How hard has this process been on your marriage?

[chloe0724]

Just curious. My husband and I are constantly stressed out by this whole process. I need to draw support from those who have made it through marriage in tack.

[lrprn]

You are not alone, believe me. My hubby is in his 60s, I'm in my 50s. Having to file Ch 13 at our ages just as our kids were leaving the nest was one of the worst times in our 29 year marriage. We had a combination of illness, hospitalizations, and plain old bad money management over a long period of time that finally put us over the edge.

It took me six months to convince my husband we were in serious financial trouble. I'm the pessimist, he's the optimist - normally the yin/yang of that is a good balance, but in our case it wasn't when the financial manager of your family was the optimist .

I was so angry at him for making the decisions that pushed us over the financial edge and so angry at myself that I hadn't questioned him more intently along the way that we fought and fought and fought. It took nothing to spark a major battle. Between his guilt and my anger at his hiding our serious financial problems from me for way too long it was a very hard haul.

Finally one day a few months after we filed, I began to realize that I either had to forgive him for his mistakes or get a divorce. The way we were fighting constantly wasn't good for either of us. Not being perfect myself , slowly I was able to move past the horrible things we'd said to each other into a more open, less angry place. I began to forgive him and he started forgiving himself. We began to re-connect with the things we loved about each other and had kept us together for such a long time. Once that process started, then things got a lot easier.

Over the last year things between us are very good again. We work together as a team making all of our financial decisions. We are both a part of our Ch 13 success and feel really good about it.

Do we still fight? Sure, every once in a while - we are married, you know! It is possible to move past the intense, off-the-scale emotions that build up before and after filing, but you both have to decide what's worth more to you - winning today's petty battle or winning the war and surviving bankruptcy with your marriage intact.

[justplaintired]

It's actually been more of a relief then anything. However, we still argue about money, that didn't stop. My DH has champagne taste on a beer wallet, I don't have that problem. I honestly think the fact I didn't want to listen to him yell if I said we didn't have any extra money and giving in and letting him shop, is more then half the reason we are in this situation.

He wanted to go shopping this weekend, I said I didn't we didn't have any money. He got pi**ed off. I thought he's never going to change. This time cause of going thru BK, he can yell and throw his little tantrum, but no matter what we can't shop. To me that's almost funny.

I don't know if we will stick together forever, no one can predict that. Either way, once we are thru this, we can either stick it out or move on, but we won't be starting out with debts we can't pay. We are both in our 40's and even though we share lots of common interest, he is a selfish person and that won't ever change, but now atleast he can't pressure me into making bad financial decisions, cause we don't have the credit to do that anymore!!

[$$only4ever]

It was really stressful when we first filed. Neither one of us ever imagined that we would end up filing bankruptcy. Once we got past the pride thing, we realized that it was the best and only option for us.

[Runnin on empty]

A lot like justplaintired said, in my marriage, I was the "champagne taste/beer budget" guy. It wasn't always that way, but after a while it turned into a vicious cycle. Instead of possessions becoming the fruit of our labors, we labored solely to get possessions. I can be extremely pig-headed, and more often than not, my wife would just acquiesce in order to shut me up or keep the peace. The good news is that I finally came to my senses, realized that I/we had a problem, and that there were deeper issues at the root of that problem. I started focusing on the important things (relationship with family, ect), rather than just surrounding myself with possessions.

Now, we discuss everything non-essential before purchasing, and most importantly, everything must be paid either in cash, or with the debit card. Nothing will go on plastic that can't be paid in full when the bill comes due at the end of the month.

If things had continued the way they were, we probably were heading for a really rough patch. As it is now, we still have issues, but at least insurmountable consumer debt isn't one of them.

[BassBoy]

You have to stick together

I can't say that my wife and I had champange taste on a beer budget, but I was always the one who would gripe about the budget and how out of control my wife's spending was. What I mean is, she would wait until almost the very last day to pay a bill because she went the grocery store and because there was money in the account, she spent whatever...........not realizing that there were bills to be paid. Eventually, it snowballed on us. There were times she had the numbers so messed up that a CPA probably couldn't figure out what she had done. She did a lot of ghost check writing in order to prevent spending that money, but if she needed some of it, she write a portion of the ghost check back in as a deposit. It was a nightmare trying to balance the checkbook. Sometimes she would goof and the overdrafts would start kicking in. Anyways, I fought her constantly about this. If I needed something, like maintenance for the truck (now gone in the BK) and she would say there was no money, I would flip out about why. Of course her response was the lingering medical bills. I would question that the medical bills were not sucking up "X" amount a month, so where did it go? She couldn't prove it to me. That used to infuriate me. Then I have her go back through her checks and debits and see what she spent and where. She had no idea that some weeks she would spend "X" amoubt here, "X" amount here a few days later and then again a few days later. She wasn't keeping track. I already knew how to manage (when we weren't in so deep), so I was trying to force her to learn........and I was going to let her make mistake after mistake until she got it right. I know, sounds cold to leave her stranded, but I didn't. I would always sit down with her and work out the numbers with her. My line of thinking was she needed to learn how to manage. If she couldn't stick to the budget, then we were never going to get out of that mess. Yeah, I should have just taken over.......but.........

