Reddit Stories - BETRAYED Trust_ UNCOVERING the Tax DISASTER My Spouse Hid_

Episode Date: June 14, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #betrayal #trustissues #marriageproblems #financialsecretsSummary: A Reddit user seeks advice after discovering their spouse hid a tax disaster. Feeling betrayed and unsure how to proceed, they turn to the community for guidance on addressing the breach of trust and navigating the financial fallout.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, relationships, betrayal, trustissues, marriageproblems, financialsecrets, taxdisaster, financialbetrayal, secretsrevealed, marriageadvice, financialadvice, communitysupport, personalfinance, honesty, communication, copingstrategiesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

Depended on my spouse to manage our finances only to find out that she neglected our tax obligations, concealed $9,400 in debt on her credit card, and continued to dine out in secret while I scrimped to make ends meet. Vegetables to pay it off. I, 25M, have been with my wife, 24F, since high school. We got married young, me 21, her 20, which I know most people think is stupid, but it made sense to us at the time. We were already living together, and everything was going pretty well. When we first moved and together, we had to figure out how to handle money stuff and it was pretty clear from the beginning that she would handle all the finances.

Her parents are crazy good with money, they're those people who spend their weekends clipping coupons and somehow managed to get like $200 worth of groceries for $12. I've gone shopping with them a few times and it's like watching financial wizards at work. The cashiers always look annoyed when they see them coming because they know it's going to be a whole thing with the coupons and price matching. They're also really good investors and stupidly frugal in ways I can't even understand sometimes. Like, her dad will drive across town to save three cents per gallon on gas, which probably costs more in gas than he saves, but whatever. My wife grew up around all that, so I figured she'd naturally be good with money too. Plus, I've always hated anything to do with finances like budgeting, taxes, all that crap makes my brain shut down.

So it made perfect sense that she would handle all our money stuff while I focused on my career. Some background, I'm the main breadwinner. She has a part-time job that brings in less than 20k a year, while I make. Well, enough for us to live comfortably if we're smart about it. She's also been going to school off and on, which I've been supporting. Not that I mind, I want her to get her degree and follow her dreams and all that. I just mention it because it means I'm covering most of our expenses. Not long after we got married, she got a couple of credit cards that had cash back and airline miles programs.

She explained to me that as long as we kept them paid off monthly, the credit card companies would basically be giving us free money. made sense to me, and I didn't think much about it after that. We'd occasionally used the points for a nice dinner or something, but mostly they just accumulated. Around a year before we got married, I started working as a freelance contractor. For anyone who hasn't done that, it means you have to pay your own taxes quarterly instead of having them taken out of your paycheck. It's a pain in the ass, but the money was good and I liked working from home. Last year, she offered to handle my quarterly tax payments too. I was super relieved because, again, I hate dealing with financial stuff. Every quarter I would tell her I made dollar

X this quarter, so we need to send the IRS dollar Y and she would say I'll take care of it. For different times she told me she would handle it. And honestly, I just trusted her completely. Never even occurred to me to double check or anything. So then tax season rolls around. I'm not even worried about it because I figure we're all caught up. But when I had to help with the final tax forms, and sign them, I discovered that she had never made a single one of those quarterly payments. Not one.

We got hit with a massive bill, thousands of dollars in late fees and penalties alone. I remember sitting there staring at the numbers thinking there must be some mistake. This wiped out our entire savings, which wasn't here. but we've been putting a little away each month and still left us owing $5,000 to the IRS that we had to put on a payment plan. When I confronted her, she cried a lot and said she misunderstood how estimated taxes worked and swore this kind of thing would never happen again. I was upset but figured people make mistakes, even big ones. I mean, the tax system is complicated, right? Maybe she really didn't understand. We adjusted our budget to handle

the IRS payments, which meant cutting back on some things, but it wasn't the end of the world. I picked up some extra work when I could to help cover it. She seemed genuinely sorry, and I wanted to believe it was just a one-time misunderstanding. Fast forward to this past June when we moved to a new place. Just a slightly bigger apartment in a different part of town because my commute was getting ridiculous. The city required a credit check to turn on utilities. I went to the office to finalize everything, and they wanted a huge deposit because of our credit score. I was surprised because I thought we had decent credit. I looked at the credit report and under these items negatively affect your score at said average balance on all accounts above 30%.

When we first got those credit cards, our limit was $2,000, so I thought, okay, $600 in credit card debt isn't that bad. I always assumed we were paying them off monthly like she said we would. I mentioned it to my wife later, and she said something like, yeah, sorry, I let things slip a little this month. It'll be better next month. She seemed embarrassed but not overly concerned, so I didn't push it. I figured maybe with the move and all the expenses that come with that, she'd gotten a bit behind. What I didn't know then was that our credit limit had been increased to $5,000, and we were way past the 30% mark. I had no idea the credit card companies had raised our limits. I guess they sent the notifications to her email since she managed all that stuff.

