[atomiczombie]

Jagg,

I just want to say that when my ex-wife and I got together I had 2 credit cards and a total of $300 debt between them. By the time we split up, between my 2 cards we were about $12,000 in debt. There are many reasons, part of which is that she wanted to spend spend spend and we argued about it, and I unfortunately gave in way too much because I hadn't learned to stand up for myself back then. She was also someone who would never back down from an argument, and had I not backed down our argument would just go on and on. I gave in because she wore me down. My bad.

Then she got laid off from her job in the mortgage dept at B of A in Concord, CA. That was in 2003. I was the only one working, and I made about $12-13 per hour. She went on unemployment, and our monthly income plummeted. I sold my Harley to pay bills. We had an apartment, a kid, and a car payment. We also were paying COBRA for my wife's healthcare since losing her job, which was 100s of dollars more per month. We ended up getting behind on our bills and paying for basic things like groceries with my credit cards. Her credit was so bad that she didn't have any credit cards. She refused to allow me to ask my parents for financial help. Well, I say allow because that was about fight that there was no way for me to win. She was verbally and emotionally abusive to me, and very controlling.

When I finally left her after years of taking this abuse, she decided she wasn't going to pay her half of my credit card debt. She said that would count for my child support. Because we had missed payments, my rate was 30%. Before I had been with my ex-wife, I had excellent credit and was responsible with my money. I hadn't anticipated that things would end up this way. I had mistakenly thought that she would get another job soon and we would climb out of this financial hole. Instead, she decided not to look for another job and just take some classes to gain some more skills. She stayed on unemployment for a year. It wasn't until the end of that year that I left her, because she couldn't get by w/o my income. We had a child. I wasn't comfortable leaving them w/o an income that would sustain their basic needs.

When I left my ex-wife, I was making $13/hr and couldn't afford to pay much more than the minimum payments, but I always paid a little more just to try to get it paid down. I had a small dive of an apartment and no car payments. I got by ok, but at the rate I was going, it would have taken me decades to pay it off. I was faithful with my payments. I was never late or missed any of them. I called my credit card companies asking them to lower my rates. B of A told me I had to make all my payments on time for 6 months and then they would decrease it. 6 months came and went and I was still being charged 29.99%. Same with my Citibank card. No matter how many payments I made on time, neither bank would lower my rates. My parents ended up paying off my cards after a few years, because they saw how ridiculous my situation was.

That is how a lot of people end up with piles of debt they have no way to pay back. Yes, you could say I am at fault because of the choices I made. However, I wasn't able to anticipate how it would all turn out. I was in a bad marriage to someone I shouldn't have been with. I didn't see all the red flags ahead of time, because I had grown up with years of abuse and wasn't able to see those red flags. I was naive about a lot of things. I learned a lot of difficult lessons. I guess that is part of growing up. I now have zero credit card debt. I never use my cards under any circumstances. If I want something I save for it and if I can't save for it, then I don't need it. I am on disability so I am very poor.

People get into a lot of debt for a variety of reasons. I think it's unfair to assume that you know all the ins and outs of a situation just on the face of it. People are human and make mistakes. That doesn't mean that the system isn't stacked against them and inherently unfair. It is.