Ultimately, we ended up having a long talk about our options and we knew that BK was the only answer. We had tried everything......calling our creditors and such, but to no prevail. It was a welcome relief when we first met our attorney. We had this misguided notion about what BK was until I started learning about it............it wasn't so bad.

We discussed this option for a couple of months and during our discussions, we would constantly make a pack that this was not going to tear us apart. I loved her, not my stuff. Stuff can be replaced, but my wife? NOT IN A MILLION YEARS!

[JollyGG]

When we realized that we really needed to do something about our debt it was hard. I need to have plans and decisions made already. My husband needs more time to mull things over. I realized that in a decision this big I needed to allow him time. I set a date two weeks I had concluded that the only real answer was BK. He didn't take that long to reach the same decision because he knew how crazy the lack of a decision made me. But he was glad I was willing to let him take the time he needed.

Once we made the decision we sat down and had a talk about it. We both knew how easy it would be to blame each other and how easy it was to see the other persons poor money choices. However, we knew the solution had to come from both of us. That meant that we both had to take our fair share of the responsibility for getting in this mess. Mabey one or the other of us did contribute to the problem more than the other. However, it is counterproductive to think that way. So we made a promise not to place blame and to just focus on the now and the future. The past is done.

[rrockinggramma]

This is contrary but I ended up in divorce court. Too much resentment (not just money) compounded by filing BK.

[my4devils]

Our BK has brought us closer. We have never had alot of money or stuff to begin with- our debt was mainly ran up when I was out of work having and taking care of our babies. I lost my job while on maternity leave with our last and this prompted us to take a long hard look at our finances. We tried the CCCS route and realized we still couldnt afford the payments and alot of our medical bills couldnt be included either. We knew Chapter 7 was the best route for us and we started the process right away. We have both really pulled together and are focusing on what is important in life- and money and posessions aint it!! Most of the time- I am happy we are poor. We live simply and spend real quality time with each other. I really KNOW my boys b/c they arent watching movies on their flat screens, listening to their ipods while they are playing their PSP's.

SO for our marriage- BK has been a positive experience. Now we have more time to fight about my in-laws instead of finances!

[brkasajke]

If you have a strong marriage. I guess it should be an easy process. If not (we didn't ) it can be pretty crappy. We fought all the time at first. I didn't want to file AT ALL! I was worried all the time and he wasn't. We blamed each other for the situation we'd gotten ourselves into. Even though I would challenge anyone (without a trust fund ) to go through what we went through in a short period of time and see them not have to file just like we did. The hardest part for me was getting over the shame and embarrasment of not being raised to let obligations go and move on. He was raised that way too, he just knew we couldn't continue the way we were. Without the constant money pressures we have been able to look at one another and see that it wasn't really a personal hate we felt it was the situation we hated. We are closer now than ever and looking forward to the freedom to start over and do things right this time and now we can fight over who puts the dogs out! Good luck to you, it'll be fine you just gotta put your big girl panties on and get through it. Good luck to you. We filed 2/12/08 due to discharge 5/6/08. Can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[PaKettle]

It was stressful just going through the waiting, for both of us - worried that things might not go well, we might get objections, etc..

But other than that we were fine. We just waded through it until it we were out of it.

Our bankruptcy was something we saw coming, and so prepared ourselves for the possibility of it if and when my work did not pick up, etc... We were hoping my hours would increase, but when they didn't, we knew we'd have to file, so we were kind of prepared, psychologically for it.

So really nothing major changed, we just have less stress now with no worries about the bankruptcy and less bills to pay, so that's all good! I see it as a kind of blessing. It seems my work decreased at just the right time, allowing us to file, and now it's picked up again, allowing us to save a LITTLE money. Now if my wife starts working full time, we'll be in good shape! Meanwhile, at least now we don't have a lot of debt to pay and we plan to keep it that way!

[MomIcantFindmy]

Our marrage is OK. After 20 years there is no one I would rather go through hard times with than him. We realized that we have made many mistakes together over the past and are working to try to get a fresh start. Sometimes the little stuff bothers him or I but we both have to work past it. We are back to dreaming and having goals again which is something we have not been able to do in quite a while. I also noticed that we are talking more about how we got into this mess, usually on long car rides. There is a old saying we keep repeating to eachother......I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.....I will have to tell you later. (The idea is that your perceptions about what is terrific and what is horrible change over time).

[JRScott]

I'm not married, but I can say its not done good for my single life. Still it was the best decision I ever made. I'd rather have the person who loves me for me and not for my stuff. I'll find her someday.