Dom and I are approaching our 1 year anniversary since we've jumped the broom. It's hard to believe how quickly time has flown. For the most part Dom and I have been doing good. I mean we've been living together for more than six years prior. We align on most issues and I feel we bring out the best in each other. I can't imagine how my life would've been BD (Before Dom).
With that said there's been one issue that has been a constant annoyance since we've first met. When it comes to finances, Dom is not a good manager of money. When Dom and I first met I remember him saying that he had zero debt. I remember thinking that was pretty amazing little knowing that he did have some consumer debt (Best Buy) which I found out about a couple years into the relationship. Also I learned that he had no concept of saving.
The one thing that stood out clearly were the hundreds of dolls that he had on display in his house. Doing it over again I would've ran away right then and there. Dom said that he tried to give me some outs (which actually now that I think about it, he did). But as I said before I feel like both of us were looking for an escape from our situations and chose to stick things out when it would've been so much easier to walk away.
Dom spent a pretty penny (even with him "catching sales") on his collection. The cost of each doll varies but I've seen them as high as $600 or more. With no savings and a school teacher's salary, he was always broke the day after payday. It didn't help that he was constantly buying things on E-bay and always tooting that he got it at a good price.
I've found myself "bailing" him out on multiple occasions. In time that built resentment from me since I grew weary of being the only responsible one. My biggest bailout was charging over $6000 in my credit card when his Ford Ranger needed a new engine since he wasn't able to cover it.
I implored Dom to try and save a little bit of money and I even got him to open a savings account that was tied to our joint account. The interest of course was miniscule but at least it was a start. But there were many times he would deplete the joint account and then the bank would charge an overdraft fee and then charge another fee to take money out of the savings account.
The original purpose of the joint account was for each of us to contribute money in it to pay our common household bills like the mortgage, gas, and electric. But he would dip into the joint to pay for his doll hobby and then he stopped putting money in it altogether. Yet he would still dip into it whenever he depleted his cash from his account.
In the last year I decided to just pay most of our common bills from my own account since he wasn't putting money into the joint. I still put in money and a cushion in case Dom dips to pay the mortgage but only because our mortgage is tied to the same bank. They had the audacity one time Dom overextended to take the payment I made for our mortgage to cover his checking. Then they tacked a late fee for the mortgage. That pissed me off royally so now I'm constantly having to check the joint since there is no real savings anymore and I do not want them taking the mortgage payment again.
I've been working so hard to try to pay off my debt too and I wrote on here previously how I was close to paying it off (even though barring current circumstances I would likely need another month to pay it off). But one of Dom's main enabler of doll fashions reached out to him last Monday demanding payment for all the clothes that he purchased from her. His debt from last year's convention alone is over $4000. So I shudder to think what he owes her from all the previous years. He claims to know the amount but won't tell me what it is. I fear it may be anywhere from 20K - 30K. She also mentioned that he didn't pay for this year's convention, which will take place in Atlanta next week. So Dom's solution like with his car and with some medical bills two years was for me to pay his $4000+ debt with my credit card.
You can imagine that did not sit well with me. The thing is I know I made my bed when I moved in with him and married him but I was pissed that once again when I was trying so hard to pay off my own debt (a lot of it I accumulated when my contract job ended in 2018) and was almost near the finish line, he threw a monkey wrench my way.
I feel like I will never get out of my debt hole. If I pay his $4000 off completely, he won't have to face the consequences for his actions. But I did marry him for better or for worse. As a compromise I told him I would pay $2000 of his debt and he would have to send her a payment every two weeks to pay the rest. He was okay for now with the compromise. I have to work out a way to pay her.
What a mess. I never thought I would find myself in this situation. I keep praying for a financial miracle (which actually my current job is...though it's still work) but it hasn't arrived yet.
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