SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This experience has taught me that I have been really stupid to allow my husband to be entirely in control of our finances. This started after our third child was born. I was in charge of paying our bills. I was super busy and he wanted to take it over since this is his expertise. I completely trusted him. I would have found his cheating years earlier if I was paying attention to our bills. I got my first clue discovering his cheating when my kid asked a credit card question and I randomly opened one to show him and found expensive flowers shipped to a woman.

When we got married, everything was joint. I have now discovered that companies now have one contact person and uses 2 factor authentication to do anything, even pay bills. I don't think I have any credit history anymore because he is the primary on our accounts. While we are working on our marriage, we have agreed that we will share the finances and bill paying. We paid the bills together this month, but I am unable to do any on my own because the authentication goes through his phone. If I become the primary, then he can't access them either.

What have you all done with finances to keep the transparency and fairness? Do you have to do them together? Thank you!

He pays all the bills but the authentication goes to my phone so i can access if I want. I do see all the statements becaue I do our taxes and need access to
All credit cards and bank statements. He kept almost everything off them and just used visa gift cards for Ashley madison and dating sites. There were only ever a few suspicious things- one He hid the statemnts and said it must've got lost 14 yrs later he Still claims the 3 flower deliverurs were fraudulent charges and he did get $ back from cc company ndz hid the statemnt with the refund so why did he hide it? Weird. I think he was feeling guilty and didn't want anything suspicious to trigger me searching more. Or who knows maybe hes still lying?

Then there were a couple of tiny charges for initial enrollments on cheating sites
Somehow I couldn't trace the exact vendor so just assumed it was legit as he was always buying self improvement and business stuff online
I found it when I did a much much deeper dive later.

So, yes you should have access to all finances but that doesn't mean you'll see everything
There's always ways around it 😢

Thank you for sharing and reminding me that nothing is foolproof. I will never be able to keep up if he cheats again. I never thought of using gift cards. I did ask if he had other credit cards and he says he doesn't. Then again who really know at this point. I am amazed at how people find ways to sneak and hide things. I miss being a trustful person.

All of our accounts are managed on a budgeting software where either of us can see all transactions. In my case, there wasn't really a financial trail.

My suggestion:

Build your own credit now.

Get a card in your name alone. Cancel joint accounts (when you are ready) and he gets a card in his name alone. This way if he walks out the door tomorrow, and he doesn’t pay his CC bills, it does not affect your credit score.

Get $ in your own name. If you save $10 from the grocery $, put it your account in your name. He can’t touch it. This could be your emergency fund.

On our joint bank account we can each see all transactions but we have our own log in. Find out if you have similar options on joint credit card accounts.