I Was in Denial About My Husband’s Financial Abuse
I never thought of myself as a victim of any kind of abuse. I suspect many people that are victims of abuse don’t either. Writing for WebMD, William Moore attests to this:
domestic abuse is about controlling someone’s mind and emotions as much as hurting their body. Being abused can leave you scared and confused. It can be hard for you to see your partner’s actions for what they really are.
But I think there comes a point when something or someone forces you to realize the level of mistreatment you’ve endured.
That moment for me was when my husband tried to get me to agree to an open marriage and proceeded to sexually coerce me. I slowly started to recognize all the ways I had been mistreated during our marriage. One of these ways was financial.
But I didn’t realize the depth of my husband’s financial abuse until he filed for divorce.
He Tried to Control Our Divorce
When he filed for divorce, my husband petitioned the court to let him continue to pay for the household expenses despite the fact that he had abandoned our home. He offered to pay an amount of alimony that was an eighth of his take-home pay. My attorney called it a joke.
I knew the amount of support he was offering was unfair, but what I didn’t realize, what it took my lawyer to help me understand was that his “offer” to continue to pay the household expense of a home he no longer lived in was a way to control me financially, to make sure I played by his “rules” even though he was the one to abandon me and the marital home.
That means he could stop paying the mortgage, electricity, gas, or other utilities if he felt like it. The amount of support he offered would not have been enough to cover the mortgage, let alone the other household bills. I’m not even sure that such a small amount of support would have covered food, pet bills, my own medical bills, gas, home repairs, etc.
And let’s not forget how expensive divorce litigation is. By offering such a low amount of support he was trying to better his chances that I wouldn’t be able to afford my own attorney, that I would deplete my own war chest just affording to live.
He Had a History of Financial Control
Divorce forced me to look back over my marriage and our finances. Specifically, it forced me to recognize all the ways in which my husband had controlled me financially. In fact, many of his behaviors were hallmark signs of financial abuse according to verywellmind.
I was discouraged from getting a job for the majority of our marriage. While he never forbade me from getting a job, or at least looking for a job, he always told me I didn’t need to work, and that he made enough money to support us. I asked several times throughout our marriage if I should find work, usually when he was between jobs, but also during the discard phase when he was planning (I have since learned) to abandon me. It kind of makes sense, if I had to work all day who would have washed his clothes, cleaned the house, cooked dinner, and taken care of our dog? Certainly not him.
We also never replaced my car which is over twenty years old and on its last legs. It was never a priority, which you would think if you wanted your wife to have any amount of independence that it would be. We even discussed replacing it…one day. Unfortunately, that day never came.
Now I’m left with a car whose reliability worries me and a work history gap that keeps me up at night.
I never had access to our financial information. The only accounts I had access to was our joint checking. I never had the logins to our emergency savings, our retirement accounts, our separate investment account, or the collection of stock options. This is another hallmark sign of financial abuse according to PsychCentral.
I often asked about these accounts and how they were doing. I was always given a vague answer, sometimes along the lines of “Oh, I’ll have to check when I have time.” He rarely checked. I was never given the login information, and to this day don’t know the status of those accounts.
During our temporary orders hearing, I found out he had cashed out stock options I didn’t even know about.
I had an allowance. Now this comes with a caveat because my husband had one too. Each was supposed to be for personal expenses, i.e. non-essential items. I was actually the one to suggest we start this. Crazy, right? Well, I got tired of feeling like I had to ask before I made any non-essential purchases (food, bills, etc.). He always claimed I didn’t have to ask, but his body language told another story.
Sounds fine, right? Well, I noticed some trends in his behavior versus mine. I used my allowance to pay for clothes, hobbies (crafts), and personal care.
He used his allowance mostly to pay for gaming equipment (think multi-thousand dollar graphics card) and non-essential tech to trick out his set-up. Clothes and personal care didn’t typically fall into this category for him.
And when he wanted to buy a kegerator for his beer brewing (totally non-essential to brewing beer)? It came out of joint at my instance.
Why? Partly because I encouraged him. He had this habit of coming to me before he made a purchase and telling me what it was for. He would say something like “But don’t worry, this is coming out of my personal account.” I felt prompted to tell him not to worry about it, to take the money out of joint. He would look at me and say something like “Really? You’re ok with that?”
I have since realized this was just another one of his manipulative tactics. He knew that I knew that he was the sole provider and I had no power to deny his spending, and he used this to his advantage.
And then there was my pandemic stimulus check. Simply put, I never saw it, despite my husband mentioning we had received it. And this goes for our taxes as well. Unless I asked about any refunds or owed amounts, I never knew what was going on, and then only received vague answers at best.
Divorce: My Lightbulb Moment
Strange as it may sound, my divorce was a real lightbulb moment. It has forced me to come to terms with all the ways in which I was mistreated during my marriage, especially financially. It’s as if abandoning me and filing for divorce released my husband from whatever restraints on his behavior he maintained. He was finally free of the façade and could treat me with the level of contempt he must have been feeling.
If there’s one thing divorce and my husband’s financial abuse have taught me it’s that I will NEVER let anyone else have control over my finances again. If that means being single for the rest of my life, so be it.
Want to read all my Medium articles? You can become a member here:
Join Medium with my referral link – Diana Pearce
As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…
medium.com
Want to show your support and buy me a coffee?
https://buy.stripe.com/4gw7u57yK6nK0W4eUU
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often | Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | ..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything |
—–
Photo credit: Louise Whelan on Unsplash