3 Ways I Worry Financial Abuse During My Divorce May Impact My Children’s Future

I don’t want my kids to think it’s normal to declare bankruptcy

My son calls from college.

I can hear the anguish in his voice.

“Mom,” he says. “I just hung up the phone with Dad. I told him my rent money was due. He just told me sorry can’t help you. I have to pay my own rent.”

I’m not sure who is more shocked my son or me.

We shouldn’t be.

My husband’s financial abuse is severe and escalating.

My son doesn’t deserve this.

Throughout high school, he maintained his grades, played three sports, was in leadership, AND worked at the same job since he was 16 years old. He continued to work during college, and contributed $10,000 a year toward his education, and had several loans.

We have a lot of money.

My husband is choosing not to pay our son’s college rent.

Why? He’s trying to make a point. He’s trying to emphasize that I initiated a divorce and he was forced to get his own place and pay rent. Essentially, there’s a message my husband is trying to convey.

“Look what your Mother has done to me. I’d love to help you out buddy but she’s tied my hands. She’s broken up our home. She’s the reason I have no money to send you for rent.”

My husband’s divorce financial abuse has multiple agendas.

This is one of them.

A theme, “Look what your Mother has done to us.”

Throughout our overly-long divorce, my husband wasn’t worried about our children. He wasn’t worried about the example he was setting. He was consumed with winning and punishing me for leaving him.

He hurt our children.

Kids can understand two adults who don’t get along.

Divorce is sad and unpleasant. It’s not easy on children. But they can comprehend their parents are no longer a healthy and suitable match for one another.

They can’t fathom that a parent would hurt them to hurt the other parent.

It’s unnatural.

I worry about the example my husband set.

I don’t want my children to think any of the things their father did is appropriate behavior. I don’t want them to think it’s normal to declare bankruptcy because of a divorce.

I want them to be financially responsible.

I want them to have a healthy relationship with money.

3 Ways I Worry Financial Abuse May Impact My Children’s Future.

1. Divorce financial abuse and children — Financial responsibility

I want my children to be financially responsible.

My husband threatened to declare bankruptcy on our house rather than sell it. He claimed the limited equity wasn’t worth it. I was so upset I called two of his friends.

“Please,” I said. “Ask him to sell the house. I don’t want this to be my children’s legacy. I don’t want their childhood home to go this way and I don’t want this example set for them.”

They must have called my husband because he finally agreed to sell it.

He had threatened bankruptcy in general many times throughout our divorce. It’s not normal to declare bankruptcy as a tactic during a divorce in order to get what you want.

It didn’t stop there, my husband simply stopped paying bills.

I don’t want my kids to think it’s normal to not pay your debts.

I don’t want them to let things go to collection agencies.

I don’t want them to discard their obligations.

Their father went behind on payments for the mortgage, cars, electric bills, etc. to torment me. He discarded other debt as well.

He stopped paying the credit cards he took out in my name, the tutor, the lawn guy, and medical bills. You name it he did it. If he thought it had anything to do with me or even our children he bailed.

2. Divorce financial abuse and children — Vallue of people vs. money

I don’t want my children to believe that money is more important than people.

You don’t use money to threaten people.

“I’m not sending him back to college,” says my husband.

“You can’t do that,” I say.

“Sorry no money,” he says.

Not only did our children witness their father’s financial abuse, he put them in the middle of it. He used them. Or as I usually say…he used, abused, and confused them as a means to leave their mother with nothing.

Not only when he withheld food and health insurance.

That wasn’t enough.

He had to torment them further.

My husband was sending a disturbing message.

He was saying money is more important than people. Money has the greater value. Money is the priority. Money is more important than even his own family.

It’s sickening.

And he was using threats and bullying to indicate it.

I don’t want my children to think money can be used as a weapon.

3. Divorce financial abuse and children — Living a functional life

I want my children to be functionally responsible.

I want them to model the example we always set.

Not the dysfunctional example their dad inflicted during our divorce.

“You can’t cancel our children’s health insurance,” I say.

“No money,” says my husband.

“Who does that?” I say. “Our children need insurance.”’

When my husband uninsured our children multiple times, the medical bills were attached to them. They were over 18 and his irresponsibility became their responsibility.

It ruined their credit.

My son had to pay to get a secured credit card.

His father couldn't care less.

Their dad would leave our car at the shop for weeks. We would go without transportation. I would have to borrow my neighbor’s car. When I did have my ten-year-old car, the mechanics told me it was unsafe to drive.

My husband didn’t care.

Even after it broke down on a country road in the dark of night.

I don’t want my children to think it’s normal to not maintain all areas of our lives. I don’t want them to think you can gamble with things like this.

I don’t want them to think dysfunctional behavior is normal.

My husband’s severe and brutal divorce financial abuse traumatized us.

It’s shameful.

I worry even more because our divorce lasted for five long years. That’s a tremendous amount of time for high school and college-age kids to witness their father inflict financial abuse.

No matter what, my husband changed our kids’ relationship with money.

Money is an incredible stress to them.

Of course, it is. look at their father’s extreme financial abuse.

My three boys are amazing.

They have never lost their sense of generosity. They have never complained about how the extravagant lifestyle they grew up with was taken from them.

For no other reason, than their mother initiated a divorce.

They have never felt sorry for themselves. They are responsible, motivated, and hard-working. They pay their bills on time, they save money, and they pay down their debt.

They are remarkable young men.

It doesn’t mean I don’t worry.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t feel guilty. I chose their father. I married him. I made myself financially vulnerable as a stay-at-home mom. I underestimated a man. I should have had a full-time income before I left him.

Don’t get me wrong, I know this was their father’s behavior.

But I’m a mother…their mother…they didn’t deserve any of this.

I worry.

About the example an extremely financially abusive father set.