September 19

Debting eats up your life. Even once you stop debting, it keeps eating at you. I stopped debting and cut up my credit cards over a year ago, and I still deal with my debt every day. A lot of addicts say they “hit bottom” right before they stop using, but for debtors, “hitting bottom” can be an ongoing process. Even once you stop debting, the financial problems persist. You’re hit with statements. Harassing phone calls. Haggling creditors. The threat of lawsuits. The threat of my pay being docked. The IRS. There’s no end. Fighting my debt is like doing battle with a hydra, the mythological monster with 1,000 heads. When you cut off one head, two more sprout up to take its place. It’s absolutely exhausting.

It’s also hell on your relationships. Debting is like any other addiction. The addict doesn’t know he’s an addict at first, and his loved ones are usually in denial. It’s the same with a debtor. He starts out gleefully doing what he does, living it up, spending money he doesn’t have. Then, he begins to get out of control, and the bills get bigger and bigger. Eventually, he hits bottom, and becomes depressed. Then, if he’s lucky, he finds a way to recover from his illness and stop the behavior.

But even when the debtor comes to terms with his disease, his loved ones usually don’t follow suit right away. It takes time for them to come to terms with the mess the debtor has caused. In my case, my wife is the one who has to come to terms with how bad things have gotten for us as a result of my behavior.

I don’t envy her. In the early stages of recovery from this addiction, it’s actually easier for the debtor, because even if he’s been in denial for a long time, he has still been aware of his actions on some level. He’s at least marginally aware of how big the problem has become. No matter how thick his denial has been, deep down, he knows what he’s done. While it’s painful to come to terms with what he’s done, on some level it also makes sense to him why he’s in so much trouble.

However, if he’s good at covering his tracks (and most debtors are), his loved ones will be much slower to realize how deep the troubles go. This is certainly the case with my wife and me; while I’ve more or less come to terms with the trouble my debting has caused, she’s just beginning to do so.

So what’s stressing her out so much? It’s probably the fact that we’re facing two lawsuits. More on those tomorrow.