wow, when I was with my exH he was sneaky about the financial abuse, he had me believing that I was the financial caretaker of the family. I held the checks, the checkbook and the money and paid all the bills throughout 6 years of our marriage, and we argued about the bills all the time, finally he wore me down and I threw the checkbook at him and told him to pay the bills. That was a big mistake, he took over and my bills never got paid, only the rent, light bill, tv, cars, auto. But my personal bills like the bed and anything such as clothes, and food were bought by my food stamps and whatever money I could get. He would give me $20 allowance to live on for two weeks. I had to divide that between me and 3 children.
He wore $100+ shoes, name brand jerseys, and trunks, and would tell us later I will get this/that for you. It never happened. he is still never paid a cent for me/my kids. We been divorced for a little over 9 yrs. He promised them the moon and still haven't seen one red cent from him.
my son has so much hope and I just know he isn't ever going to give anything to them.
I never let anyone take over my financial future anymore, they are able to assist me, but as for paying the bills I do that on my own, I have my own savings acct, and checking and I will share one with him, but I won't give him total control of the finances, I have to completely trust him.
Just my story.

my financial abuse was pretty much the same. I worked for the 6 years we were together but he told me how I had such a problem handling money and making bad decisions with money that he would take care of me and help me with this. Therefore he took control of all my money and paid only what he wanted, money for his art supplies, and stupid crap. We lived on my money until it ran out and that's when the trouble started. I HAVE LEARNED.

The years I was married to
a middle-management
executive making close to
six figures were the most
financially (and emotionally)
impoverished I have ever
lived.

He ended up having to pay
me seven years of alimony.
Even better than that, was
that his playmate's name
was also on the check.
Karma at its best.

I was financially well off when I met my ex. I had a home with a mortgage I could manage reasonably well, plus an investment property. I paid my bills on time and had no debt other than the mortgage.

After 6 years with the ex, I had to sell both the house and the investment property. The house was falling down because I had no money to maintain it (so I barely got more than I paid for it 10 years earlier), and the mortgage had increased substantially, to cover his gambling debts and other spending. I took care of paying the bills (I had him do it for a while, until after being promised that all bills were up to date, I got sued for unpaid property taxes), but he never left me enough money to do so. The credit card was always maxed out and I could never pay it off each month as I'd always done. There was often insufficient money in the account to pay the mortgage on time. This despite me earning a 6 figure income, and him working sometimes (he worked about half of the time we were together).

And then I had a child, didn't work for 6 months, so he quit his job and didn't even think about reducing his spending. He wanted to eat out at restaurants every night - with a new baby and no income. He actually told me he thought we should get a nanny for the baby (despite us having no income and neither of us working). I then went back to work, but only part time, since I still needed to take care of the baby (he did no child care either - in fact, on the days I worked, I had to pay for child care while he sat on the couch playing computer games and watching tv).

I will never make back the money this man cost me, particularly since caring for my child is a higher priority than working the 60+ hour weeks it would take to get back to that level of financial security. And yes, it bites. But at least I'm free of him now. He still doesn't and probably never will pay child support, but at least he's out of our lives, that's the most important thing.

There's no way to make what they did ok, the best we can do is leave it in the past.

same, same, same, same. I had a house with a mortgage, 401K, credit cards with not much of a balance, camper, boat all paid for and now nothing. But that's OK. I am done with him so I will move on.