I know many of you are struggling with difficult financial situations and I thought Sarah’s testimony might give you some hope and encouragement:
In February of last year, I felt led to go on a medical mission trip to Peru. I work in the health field, and until January of last year, my husband was a banker. He lost his job, but was fortunately able to find another in auto parts.
In the seven years of our marriage, he did all the finances, and I mean all. I simply used my credit card for everything and assumed he paid it off every month.
I was wrong.
I started looking into our situation to determine if we had the money to support my trip and, in doing so, I was shocked to discover we had over $15,000 in credit card debt alone, not to mention two mortgages, a student loan, and two cars! I felt betrayed and angry. I asked/demanded my way into taking care of the bills. He grudgingly allowed it, except for his credit cards.
He refused to talk to me about the situation or let me see his statements. We lived like angry roommates for a few months and my two-year old daughter cried whenever we were all together.
Close to our breaking point, he finally admitted that he was buying alcohol and that’s what he was hiding. He tried to stop on his own, but had to go to a hospital for detoxification. The alcohol, like our debt, had been a slow slide into the pit.
After much, much prayer, and God-given forgiveness, we are on our way to healing. He traded in his decked-out truck for a smaller car and better gas mileage. We have both stopped using credit cards and have started our Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball and I use coupons and avidly read MoneySavingMom.
Best of all, we can now talk about our money now without it turning into a fight and my daughter is turning into a Daddy’s girl. In six months, we have paid off $8000 of credit card debt!
My desire from the first has been that this would make us a stronger couple, and that our family would be a testimony to God’s grace. We would have surely fallen through the cracks and become another divorce statistic without His help.
Sarah loves to run, bake, and raise her two-year-old daughter.
Sarah, thank you for sharing your story. I pray that God will continue to bind your family together!
This is such a great story! I am so happy you were able to work through the difficulties you faced, so many marriages are destroyed by similar circumstances. You and your family are an inspiration to us all!
I really appreciate her honesty about her husband’s struggles. So many times I read blogs and feel like people have perfect lives with no problems! She has blessed a lot of people being honest about her life! May God richly bless them on their journey!
Great testimony! Sharing this with a friend that I think needs to hear it. Thank you! <3
I too did all the finances and racked up debt. Until I talked about it, I was getting nowhere. Now that my husband and family know, I feel so much more relief. I can sleep at night. We are working together.
Thank you for sharing your stry…and for confirming that people do get out of debt. We are on our way…slowly but surely.
That took A LOT of courage to share and her family is obviously stronger for her decision to become informed. I see no reason to be overtly negative in your response. We are all here at this blog to support one another as peers, mentors and friends…not to criticize! This is truly an amazinf forum for all of us to learn, share and grow as long as we can see the positive in our lives.
Thank you for sharing, Sarah. My dad was (and still is) an alcoholic while I was growing up, I’m glad you two were able to overcome his addiction while your kids were still little. You have a great testimony, very encouraging! Thanks again!
Thank you for sharing this story. My marriage has gone through and is still going through similar things, except I take care of the finances with what money I have available. My husband became a drug addict about 6 years ago. It took three years to figure out he had a problem, two years of complete misery, and now we are trying to climb out of the whole. Unfortunately, addiction has so many side effects on the whole family. We still have many issues, but he did make it through a program and it doing much better, by the grace of God. The one lesson I have learned is that life is not always peachy (like i thought is was in my 20’s), and God is the only one who can get me through each day… I am so very thankful for the good days and do my best to smile through the bad ones. Again, thank you for the story and may God bless your family.
Thank you so much for the story!
Crystal–please keep things like this coming! I enjoy this aspect of your website more than the couponing ideas. 🙂
Thanks so much for your story ! It is so encouraging. I too am facing huge financial difficulties and started couponing to at least get a little relief and yes – even just have the ability to buy basics like paper towels and toilet paper for my home (single mom of 5 kids). Ex (4 amazing boys from this marriage) isnt helping and I have a newborn with my fiancee of 2 years but he lives 200 miles away and when I got pregnant last year – I had lost my job as did he prior to that. Very rough road… I was able to get a job during my pregnancy but they fired me due to the fact I took too long coming back to work after my daughter (Bella Grace) was born two months ago… :(. I took 3 weeks – and after 2 was trying to get a schedule with them to come back…. Anyways… very overwhelming and stories like this give hope where there is none… thanks so much for sharing…. looking for a light as well!
Inspired by you all!