And I certainly had no clue we were carrying balances month to month. I thought we were just using the cards for the points and paying them off each month like we'd originally planned. Then about a month ago, I came home from work on a Wednesday and sat down at our shared computer. My wife came over and started chatting about her day while I closed the browser window that was open. Behind it was a PDF statement for one of our credit cards. She literally screamed close that and grabbed the mouse to close it, but not before I saw current balance $4,900 at the top. She turned bright red and I could tell from her face she knew I'd seen it.

When I said $4,900. She broke down crying. She rambled about how it just got out of hand and she lost control and it had been snowballing and she didn't want to stress me out and it was all her fault. Then she said something that still makes my blood boil when I think about it. It all started when you stopped working from home and got a real job. I didn't realize you were going to make a lot less money. This pissed me off because I actually got a 20% raise when I stopped freelancing. It just seemed like less money because of tax withholding.

Plus I was contributing to a 401k. Plus our health insurance got way better. So yeah, there was less cash in the bank every week, but I was making more money. I don't know if she genuinely didn't understand how taxes work or if she was just making excuses. Either way, it felt like she was trying to put the blame on me somehow. I took a walk around the block to cool off because I was so angry I couldn't even think straight. When I came back, I tried to have a calm conversation about how we got into this mess. She was still crying and kept saying she was sorry.

She messed up, she'd fix it, etc. After a few hours of talking, and honestly, some yelling on my part, we decided we needed to completely change how we handled money. We spent that weekend setting up you need a budget software and she went through and added everything to it. Or at least, I thought she did. We agreed that every week we'd review our expenses together, and neither of us would spend anything without telling the other. We worked out a plan to pay off the credit card by the end of the year if we ate super cheap and never went out. It would be tough, but doable. I started bringing lunch to work instead of buying it.

We stopped ordering takeout. I cancelled my gym membership and started running in the park instead. She said she'd cut back on her shopping and eating out. out with friends. We were both going to sacrifice to get out of this hole. During this day-long financial planning session, I noticed she hadn't included the American Express card in our budget software. I directly asked her about it, looked her right in the eye and said, what about the Amex? She looked back at me with a completely straight face and said it's at like $400 to $600. I barely ever put anything on it because it doesn't have cash back. I'll pay it off this month

then just close it. For some fucking reason, I believed her. I don't know why. Maybe because I wanted to believe we weren't in as bad a shape as I feared. But I took her at her word. For about a month, we stuck to the budget pretty well, or so I thought. I was really proud of us for making these changes and felt like we were finally getting our finances under control. It was hard, but it felt good to be working on a problem together. Then this was morning, I decided to check on everything because we had some minor unexpected expenses this week, the car needed an oil change and the dog had a vet visit, and I wanted to see how it would affect our long-term payoff plan. I figured I should learn how to use the budget software

myself instead of relying on her for everything. So while she was in the shower, I logged into our accounts. I logged into the Amex account and saw it has a balance of $3,534.39. I sat there staring at the screen for what felt like forever. My hands were shaking. I couldn't believe it. Then, feeling sick to my stomach, I checked the other credit card account and found it's $1,000 higher than what she's reporting in our budget software. She recorded two $500 payments in a ab that she never actually made. So the software showed we'd paid down $1,000 that we actually hadn't.

I started looking through the statements and where I've been living on basically chicken, breasts, and vegetables for weeks. She's been eating out multiple times a week while I'm at work. There are tons of expenses I can't account for that go way beyond the budget we planned. Starbucks practically every day. Online shopping. Random stuff from Target and Amazon. All while I'm pinching pennies and turning down invitations from friends because we're on a strict budget. Our plan to have our debt, which I now know is only half of what we actually owe, paid off by the end of the year is completely screwed, just a month into the plan. At the rate we're actually going, we'd be lucky to be debt-free in three years. I feel physically sick. I haven't confronted her yet because she's at work, and I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to do. I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to trust her again.

The total debt is around $9,400, about $5,900 on one card, $3,500 on the other, plus we still owe about $4,200 to the IRS. So we're looking at around $13,600 in debt, all of which I had no idea about until recently, and some of which she was actively hiding for me even after I found out about the first card. I feel like such an idiot. How did I not notice this sooner? I just completely trusted her to handle everything. I never even asked to see statements or anything. I guess I was so relieved to not have to deal with finances that I just buried my head in the sand.

And now I'm paying the price for it. I haven't told any of my friends or family about this yet. I'm embarrassed, to be honest. Everyone thinks we're doing great. I love my wife. I really do. Up until this, I thought we had a great relationship. Would divorce be an overreaction here?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Update 1, first, a big thank you to everyone who gave me advice. I read everyone's messages, even if I didn't reply. Some of you guys really took the time to write me detailed responses and I appreciate it. I'm still getting DMs about this, which is why I figured I should. update. A lot of people accused me of being an idiot for not paying attention to my own finances for so long, and yeah, you're right. I fucked up by putting my head in the sand for years.

Lesson learned. Trust but verify, as many of you said. And to the people who called my wife all kinds of names, I get it, but dial it back a little. She's still a person, and she's still my wife. It's been a month since I found the second half of the debt. Here's what's happened since, we're still together. I know a lot of you told me to run for the hills and divorce her immediately, but relationships are complicated. After I confronted her about the Amex card, we had a really long, really painful conversation. There was a lot of crying, mostly her, some me, and a lot of harsh truths being thrown around. I told her I was considering divorce. I told her I was considering divorce. and I meant it. She begged me to give her another chance, said she'd do anything to make it right.

I'm not sure if I'm giving her that chance because I still love her or because divorce seems like an enormous hassle and expense, or maybe a bit of both. I've taken complete control of the finances, but she can still see everything, and we discuss money regularly. I set up all the accounts on my email now, and I get alerts for every transaction. This has been a huge adjustment for me, since I've always hated dealing with financial stuff, but I'm learning. YouTube tutorials have been my friend, I set up Mint, big, thanks to those who recommended it, which has been super helpful, though the net worth column makes me want to throw up every time I see it. For anyone wondering, it's a budgeting app that tracks all your accounts in one place.

Way easier to use than a nab in my opinion, especially for someone like me who isn't naturally good with money, I didn't set up a separate bank account like some people suggested. I thought about it, but we have direct deposits and automatic bill payments linked to our joint account, and it seemed like a hassle to change everything. Plus, I can monitor the joint account easily now with the alerts. She gave up all her credit cards without a fight, and I've hidden them away. I thought about cutting them up like many of you said to do, but I figured that could cause problems if I needed to cancel subscriptions or something,

or if we had a genuine emergency. My logic might be flawed, but since hiding them, exactly $0 has been spent on them, so I think it's working for now. I keep them in my desk drawer at work where she can't access them, she has a debit card that she's only supposed to use for gas and groceries from our agreed-upon list. I had to explain to her multiple times what agreed-upon list means. No, a $6 coffee is not a grocery essential. No, we don't need organic everything when we're trying to pay off debt, we're now about

$800 less in debt, which feels like nothing compared to the total, but at least we're moving in the right direction. It's slow going, but we've made all our minimum payments plus a little extra. Better than digging the whole deeper, I guess, we've mostly stuck to the budget I planned out. I say mostly because... Well, keep reading. Unfortunately, our relationship has has suffered big time. I wish I could say everything's great now that we have a plan, but that would be a lie. I checked the transactions on her card every day, and at least twice a week there are things on there she shouldn't have bought. Nothing huge, but little stuff that adds up. When I bring it up, she always has an excuse ready, I withdrew $20 to buy Girl Scout cookies

from a client's daughter, but since I can't have them because of my gluten allergy, I told them to just take the money as a donation. Or I had to get lunch because I forgot my packed lunch at home. Or the shampoo was on sale so I got two bottles instead of one. I can't bring myself to believe these excuses. I know she's lying at least some of the time, like when there's a Starbucks cup in the car but no Starbucks charge on the card, which means she took out cash somewhere else to hide the purchase.

I don't want to start a fight over $20, but I also can't tell when she's, she's being honest anymore. Until a month ago, I thought she never lied to me. Now I second-guess everything she says. The worst part is feeling like her parent instead of her partner. I never wanted to be in the position of monitoring someone else's spending and saying no to things. It makes me feel controlling and weird, but what choice do I have?

If I don't keep an eye on things, we'll never get out of debt. I want to clarify something, I've always been a track. to strong, independent women. I fell for her when I was 18 and she was 17 because she seemed so mature and self-sufficient for her age. She had a decent job, for a 17-year-old, was moving out of her parents' place, had her own car. She had her shit together, you know. I never wanted a traditional stay-at-home wife, I wanted a career partner. While we were dating, she was all about career advancement, long-term plans, traveling together, etc. She talked about starting her own business someday, and I was completely supportive of that.

