Well inadvertantly I had just enabled her to continue to have a great credit score. She did it again but worse….much worse this time. I learned less than a week ago we are $70K in debt and the recent payments have just been missed so the interest has skyrocked. It is possible, barely, that I could clean out every bank account and investment we have to almost pay this thing off. However, my question is why do this?

All the cards are in her name only. I don’t know if they can back check but I want to transfer the home deed into my name only before this comes to fruition. At that point she’ll have few assets. The cards, six of them, won’t settle now because she’s not so late yet. I would like to settle it because then we paid what we could and it also shows up on her record (which is what I want). I really really want her credit totally destroyed. