Where It All Began

Obviously my debt troubles didn’t just happen over night. But over the past couple of years they have really spiraled out of control and in my effort to get out of the hole I am in, I’m really trying to get to the bottom of what caused all this emotionally for me. Hopefully this whole process of paying off the debt I incurred and really reflecting on how I got there and how I got out of it will keep this from ever happening to me again.

I have struggled with credit card debt most of my adult life. But when I first went off to college it was simple, I’d charge up the credit card it would be be paid off and taken away. Then six months of a year later it would be given back and a similar situation would occur. When I started graduate school I took out school loans to pay and also took out a bank loan to consolidate my credit card debt. I cut up my credit cards and vowed that when I graduated I’d only have the school loans to pay. Easier said than done. I quickly learned the school loans weren’t enough to allow me the lifestyle I wanted to live and working wasn’t an option given the program I was in.
Over the course of a year or so I got two credit cards one with $1000 limit and one with a $2000 limit. I would max them out and pay them down and it was somewhat of a cycle, but I never missed a payment or was even late so it really wasn’t so bad. Then my last year in school I got involved in a relationship I never should have been involved in. The man was older and I was not interested at first but he knew my likes and dislikes and really wined and dined me until I broke down and started seeing him.

Right from the start my gut told me it was a bad idea, I was embarrassed of him and would make excuses for him that I was only dating him because he took care of me. He was taking me on trips all the time and to fancy dinners and whatnot. Yes I know you’re reading this thinking what a skank. I’m embarrassed for myself retelling the story now, but I was at a point in my life where I was very emotionally vulnerable.

I had invested a great deal of time and money into a graduate degree forcing me into a profession I really didn’t have any interest in pursuing, but I felt like it was something I "should do". I had been in two previous long term relationships pretty much since I graduated high school and I was feeling very lost with out a man by my side.

Well the relationship got off to somewhat of a rocky start and I’m not sure at exactly which point I lost control, but a couple of months in this guy had complete control over me. And I distinctly remember this day sitting in my apartment going through my mail. I got a credit card solicitation for a card to earn frequent flyer miles for an airline. He sat there and told me that I should get the card because it offered so many bonus miles for opening and then making your first purchase and then if I would add him as an authorized user I’d get even more miles. He made it sound just great that I’d have so many miles we’d go on some amazing trip, so I got the card against my better judgment. And against my even better judgment I added him as an authorized user.

Now by this point in our relationship I had started to realize he was a fraud but I was so far in I wasn’t sure how to get out. Looking back I wasn’t in nearly as far as I thought I was at this point. So here I am dating someone 16 years older than myself, living off student loans and credit cards and this LOSER decides that now he can live off my new card.

I was given a very high limit due to my excellent credit and when I did a bit of snooping I realized he had less than excellent credit (I found letter where his credit card accounts had been closed and were being sent to collection). It started small a restaurant here some office supplies there. Pretty soon he and his buddy were flying across country for a trip and charging everything to my card. I told him the charges were getting out of control and he needed to pay me and stop using the card to no avail.

Well, then here comes the real kicker, when new charges appeared I would always look up what they were. He was in New Orleans on weekend and a strange club appears; I type it in google ... HE WENT TO A STRIP CLUB AND CHARGED $800 ON MY CREDIT CARD THERE!! I confronted him about this and told him that it was totally inappropriate that he was partying in New Orleans going to strip clubs on my dime while I was at home frantically trying to graduate and totally overwhelmed with school work. He blew it off that he had to go because a business contact blah blah blah more garbage! PLEASE absolutely ridiculous, I get sick to my stomach even writing about it now.

From this point on he completely disgusted me but I was too scared to get out of the relationship because of the considerable amount of debt he had incurred that I was now responsible for. This was a big issue and he always tried to turn it around on me saying things like "us" and "we" and help each other out and a bunch of crap about our life together.

To make matters worse one day when he was at my apartment he logged into his myspace and did not log himself out. I did what us suspicious girls tend to do and looked at his messages. Turns out he had been cheating on me for several months, and had even asked the girl he was cheating on me with to go to New Orleans with him. She was unable to go (maybe thats why he went to the strip club), but I guess if she had gone he would have just put their whole little rendezvous on my card.

This revelation really shook my confidence to my core, how could I have gotten myself in such a precarious situation?? The whole mess just got to be too much to handle I broke up with him even though I knew I was probably going to lose money out of the deal, at this point all I wanted was OUT!!

Eventually I got a little bit of money from the guy but not nearly everything he owed me and not a cent of interest. And to make matters worse I found out he told many people I had a substance abuse problem and began to spread nasty rumors about new guy I was dating that I really cared for. This whole mess just affected me emotionally more than I’d ever like to admit. I’m crying right now as I type this because I am so embarrassed I ever allowed myself to get into such a situation. My embarrassment let me to keep this secret bottled up and I really think caused a mild depression that fueled my out of control spending.

I’m feeling a lot better these days and I’m a lot happier. This evil man is the one guy I’ve dated that I have never spoken to again after we broke up and I never intend to speak to again. I heard through the grapevine he was trying to contact me again because he missed me and it literally made my whole body go weak to think he could ever dream of being allowed to have any part in my life ever again.