Now I'm worried I was wearing rose-colored glasses. Maybe because I wanted her to be this strong, independent woman, I ignored her faults. And maybe she went out of her way to act like the kind of woman she knew I wanted. I'm not saying she planned some elaborate deception or anything, but people sometimes show you what they think you want to see, especially early in a relationship. Whenever I find her spending money on things outside our budget, I either have to let it slide, which seems bad, or I have to basically ground a grown-ass woman from her debit card. I hate doing that. I hate the idea of my wife being my subordinate, like I have to punish or police her. It makes me feel like a

controlling asshole. Not to mention it's completely killed our intimacy. It's really difficult to want to have sex with someone you just had to scold for breaking a budget they agreed to. We've barely touched each other in the past month. This also spills over into other areas of our life. Like, we'll be watching TV and a commercial comes on for some product, and I'll make an offhand comment like that looks cool and she'll immediately say, but we can't afford it, right? Because we're poor now.

In this passive-aggressive tone. or she'll see friends posting vacation photos on social media and make pointed comments about how we used to be able to take trips. Despite her telling me she's sorry and feels terrible, I feel like I'm fighting this battle alone. Instead of being my partner and finding ways to help, I have to actively prevent her from doing more damage. She could also pick up more hours at work or look for a better paying job, but whenever I suggest it, she says she needs time for her studies.

which I get, but her grades aren't even that great, so I'm not sure what she's doing with all that study time. Plus, plenty of students work full-time and still manage decent grades. I did. Several people recommended marriage counseling and or therapy for her. I asked her to find a therapist, saying if the therapist thought we should do couples counseling after talking with her, I'd be happy to do it. I reminded her to find a therapist every day for the first week, and a month later, she still hasn't. At this point, it's pretty clear she's deliberately avoiding it. When I bring it up now, she says she looked but couldn't find anyone taking new patients, or they're all too expensive, or some other excuse.

I offered to help her look, and she got defensive and said she'd handle it. Part of me thinks she doesn't want to go to therapy because she'd have to be honest about her spending habits and whatever underlying issues are causing them. It's easier to just promise to do better and then keep doing the same things, I guess. We're still together, but I haven't forgiven her, and I'm harboring a lot of resentment. I'm afraid of doing something I'll regret, so I'm stuck in limbo. It's not even about the money anymore. Your advice and perspective would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading this far. Update 2, Hey Everyone, I figured I should be should be very much. post one last update. I honestly didn't expect anyone to still care about this, but I got a few DMs asking how things turned out. Some people have been surprisingly invested in our story, which is kind of touching, to be honest. I don't know how else to put this. We're still together, we're still in love, and as of today, we're debt-free. Yeah, I know that probably wasn't the update most of you expected based on my last post. A lot of you thought we were headed for divorce, and honestly, there were times when I thought so too. But we managed to

turn things around. The first couple months after my last update were really rough. We had a few big fights, including one where I actually packed a bag and stayed at a friend's place for two days. That was kind of a wake-up call for both of us. When I came back, we had a long, honest conversation about whether we wanted to save our marriage or not. We both decided we did, but that things couldn't continue the way they were going. We finally set aside our pride and went to counseling, a big thank you to the Redditors who pushed me to do this, which was a huge help. I ended up finding a therapist myself since she wasn't making any progress on that front. The therapist recommended a financial counselor who specializes in couples, and that was honestly a game

changer. Turns out there's a lot of emotional stuff tied up in how people handle money, and having a neutral third party help us work through it made a big difference. Our financial counselor helped us create a realistic budget that we could both stick to, with some built-in flexibility so it didn't feel like a straitjacket. She also helped us identify the emotional triggers that led to my wife's overspending. Apparently, it's pretty common for people to shop as a way to deal with stress or anxiety, which is what my wife was doing. She wasn't just being selfish or careless, she was using shopping as a coping mechanism. Obviously that doesn't excuse the lying, but understanding the root cause helped us address the actual problem instead of just the symptoms. She stayed in school,

at my insistence, but started working her ass off. She took more hours at her regular job and took any odd job she could find. Babysitting, dog sitting, house sitting. How sick? sitting, face sitting, kidding. She gave up a huge chunk of her nights and weekends and really reigned in her impulse purchases. Her grades suffered a bit, but now she'll be able to cut way back on work and focus more on school. I'm really proud of how hard she worked to help fix the mess she created. It would have been easier for her to just let me handle it all, especially since I was the one who made most of the money, but she really stepped up. She contributed over 40% of the debt payments from her own earnings, which meant a lot to me. It showed she was serious

about making things right. It's been 10 months, but I feel like we've matured 10 years. Wow, that sounds uppity as fuck. A, who cares, I'm excited. We're much better at communicating and managing money. We've learned how to go on cheap dates, and we're both better cooks now. We drink and eat out a lot less, so we're both healthier. I honestly don't think this could have turned out better. Our relationship still isn't perfect. I still have moments where I remember the lies and feel angry or hurt. She still occasionally buys things without discussing them first, though she's gotten much better about sticking to our budget. But we've developed new habits and ways of communicating that make these issues manageable. A big thank you to all of you. I got a lot of

of great advice both in my threads and from reading others. I'm grateful for all of it.