Till Debt Do Us Part: One Woman’s Story of Money Lies, Secrets and Divorce

Doug Chayka Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

For Mary Anderson, the first sign of trouble was a background check. Working at US Bank in Minnesota in 2015, she had access to federal government accounts. So it was important to verify she

didn’t have any financial problems in her life that she might try to solve with other people’s money. But Mary had nothing to hide.

To her surprise, however, the examiners told her they’d found $32,000 in bad credit card debt. Most of it was on a card Mary held jointly with her husband — a card she thought had been

closed years before.

She went home and told David, her husband of 24 years, what had happened. David, a sales manager at an auto dealer, seemed just as confused as she was. It has to be a mistake, he insisted.

“We have a common last name,” she reasoned. But the bank’s investigators assured her there was no error. They had the right Mary Anderson. Each day she went to work “scared to death” that

she was going to be fired for not revealing this supposed debt. Each night her husband shrugged his shoulders.

What He Valued MostMy Cancer Diagnosis Transformed My Finances 

Finally, about five days later, David caved. Six years earlier, the couple had added a new kitchen and family room to their starter home. Costs had gotten out of control, he told her. He’d

put the expenses on joint credit cards but didn’t pay the balances.

Once Mary explained the situation to her employer, she was able to keep her job. But the experience was humiliating: A woman responsible for guarding against financial hanky-panky at the

office was oblivious to a huge money problem at home.

“For many years he was making more money than I was, so it seemed to make sense for him to handle the money and the bills,” Mary says. Unlike her, he was able to come home during the day and

intercept any bills in the mail. She’d occasionally see odd notices about their mortgage and unpaid bills, but he’d tell her it was all taken care of. “I trusted him to handle the

finances,” she says.

A few months later, she tried to withdraw money from a savings account she’d long held at a local bank. Instead of the $8,000 she expected to find, the account was empty. David had withdrawn

the money. She doesn’t remember his response to her questions about where the money had gone. “It was tough to pull information out of him,” she says.