Money Matters
soontobecapek
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How do I tell him I know?
Ok so the BF is a wonderful man, but nobody is perfect, and I think I came across T's flaw. I came across a collection bill when he wasn't home the other day and it took my breath away. This is a very serious (as in nearly 6 digits) issue, but I don't know how to address it. I know he isn't paying it because I know his bank account. I know where every bit of it goes. He pays all his current bills, so I had no idea he had medical bills this astronomical. I feel like it's important enough not to ignore it, but I don't know how to bring it up without him thinking I was snooping or becoming self conscious about it. This is a very serious relationship and we are expecting our first kid in 3 months. Am I taking this wrong? How do I go to him about it?
Re: How do I tell him I know?
Other regulars know more about collections stuff than me, but I'd imagine what will need to happen is BF will need to start saving until he has a substantial enough sum to settle the debt. In the meantime, make sure to keep all your accounts, CCs, etc. separate.
The separate issue here is the relationship issue. Did you feel he was hiding or keeping this from you personally? Because that would be a major red flag to me. If it's more of a lie of omission, it's still something you'll need to work through. H and I didn't lay our financial cards on the table until we were very close to engagement. We both had some icky stuff-a ton of CC debt for me, a history of late SL payments for him. We both wanted to change, however, and provided each other with emotional and strategic support for getting on track before combining finances after the wedding. Good luck. When you do talk to him, the attitude of his reaction will speak loads to me about how to proceed.
Finally, make sure he's got health insurance to avoid this type of thing going forward. It's still open enrollment for ACA plans until February.
So is he your boyfriend or your husband?? (that makes a difference!) You say BF in your post, but then there also is the siggy that says you have been married 7 years???
How old is the bill? Will it soon fall off any collections?
With all the talk of buying a house years ago, then the car - how/ why was this not discovered -- or is the medical bill a new charge?
I wasn't snooping it was a legit cleaning up mail. He didn't put it back in the envelope. Just laid it on the envelope. I think if he was trying to hide it he would have worked harder. To be honest I never asked so I think it was more something we just haven't discussed. I'm aware of his surgery that resulted in the bill I just didn't know there was a bill.
Same-this didn't even occur to me as "snooping" since we open each other's mail regularly just to keep the piles down. We did pre-marriage, too.
OP, I'd just say, "I found this. Can we work out a plan to help you deal with it?" If he's a good guy who wants to deal with it, he'll be relieved and open to the conversation. If he reacts poorly or out of anger, then that's a different problem altogether.
Come clean about finding it, but watch his reaction to see if he is surprised by this. The reason I'm saying this is when I married my husband I was aware of his debit issues. While doing a yearly check up on the reports I ordered his report from Transunion, which we hadn't done in the past, normally I had just done Experian. Well there were medical bills on Transunion that didn't show on either of other two Credti reporting companies (I had ordered all 3 at that time when I found this). So I called and did some reasearch and found out what they were for. We weren't getting any notices in the mail for these bills, I had been handling his bills/mail for almost two years at this point. Now that we've paid this and a few others (which we knew about) we're getting others popping out of the woodwork who all of sudden want their money. I've been sending a few "please verify the debt" letters to make sure the debts are legit. At one point we had two different collection companies trying to collect on the same debt. I'm not saying that his medical bills are fake. But my husband didn't honestly remember getting any bills in the beginning. And they weren't crazy big bills, it was a lot of $30.00, $25.00, $80.00 but it added up. Once you address if he realized he had this debt, then you can decide what you want to do going forward. And yes I realize my husband could have been "faking his reaction" but when I was going over the list of debts I found on his credit report and I was like, do you remember x company, yes I do. Do you remember y company, yes I do, Do you remember the medical bills, what, what medical bills. That was the reaction I got. That's how I know he wasn't hiding it from me. He was honestly shocked by the medical bills owed.