Ask Amy: Spouse's spending creates a debt trap

Dear Amy: My wife and I have been married for a long time. We both grew up in working-class families, were the first in our families to graduate from college, and had respectable careers.

Now that we're more or less retired. I have a small online business that supplements our Social Security income and her pension. (My 401(k) disappeared in the last recession.)

I try to set aside money for special purchases and be prepared for emergencies.

On the other hand, she buys all sorts of stuff online and puts it on various credit cards: clothes, food, books, household items, you name it.

We have literally piles of unopened packages, and it never seems to end. I have tried talking to her about the spending, but she is highly secretive about our finances and when I press her for details, she picks a fight about something I did or said years ago.

She accuses me of not trusting her (and I don't, really) and being paranoid (I probably am).

If something happens to her, in the state where we live, I would be liable for the credit card debt that is in her name.

Amy says: When your wife runs up debt on multiple cards and hides all of it from you, she is committing "financial infidelity." This has exposed a huge rift in your marriage (you cannot have a healthy, functioning marriage if one partner is lying about something so important). Unfortunately, unlike with other kinds of fidelity, ultimately the consequence and burden of her behavior may be borne by you.

Shopping — and buying — can give some people a dopamine hit, similar to gambling or addictive behavior.

Let's assume that she is hiding and deflecting because she feels guilty and ashamed.

Instead of confronting her in anger, you could try to gently pry open the vault by enlisting her as a partner in your long-range financial planning. If she insists that her purchases are affordable, ask her to show you the paperwork. Tell her that you want your marriage to get back on track by being transparent and honest with one another.

Regardless of how your wife responds, you should definitely see a counselor and a lawyer. You say that you can't afford to divorce, but it is possible that you cannot afford to stay married.

Dear Amy: How can I politely tell my husband that he needs to start wearing larger sized clothes?

Over the past couple of years, he has put on enough weight that the clothes he's had for a while don't fit properly.

When I buy him new clothes, he still wears his old ones because the new ones are "not the right size."

I don't have an issue with his weight gain, but he seems to be in complete denial. I'm usually a fairly direct person, but I don't know how to tactfully approach this subject.

Amy says: There is no need for tact here because there is also no need for you to tell your husband that his clothes are too tight.