Ex Wifey
My ex-misses decided during a holiday *she* could afford with her mates and rightly deserved and that it was time to get divorced after 18 months of being married.
As with all hard decisions it was best for her to phone me and tell me on her hols before she stepped onto someone elses pole as shes never had an affair!
My sin ? ohh yeah I got made redundant 3 months prior and hadnt managed to get another job therefore didnt deserve a holiday, but I had a decent severance payout and 18k's worth of redundancy insurance (or so I thought!!).
Turned out the IFA that sold me the policy confused pay per week and per month and I ended up with £300 payments per month.. (sued him and won, but took 12 months)

So, thx to the fact I had been overpaying the mortgage I had a small credit buffer which kept the bank from the door.

I decided to sell the house, but not before the ex decided that she wanted to buy it and got some dodgy valuations in. Only a small 90K difference between her ones and my 4 from local estate agents.

The house sold and like all good women she listened to her mates !!
I offered at the time a 50/50 split as we had no kids.
Ohhh no she wanted 80% and thought I couldnt fight because I was unemployed.

To add more fun to the mix her mates convinced her that she should go a spendfest before court to put herself in a debt situation.
We fought via solicitors and barristers and 4 court appearances...

My Situ (now working for 2 years) 4K credit card bill, no other debts.

Her, 42K on credit cards and a declared yearly income of £7000.
My new GF and I did an audit of her statements prior to last court case and created a summary based on her credit payments alone, far in excess of her declared income!!! (being self employed I think mr VAT etc might be interested ).

The best part of the whole process was the judge saying he wasnt interested in any expense that wasnt incurred during the marriage period and that was to be excluded.
She burst out crying shrieking Noooooo!!! She got her 42% and with her legal bills ended up as approx. 12k in debt after all finance is settled.

My advice is 'I have none...'

Today, Great GF - talking bout marriage and kids, own house, nice car, comfortable job.
We both think on the 'cant afford' = 'cant afford'. Day by day its getting better, still have our ups and downs.. but credit is one you can do without IMHO.
(Slackness, Sat 25 Nov 2006, 15:47, Reply)