I hope one day to have a story of becoming debt free to share. Right now we are in the middle of nowhere. My husband is in grad school trying to finish his master’s degree. I work part time, desperate to be a SAHM, and we just make ends meet. With working as a social worker for a state funded organization, my husband hasn’t had a raise in 3 years and our health ins goes up every six months. He enrolled in grad school with the promise of his education being paid for by his employer only to have that promise broken a year into it. Now we have student loan debts coming out our ears. We have tried to be very responsible with our money, but because we haven’t been able to save for an emergency fund unexpected expenses have put us into credit card debt too. I look forward to the day we are debt free. My husband is making such a difference in children’s lives. I just wish that the pay would come with it. ONE DAY!!!
Even more miraculous than the financial issue is the fact that he is not drinking. If this is true, you are very fortunate! Many alcoholics cannot recover after just going to detox. My soon to be ex-husband started drinking too much a couple of years ago and despite multiple detoxes, rehabs, meetings, lost jobs, etc. he couldn’t stop. He is currently dry, having just left rehab, but I am not too hopeful for him.
So, if your hubby could really just quit drinking like that, you are truly blessed! I’d take $50k in credit card debt to have my husband not be an alcoholic!
Wow, what a testimony!! Thanks so much for sharing, and may God’s grace continue to strengthen your family!
This is SO inspiring, because it’s coming from a totally raw, truthful place. It’s hard to admit these kinds of weaknesses to *ourselves*, let alone our families, friends, doctors, counselors, etc. But it helps so much, to know we’re not alone in our struggles in life. This honest story is a profound service to all who read it.
Thank you for sharing this!!
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I know there are many others in similar situations, and hearing how you pursued God’s will even when you might have wanted to walk away instead is an inspiration.
Thank you so much for sharing you story.
That’s a very powerful story. Thank you for having the courage to share it. Good luck to you guys.
Sarah, thank you for sharing your story. I had a similiar pitfall into credit card debt (due to bipolar mania).
Except it was me who was sick and me who was hiding the credit card debt (I racked up a good 22,000$ before my suicide attempt and subsequential diagnosis of mental illness).
So no, this is not Sarah’s fault or anyone else’s fault who lets one spouse manage the finances (for the record, I still manage the finances but now that I’m healthy, do it in a honest and frugal manner). It is what it is, life happens, but the beautiful thing is that Sarah was able to forgive her husband and her husband sought treatment and recovered.
As someone who deeply hurt their spouse by doing this, I appreciate hearing your side. It’s so hard to believe that my husband can be as wonderfully forgiving as he has been. Now that I’m well on the road to recovery and we are much more open with one another, we’ve got about a year left until we’ll be calling Dave Ramsey to scream we’re debt free!
what’s the saying, “no rain no rainbows” sometimes it does take a bad thing to make a good one. Job loss has really helped us realize the really important things in life too. Good luck to you and your family.
Very inspirational.
I don’t think it’s gender-specific. Whenever someone doesn’t have accountability with finances, there is always a danger (and greater temptation) to not be as responsible.
Oh Nicole, you are so right and I speak from experience. I took care of the finances for our family and our debt situation is similar to the author’s. However, if I had been open and discussed things with my hubby, we probably wouldn’t be in the situation we are today but like you said, it comes down to being irresponsible because there was no accountability.
Many blessings to your family. Thanks for sharing your story. We too are in over our heads and working hard to get out of debt. We now work together on our budget and make joint decisions and are using the debt snowball as well. With God’s help, we hope to be completely debt free soon!
I salute your courage in sharing this story. God bless you!
Crystal, I love seeing these success stories. Sarah, thanks for sharing your story. Congratulations on your amazing success. I pray that God will continue to heal your family.
nice story, alright, but need some tips as to taming the lion..how did you manage to get him over buying alcohol? tears, sticks or logic?
As the wife of a recovering alcoholic (he’ll have a full year of sobriety next month!) I have to say that there aren’t any tips to give. I eventually had to separate from my husband while pregnant with our second child and didn’t come back until he was involved with a recovery process. Even then it still took him 3 months of relapse for him to finally make the decision for sobriety.
It’s an ugly, ugly disease, or whatever you want to call it. Al-anon teaches those in close relation to an alcoholic to remember that “you didn’t cause it, you can’t control it and you can’t cure it.” It sounds like tht would be a depressing reality to accept, but it really helped me.
