WITBA if I spoke to my former sisters in law about my ex husband’s financial situation.
Quick back story for context: I (47F) was married to a man we will call Eddie, (53M) for 10 years. We’ve been divorced for 2.5 years now. During our marriage I developed a close relationship with his sisters that I still maintain to this day.
My ex husband was not very financially literate and I handled all finances in our family while married. We had 6 kids between us and we provided everything for them. I’m a widow and his first wife did not support the kids financially at all.
Finances were also a source of stress in our relationship, because of major things he had hidden at the start of our marriage that caused me to have to pay $40K of money I earned before we were married to keep us from foreclosure/bankruptcy/taxes. This is why I took over after we’d been married a little over a year. His financial irresponsibility was one of many reasons I asked for a divorce. When we separated, I found out he had opened credit cards in his name and was over $8k in debt on them with only $175 in his checking account. He makes $150K a year and gave me a portion of each check for household expenses. Any money he spent was solely for his hobbies or meals he ate without the family or outside of the home. He also only had $40K in his 401K so he wasn’t stashing money there either.
When our divorce was final a year later, he was $50K in debt. He received $44K from my 401K and another $50K in cash from the sale of the house. I would’ve thought he would have paid the debt off with the cash so that he could start with a clean slate. I just received a call and a letter stating he’s more than $50K in debt still and his credit score as dropped over 100 points as it appears he has maxed out multiple credit cards, the letter only mentioned a high credit usage, less than 20% of his credit was available. The collections contacted me as they thought we were still married which would make me liable so no, I didn’t do anything illegal.
Here’s my conundrum: he’s been dating a woman about 20 years younger with three kids, he was her boss when they started dating so she quit her job and remained unemployed for 10 months so I can only assume he was covering her bills. She’s still legally married and has a bit of a history of using men and then returning to her husband for a while and then starting the cycle over again.
I have no ill will towards my ex, he isn’t a bad guy, he just wasn’t a good husband for me. I don’t want to see him desolate, used, and downtrodden and either not being able to retire or trying to live off of social security, unfortunately that seems to be the path he’s headed unless there’s an intervention and awareness that this woman may just be using him. He takes her on trip constantly, buys her jewelry, concert tickets for her and all the kids. None of this is cheap and should be manageable on his salary if he weren’t in so much debt already.
I’m genuinely worried about him as are our kids (we didn’t have any bio kids together but I raised my bonus kids through their critical years and am still very close to them). The kids are all over 18 but are not aware of his financial issues, nor do I think they should be. As mentioned previously, I am still very close to my sisters in law, we talk or text several times a week, our discussions never include him. He is also close with them and they can have very frank conversations with him.
Should I alert his sisters to my concerns about his finances and the woman he’s dating? I feel like they may be able to talk some sense into him.
I’m not a bitter ex at all, I genuinely want the best for him in life. I took a job across country and I’ve moved on and am in a wonderful relationship. He dated a wonderful woman while we were separated, but he wasn’t ready for a new relationship then and really broke her heart. I was truly hoping they would work out because she was a really positive and supportive influence in his life. This new woman seems to be the opposite.