Reply To: I’m Still Standing

[Lancashire Lad]

Thank you folks. 🙂

It’s good to know that there’s a place like this out there. it’s been ten years and I’m only just NOW really sort of, “waking up” from the trauma of that relationship and finally looking at where I am and what’s going on. I’ve sought help from psychiatrists and I’m on antidepressants and it’s really, really helped.
I was going through all of the paperwork I had just been filing away over the years and a lot of old memories were coming back. My ex was terrible with collecting debt and I had paperwork of various companies chasing him for money. He got me to pay off some of his debts, or sweet talk HMRC into extensions or allowances for him. He moved in with me without paying his council tax in his last place and debt letters started chasing him about that too.
He got hold of my credit card and started using it to (removed by moderator) ! All of this I’ve just rediscovered through sorting out these files. I’m shocked. How did I not notice all of this before now? I think I’ve just been sleep walking through the last decade. I had final notice letters arriving left and right from energy companies that he hadn’t paid and all kinds of things.

I had managed my credit fairly well up until when I met him, but he quickly took control of my finances and I used the credit card to pay for groceries and such. He had a much better paid job than I did and he would spend lavishly on holidays, clothes and food and encourage me to do the same. I hit my cards credit limit in the April of 2010 and do you know what the credit card company did? Did they help me manage the debt at all? Nope. They sent me a letter letting me know they’re DOUBLING the credit limit. His spending went through the roof and within just a couple of months the credit card company suspended the card and started slapping on interest charges, late fees and credit overspend penalties. 2010 is over a decade behind me now and I am still slowly and painfully paying my way out of that debt hole that he put me into. Repairing my credit score month by month.

Seeing all of these statements is making my blood boil. After all he did to me, that monster gets to get away scot free and take my money with him and I’m left with paying this credit card debt off for eighteen years. He gets to run away from yet more debt, change his name again, change his job again, and just get away with it?! Where’s the justice?

I want to write to the debt collection agency and explain that I have been suffering from depression, PTSD and anxiety related mental health issues since 2010 and that the woeful mismanagement of the spiralling debt problem by the credit card company kicked me when I was down and left me saddled with eighteen years worth of debt. Is there anyone on the Galop help team who could give me some advice?