An Engineer Discovered His Attorney Wife Went $30,000 In Debt While He Had Been ‘Diligently Saving And Depriving Himself’ To Save Money

A recent Reddit post in the r/DaveRamsey community has sparked a wide range of candid and thoughtful responses after one man revealed he discovered his wife had secretly racked up over $30,000 in credit card debt.

The post detailed how the engineer had been frugal for years, saving diligently while his attorney wife, unbeknownst to him, was charging expenses to credit cards without telling him.

Second Time It Happened

“This is not the first time it has happened,” the man wrote. He said she previously hid about $9,000 in debt back in 2018, which he had paid off. Now that she admitted to a new $30,000 debt, he shared, “I am not willing to bail her out without consequences this time.”

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The couple, both high earners, have mostly kept their finances separate throughout their relationship. The husband said this was intentional to avoid a financial power dynamic since he earns nearly twice as much. But that setup also meant he didn’t realize how much debt she was accumulating.

He added, “While I have been diligently saving and depriving myself of the things that I want… she has been spending money she didn’t have and paying credit card interest rates since almost immediately after I bailed her out last time.”

Plans To Set Boundaries

He proposed a structured plan: he would pay off her debt using their joint savings, mostly funded by him, but only as a loan with repayment terms. She would pay $500 per paycheck back into their joint investment account.

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He also wanted to implement strict financial boundaries: no carrying credit card balances without mutual discussion, mandatory monthly finance reviews, no new travel unless prepaid in full, and delaying any new car purchases until she shows improved financial behavior.

His conditions also included her setting up a meeting with a financial planner and committing a portion of her upcoming salary increase to her 401(k).

Reddit Reactions Were Blunt

The Reddit community offered differing views on how to handle the situation.

“She needs therapy to get to the root of her financial insecurity,” one commenter wrote. Others echoed that sentiment, calling the spending a symptom, not the root issue.

One person shared their own story: “This is called financial infidelity, and it can be very hard to recover from… You need to ask yourself, if she hid this from you, what else is she capable of hiding?”

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Others were more critical of the husband’s plan. “You’re turning into her parent,” a commenter said, adding that a long list of rules and conditions might just result in her becoming better at hiding things.

Another wrote, “Loan your wife money? Do you know how insane that sounds?”

A few noted that the arrangement felt more like a business deal than a marriage: “Your financial relationship sounds more like a roommate than a wife.”

Still, some defended the original poster. “I think it’s a reasonable plan and I like that you make it a ‘we’ and not a ‘she’ thing,” one Redditor wrote.

But the most repeated advice was to seek marriage counseling. “This does not sound like a marriage,” one person said.

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