My wife and I have been married for five glorious years and have a great relationship across the board. One of the things we pride ourselves on most is our honesty and transparency with each other — all the more reason I was so surprised to find out that she’s been lying to me about our finances.
The other day I checked the mail as usual and noticed a letter from our bank. I opened it without thinking twice and realized that it was not mail related to our joint account but instead for a separate individual account that my wife holds with the same bank. I was perplexed and extremely upset. Upon my wife’s arrival home from work, I confronted her about the mystery account and the floodgates opened.
For the past three years, she has been receiving child support checks for money she was owed for her son from a previous marriage. Her ex was in arrears and was finally court-ordered to make regular payments to her, and she decided to open a separate account and have the money routed there so I wouldn’t find out. She made a point to say that the money should be considered hers because she had to fight for it all these years and she should be able to spend it how she sees fit.
My argument is that her son is a minor and lives with us under our roof. I take care of the entire household, including him, and so in all fairness that money should go into our joint bank account to help with taking care of her son’s needs. She is not remorseful whatsoever, and I’m starting to wonder if this should be considered a divorceable offense or if I should demand that she close the secret account and have the support routed to our joint account if she wants the marriage to continue.
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