by Cindi Clarke

Created on: March 18, 2009   Last Updated: March 27, 2009

His secrets began to reveal themselves shortly after we were married. They came in the form of collection letters and later, collection calls. His reaction was to ignore them. Throw them away. Delete the messages. But when I came home unexpectedly early from work one day and intercepted a phone call, then later found a letter that had fallen behind the trash can they were no longer secret. He blamed his ex-wife. "She" should have paid them with his enlistment bonus she got while he was overseas on a remote solo tour. They were for "her" daughter.

We fought for the first time over them. Yes, he had applied for the loans and he had signed and given his social security number while they were married. But he didn't care. If he just ignored them long enough they would eventually "go away." If we wanted to buy a bigger house to accomodate our new marriage and his son, then we could just rely on my income. My credit. He "loved" me, and our "love" would overcome anything.

I believed him at first. I wanted to believe that he loved me for me, and not for the financial security that I might be able to give him. We agreed that I would pay off his collection accounts to keep "our" credit good for "our" benefit. So that "we" could buy a new home "together." I refinanced my home for him, to pay off his collection accounts. I extended credit to purchase new bedroom furniture for his son when he didn't care for the existing furniture in my guest bedroom. I wanted to be a good step-mother, I wanted to become his friend. I wanted him to feel like he had a home with us even though he would only be with us for three to four months a year during school breaks.

But then my husband wanted more. He wanted a jet ski that "we" couldn't afford because I was paying an extra $300 a month for his collection accounts that I was having to pull out of thin air.

I was robbing Peter to pay Paul so that I could keep "our" credit good. His credit. He paid a little here and a little there towards the household expenses but it often wasn't enough because he always had the excuse of needing to pay more to his ex-wife to help "support" his son. He was already paying her $600 a month in child support, but he often paid her $100-300 more each month for "unexpected" expenses.

He went behind my back and got the jet ski anyway. I found out when he was forced to call me down to the bank to co-sign the loan in front of the seller and the bank loan officer because his credit was too bad to get the loan on his own.

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