Those words

Those were words I never expected to be spoken from my daughter’s mouth. I was shocked, but, in reality, I should not have been surprised. I just don’t know if they will really come into action. I really hope not.

She said she would file divorce papers. She said that she should have listened to the little voice in the back of her head shouting that they were from different social levels. They were voices that told her he would never be able to shed the lessons learned from his parents.
What brought this to be? Was it cheating with another woman? No, quite simply it was keeping a devastating secret - again. S does not know how to handle money. He has never been taught the proper way to manage any money.

Several months ago, K called me after finding a collection notice for S. He had taken out, without her knowledge, a credit card. He was $13,000 in debt, and the company was going to collect. She was crushed. She had been fully aware of his poor credit rating, and it was their decision that she would handle the money.

In the beginning of their marriage, there wasn’t much money to handle. They didn’t make much. Over the years, they have had their salaries increase, and through K’s careful handling, they are in good financial shape.

She arranged to have the debt paid off over the course of several months. In fact she was making the final payment on that debt when she thought she would run their credit reports. That’s when she found them. Two open credit cards, each with outstanding balances on them again.

She felt she had been cheated on. I really don’t think she would have been hurt more had she found he had been having an affair. She felt so crushed because he had hidden something like this knowing how important it is to her.

His family does things like this. They open accounts, then never pay them. His parents, to get utilities, would open accounts in their children’s name, and then not pay. They would manage to get cars, only to have them repossessed. It has come to light that once they bought a refrigerator and used one of S’s friends names as a reference. The friend got the calls when they skipped out on that debt.

As of now, she is giving him another chance. She will pay these off as well, but she cannot take another fall. He claims he wants to be more like our family, but it seems this leopard cannot lose its spots.