Being a guy who takes care of most of the finances. I think it helps to have both work on it. It can’t be a one person game. We have also done Dave Ramseys’ snowball back in 2008 and paid off and got rid of all of our credit cards. Being students it wasn’t easy but we did it and we have had a credit card since. Your story is inspiring and a testimony that one person doing the finances just don’t work.
Actually, my husband is far more thrifty and financially disciplined than I am.
I do think that it is important for couples to work together as a team to make financial plans/resolutions, and I sometimes believe that refusing to deal with financial decisions (or putting one partner in charge of the finances) is just one way of sticking your head in the sand and denying that anything could be amiss. It is also lacking in maturity. I want to be a partner to my husband in every way– and we are two adults who like to dream together and share accountability for living the life we intend!
I completely agree.
What I find significant about this story is how the credit card debt was really just a symptom of brokeness in the marriage and household. Interesting because money problems are touted as the leading cause of divorce. Anyway, what an inspiring story. Addiction is brutal to everyone involved and it takes it’s toll in so many ways. Thank you for sharing and I wish you continued success and healing.
It is so refreshing to see a story so raw and real. It is truly an inspiring story, and it is apparent that your family has learned from this situation and became stronger because of it. Congratulations on your progress, I wish you the best!
Thanks for sharing your testimony with us Sarah! God can work miracles and I fully believe that Dave Ramsey’s book and teachings are one gift he has given us all! I have been reading his book and have set up a debt snowball plan for my husband and me. My husband who has never been interested in our finances has all of the sudden become very excited about paying off our car loans and mortgage. I really love the quote that Dave has in his book over and over on every page “Live like no one else so later you can live like no one else!” Being a banker myself this book is changing the whole way that I look at debt and lending. Congratulations Sarah on the debt you have paid off so far and I am so happy that through all of the trials you have gone thru that you and your husband have become a stronger couple! Blessings on you and your family! -Rachel 🙂
Sarah,
Thank you for your courage to share your story. Your journey is the “realness” we don’t like to talk about but your transparancy in your situation is inspiring. This makes you a “wounded healer” and God will use you and your husband to speak into the lives of others. He already has. We expectantly hope hearts will be changed on mission trips. This time hearts and lives were changed as a result of the mission trip that didn’t happen.
Thanks again for sharing.
Kim, I’ve never thought about it like that – “hearts and live were changed as a result of a mission trip not happening.” Thank you for helping me get over that last disappointment.
Wasn’t that beautiful? I’m so thankful you shared your story here.
That is a beautiful and courageous story of a revived marriage and recovery in every sense. A definite testimony to God of his miracles in life.
Yes! I totally agree! BEAUTIFUL story. I can’t wait to see where God takes you next!!
Took the word right out of my mouth. Thanks for sharing your story, very uplifting and encouraging!
What an awesome testimony that shows great courage. We too were almost torn apart by alcohol and then, two years after my husband’s real estate and development company went under, and a year after a DUI for my husband and subsequent sobriety, my 15 year old daughter’s suicide attempt. Talk about an awakening! We are now well on the road to recovery in all aspects and in fact today finished our $1000 emergency fund and are down to two medical bills and $7700 in cc debt. It took so much to get where we are — hitting bottom not once, not twice, but three times is a hard learned lesson. But we are the better for it and it CAN be done and is being done all the time.
What a wonderful story! I wish you and your family continued sucess.
Awesome!! Great story! Thanks so much for sharing!
3 years ago this October, I hit my “breaking point” also in regards to our finances. My husband lost his job that August when we were 5 months pregnant with our 3rd child. He found another job within a week that was better paying and WAY better hours. Unfortunately, that December, he was laid off. In those 3 years we added our fourth child and have cut our debt in half, not bad for two part time jobs 😀 We squeezed into a 2-bedroom twinhome to save money. After we pay one more loan off, we’ll be massively saving for a new home, and we’ll rent this one out to help pay off even more of our debt. We hope in the next 2 years to be competely debt free. I love hearing people changing their lives to live better ones 😀 Nice work, Sarah 😀
Great post! Congrats on your success! 🙂 Wish you the best!
Great work. DR made us a better family I believe.
My husband I and had our share of issues with regard to money-I refused to ever get a credit card in college because I knew that I would not be as responsible as I would like. My husband got a credit card when he got his job and the hole started. We are $3,000 away from having all that debt payed off. My husband found Total Money Makeover and it has changed our life! Our marriage is better, we talk about all financial decisions and we are our our way to being debt free :o) It feels so good!
Wow! That was very brave to share that! Thank you, Sarah, and best wishes as you complete this journey!