that I have in my own name, and knowing that I have a potential place to land if we split up is all that’s keeping me sane.
He refuses to get counseling. He has started to reach out to places to apply for jobs in earnest, but at his age, with a résumé gap of 18 years, I’m worried it’s too late, especially for the kind of jobs he’s after in the tech industry. He would never consider getting a “normal” job, like working retail or as a bartender, as he’d be embarrassed if his colleagues ran into him someplace. I really feel that I need some therapy, but I know we can’t afford it. I’m now seriously considering abandoning my writing career.
I’ve been applying for jobs in part to get us health care, since we have to drop ours, as we can’t afford it. But since I also haven’t had a traditional job, it’s been a real challenge for me, too, and incredibly depressing. Friends tell me to leave, but I genuinely love my husband. He’s a smart guy who can do just about anything. He’d actually be great working for a company. But he doesn’t believe it. The negative voice in his head has become too strong and his ego is too fragile. What am I to do?
—Overdrawn
Since it took the two of you more than 20 years to get to this point, I don’t think you’re going to be able to figure out the way forward (and whether it’s possible to move forward together) in a single conversation. If he refuses to get counseling, go without him. If you can only afford one or two sessions, go once or twice. If he refuses to apply to realistic jobs, apply to some yourself, and let your writing serve as a part-time job. Instead of selling the house, why not rent it out? That way you’ll have at least some money coming in as you try to figure out your next move.
Set up an immediate state-of-the-financial-union meeting and commit to having regular conversations about your debts, your budgets, and what you can do in the short and long term to start making money again. I understand that you don’t want to leave your husband, and I think it’s worth at least trying to figure out if you two can make changes together. I also understand that habits of 20 years don’t disappear overnight, and you two have fallen into a long-running pattern of not talking about money that’s enabled you to avoid difficult feelings. Talking about money is going to feel painful and unnatural. The more often you do it, the easier it’s going to get—besides, you’d both have to go over your finances if you did get divorced, so it’s not exactly something you can avoid either way.
If, however, despite all your best attempts to talk about this, your husband refuses to participate, continues to blame you for his choices, and tries to get you to liquidate your house so he can avoid looking for work for another few years, then I think you will need to consider leaving him, not just to preserve your own financial independence, but to preserve your peace of mind.
My husband and I met working at a major tech company. He left with more than $2 million at age 36. On the outside, our life looks great. But he hasn’t worked since we got married nearly 20 years ago, and as a result, he’s blown through all our cash. I knew he was selling off stock but was unaware of the extent until a few years ago. I never expected he would not work again. Now he resents watching colleagues advance to senior roles, making good money, and working on exciting tech products. A few friends are starting to retire. That would have been us, too. But now we’re in our 50s with no savings.
I’m a best-selling author, and my early books netted nearly $1 million from book sales. Today, I still hustle for editorial projects. He claims he couldn’t work all those years because he was too busy setting me up in my writing career. He has been helpful, no doubt about it. But I never asked him to forgo working for years. Now he’s deeply depressed. He keeps me up at night bemoaning how he’s a loser, and messed up his life, and I should leave him, or blaming me for it. I’m exhausted the next day but work on various projects—while he sleeps all day—and then the cycle starts again. I haven’t sold a book in years, and I know it’s partly due to the stress.
We have a second home that I inherited a few years ago. He’s pressing me to sell it so we have some cash. I really don’t want to sell it. I know we’ll blow through the cash in a couple of years, and then we’ll be in the exact same position. That house is the only asset that I have in my own name, and knowing that I have a potential place to land if we split up is all that’s keeping me sane.
He refuses to get counseling. He has started to reach out to places to apply for jobs in earnest, but at his age, with a résumé gap of 18 years, I’m worried it’s too late, especially for the kind of jobs he’s after in the tech industry. He would never consider getting a “normal” job, like working retail or as a bartender, as he’d be embarrassed if his colleagues ran into him someplace. I really feel that I need some therapy, but I know we can’t afford it. I’m now seriously considering abandoning my writing career.
I’ve been applying for jobs in part to get us health care, since we have to drop ours, as we can’t afford it. But since I also haven’t had a traditional job, it’s been a real challenge for me, too, and incredibly depressing. Friends tell me to leave, but I genuinely love my husband. He’s a smart guy who can do just about anything. He’d actually be great working for a company. But he doesn’t believe it. The negative voice in his head has become too strong and his ego is too fragile. What am I to do?
—Overdrawn
Since it took the two of you more than 20 years to get to this point, I don’t think you’re going to be able to figure out the way forward (and whether it’s possible to move forward together) in a single conversation. If he refuses to get counseling, go without him. If you can only afford one or two sessions, go once or twice. If he refuses to apply to realistic jobs, apply to some yourself, and let your writing serve as a part-time job. Instead of selling the house, why not rent it out? That way you’ll have at least some money coming in as you try to figure out your next move.
Set up an immediate state-of-the-financial-union meeting and commit to having regular conversations about your debts, your budgets, and what you can do in the short and long term to start making money again. I understand that you don’t want to leave your husband, and I think it’s worth at least trying to figure out if you two can make changes together. I also understand that habits of 20 years don’t disappear overnight, and you two have fallen into a long-running pattern of not talking about money that’s enabled you to avoid difficult feelings. Talking about money is going to feel painful and unnatural. The more often you do it, the easier it’s going to get—besides, you’d both have to go over your finances if you did get divorced, so it’s not exactly something you can avoid either way.
If, however, despite all your best attempts to talk about this, your husband refuses to participate, continues to blame you for his choices, and tries to get you to liquidate your house so he can avoid looking for work for another few years, then I think you will need to consider leaving him, not just to preserve your own financial independence, but to preserve your peace of mind.
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I spent the entirety of this letter going back and forth between boggled staring and shouting, "OMG DO AS HE SAYS AND LEAVE HIM."
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2. He's probably not going to get hired in tech unless he can walk on water.
3. Lady, he is not going to change. Get out of there while you can still salvage something.
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I'm inclined to say a good long separation with minimal interaction of any kind would give much the same opportunities for getting her head on straight without her husband around, while not making anything permanent. Counselling for sure - marital and financial - and whatever she does SHE MUST NOT SELL THE HOUSE.
Cynically, I think she married a boy-man and is now stuck being a wife-mother. Since she's played this role for 20 years, getting out of it will be extremely difficult and won't happen unless he gets a good whack in the face (metaphorically). And even then, I give it two years for him to revert back.
There was a novel I read where a woman threatened to divorce her husband to keep assets in place for their two younger children after he kept on trying to support their useless oldest daughter.
Time for the tough love, LW!
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Once that's done, yeah, do what you can to salvage the relationship. But first make sure your husband's bad choices can't screw you over. (This doesn't require malice. My dad's poor business choices ended up taking my family's house even though my mother had her own job and finances, and these laws are by state in the US.)
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