Toxic Marriage: Debt, Secrets, and Betrayal
by Anonymous
Have you ever been in a situation where you feel something is WRONG? You have no burning proof, but a gut feeling? Read K’s story on how she learned to trust her gut, rely on family, and make the decision to leave a toxic relationship.
Heading Into a Toxic Relationship
One of the most exciting parts about finally being married to someone who had been my best friend since I was fourteen was changing my relationship status from engaged to married & changing my last name from my maiden name to his.
Toxic relationships usually start off the same as any relationship does: happy and exciting. Because I had dated my spouse for such a long time before we were married, I assumed I knew exactly what our marriage was going to be like.
Unfortunately, that assumption was far from the truth. Choosing to end this marriage was the one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made, but being in that relationship taught me a lot of important lessons.
The biggest lesson I learned from being married for ten months is that being married to someone is an incredibly different kind of commitment than merely dating someone.
For three years, I thought that he was the one who got away. We dated for three years in high school before he left for university. It truly felt like fate for our lives to collide when both happened to be at a Valentine’s Day party for singles that neither of us planned to attend until that very day.
My heart told me that it must be destiny when he told me that he still loved me and that he didn’t want to lose me ever again. We were engaged only one week later.
Lies About Being Debt Free
Because I truly wanted to believe that we were finally destined to be together, it was easy to ignore lots of red flags throughout our ten-month engagement. Explaining things away was easy for me, even when he refused to discuss his finances or when I was alone in the hospital for a week after my appendectomy.
We were married in December 2018 and had the most beautiful wedding reception. It truly was a magical night and honeymoon.
We celebrated the new year in Epcot at Disney World. After the parties were over, it was back to the real world.
He moved into my family’s house into my bedroom, and we both returned to our jobs. I quickly started to notice that something wasn’t quite right, and at first, I couldn’t quite explain what it was.
I pushed those feelings away by officially legally changing my last name and spending lots of time with his family. Those were the only times I truly got to see him was when I would meet him at his family’s house.
Most times when I would get home, he’d already be asleep. For the next few months, I kept having a nagging feeling that he was hiding something from me, especially after getting a call from a debt collector on my birthday in March 2019.
When I noticed a few important looking letters come in the mail for him, I did something very uncharacteristic of myself and opened them to investigate. Even before our marriage, I was aware that he was not debt free, which I had come to terms with before saying “I do.”
What I wasn’t expecting was that debt to be anything different from what I was told. We were definitely NOT debt free.
Secrets Come Out in Marriage
I came to learn that his car loan was much larger than I expected, there were multiple credit cards that had missing payments, and two separate private student loans both in collections (at this point in time he didn’t have an Associate’s Degree yet).
To say I was shocked was an understatement, but I sat him down and helped him create a budget to keep him from over drafting his account. The next day, we merged our bank accounts and set up automatic payments.
Things still didn’t feel quite right in our marriage. He was still incredibly distant, and we rarely got to see each other except on days he wasn’t working.
I had quite a lot going on in my own life also, so I tried to be extra understanding. I was in school full-time completing my last semester of my Associate’s degree and working full-time.
When he lost his job and ended his classes in May, I still didn’t see very much of him. I had assumed it was because he was spending so much time trying to find a job.
Things came to a crossroads though when my Mom received a call from a friend about his Mother saying terrible things about me to all of her friends. She was telling everyone that I was having multiple affairs and selling drugs behind their backs, which was so far from the truth.
The Final Straw and Getting a Divorce Lawyer
When I brought this up to my husband, he shrugged it off and said that whoever said that must be crazy, which is what I was hoping was the case. We kept receiving these calls and messages though, so I had my Mom do a little investigation, and we found out that he was the one telling his Mother these things about me.
He even instructed her to tell everyone. My family reunion was to be that week, and he told me that he didn’t want to go so I made the twelve-hour drive without him.
I did a lot of contemplating that week away, and when I came back home, I knew what had to be done. I told him the things that I had learned that he did and expressed that I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get through them without an apology, and he was going to have to leave the next morning with all his belongings.
I gave him as much time as I felt like I emotionally could before meeting with an divorce lawyer in September. From the time he left up until our divorce, I kept hoping that he would come back and go to counseling with me to work on our relationship, but he never did.
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It took less than a month from the first time I met with divorce lawyer for my divorce to be finalized.
I’ve done a lot of beating myself up over whether or not there was something I could’ve done to save our relationship, but I remind myself every day that in order to make a relationship work, both people have to be invested in bettering themselves.
Because of how sacredly I view marriage, I never expected myself to be someone who would ever consider divorce, hiring a divorce lawyer, and going through the process. However, I truly believe that if I were to have stayed married to him, it would be disrespecting myself.
Thankfully, even though I wasn’t even looking for anyone to join my life, I had the opportunity to meet someone who I truly believe I was meant to find. He is debt free, loving, and very kind.
He has shown me what a truly healthy relationship is supposed to look like, so now I’m able to look back at my past with a much clearer mind.
Though it was the one of the hardest times of my life, I do believe it was something that I needed to go through in order to appreciate the good he brings to my life.
What did you learn from this story? Have you had an experience in a toxic relationship? Comment your thoughts and stories below.
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