Is Your Spouse Financially Cheating On You?

People are often surprised to find out that their spouse (and sometimes ex-spouse) has been financially cheating on them. Typically when people enter a marriage or relationship, they often feel that they are going to live happily ever after together financially responsible with no debt (or controllable debt), and many assets. When I’m providing financial counselling services for people or meeting with people to discuss free financial options to deal with their debt, I’m often asked if there were some clues that would have helped recognize financial mismanagement of their spouses.

Today, my blog will provide some tips and insight on ways that you can help recognize financial cheating.

Both Equifax and Transunion provide a free credit report. It’s important that you review your reports annually to make sure everything has been reported accurately. One of the things that I suggest for people to do with their spouses is swapping credit reports. This helps keep an honest financial relationship with one another, as a credit report will show creditors, reporting history, limits etc. This will help each other understand if you are able to reach the same financial goals.

Bank statements are another good way to tell if your spouse has been financially cheating on you. Today, many people have pre-authorized payments, so it’s easy to see one’s income and spending habits by looking at a monthly bank statement. Again, I encourage people to swap bank statements with one another to get a better understanding of each other’s finances.

Credit card statements will indicate recent spending behavior, so by swapping credit card statements with one’s spouse, it will enable each other to have a better idea of current spending behavior.

In a healthy relationship, it’s good to talk about new purchases, especially, if a new purchase will consume a large amount of one’s income. Communication and open dialogue will help avoid any relationship financial issues in the future, should your spouse not feel as good as you do towards a certain purchase.

This blog will help provide some potential insight on good ways to find out if your spouse has financially cheated on you, before it happens. Many people come to see me once it’s too late. At A. Farber and Partners, we provide a free initial consultation to help people deal with their debt. We have over 50 offices in Ontario and BC, and have been in business for about 35 years. I have been offering people free financial advice for over 15 years. I realize that every marriage or relationship is financially different. It’s important to keep an open dialogue with your spouse regarding spending habits and debt, which will hopefully avoid some unnecessary surprises in the future.