33-year-old woman regrets “badly misjudging” her husband and trusting him with finances: ‘I’m divorcing him and having our finances investigated, but I’m really struggling to reconcile his behavior with the person I thought I married’

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Olivia Arocena • Writer and Editor
Oct 10, 2026 1:45 PM EDT

Sometimes the person we now know is exactly the same person we married; we just thought they were different back then

Only if we were raised by someone who taught us to watch how our love interests handle finances can we escape what happened to the woman who wrote this story. Honestly, that would be pretty clever advice, but sadly, very few people actually get it.

We grow up watching romantic movies that don't resemble reality at all, so when we feel attracted to someone, we project all these fantasies onto them, and forget to check whether they clean up after themselves or whether they handle money well enough to live with us.

The cultural narrative surrounding love is filled with fantasies, and when we are at the beginning of a romantic relationship, we see everything through rose-tinted glasses. We tend to think our partners can do no wrong and that we're perfect for each other.

That said, not everything can be prevented, and it's only natural to find some things we don't like about our partners after some time sharing our lives with them. What I think we can prevent is how hard we will fall. Let's all collectively learn to check the right things before jumping into marriage!

Luckily, nowadays marriages can be undone. If you really don't like how your partner handles finances but like how he handles everything else, you can split your bills from theirs or live separately! We live in a wonderful time for alternative couples. You just have to recover from the tough blow first.

The first part of love always ends; the fun part is what you do with it afterwards, whether you choose to work on it or run away. It's all part of life, and disillusionment will definitely happen sometimes. What would you, dear reader, do in her situation?

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  • Cheezburger Image 10669582080
    via Vitaly Gariev

    We got married in a fever 

    Stock photography for depiction only

  • ‘I’m divorcing him and having our finances investigated, but I’m really struggling to reconcile his behavior with the person I thought I married’

    I'm the primary earner, but my husband of five years, controls our finances, and I'm only now realizing how extensive the dishonesty may have been.
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  • I'm divorcing him and having our finances investigated, but I'm really struggling to reconcile his behavior with the person I thought I married. When we met, he had a
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  • demanding, well respected career and seemed competent and ethical. Everyone seemed to trust him. Throughout our marriage, I was either in intense
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  • professional training or working a cognitively demanding job where I'm responsible for many people's lives. Because he had more free time, I let him manage the finances. I
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  • thought I was delegating administrative work, not surrendering my right to know what happened to my income. My income went into our
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  • joint account and paid the mortgage, while his income remained entirely under his control. He never contributed to the joint account as planned, so we had a verbal agreement
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  • about how expenses would be divided. When I tried to verify if he was actually paying, his explanations repeatedly changed. He eventually
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  • admitted that I had been covering most of our shared expenses. When I asked why he made decisions about my income without telling me, he said things like:
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  • "You would say yes anyway." "You didn't ask before, so I'm not telling you now." "All the bills got paid, and you earn plenty of money,
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  • so there's nothing to complain about." Meanwhile, he spends heavily on an expensive hobby and investments. After months of pressure, I also gave him a significant
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  • amount of my money to invest. What he tells me those investments are worth varies dramatically. He mentioned margin loans which honestly I don't understand.
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  • Cheezburger Image 10669582336
    via Vitaly Gariev

    Not blindfolded anymore

    Models pictured are not representative

  • He also receives substantial dis ility income in addition to a new full time job. For years, he openly bragged about figuring out claims that could him him maximum benefits and not be
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  • disproven. He says that if the government approved them, there was nothing unethical about collecting the money. He now totally denies those conversations.
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  • The controlling behavior isn't limited to money. He wouldn't let me have male friends. He limits my alc ol intake (even though I rarely have more. than 1 or 2 drinks and only when I'm not working).
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  • Anyone have their partner change so much like this? I just don't know how to wrap my mind how wrong I was about him.
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  • EDIT: most of the financial issues came to the surface over the last few months and especially once I told him I'm divorcing him. I honestly had decided to divorce him because I felt
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  • physically sick every time we talked about children and I was still upset over the dis ility benefits. The dis lity benefits has always been an issue but the rest of the relationship
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  • had been going well at the time he did that and I was so busy with training that I didn't have the bandwidth to deal with it then.
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  • His_GoddessLove He just hid who he always was. It's what people like him do. They manipulate everyone around them, you've spent enough time the cracks are obvious to you.
    via His_GoddessLove
  • Assia_Penryn He's exactly the man you married, you just didn't see the red flags. He likely love bombed you and twisted his controlling warning signs as love and concern.
    via Assia_Penryn
  • Cheezburger Image 10669582592
    via Vitaly Gariev

    This is the end

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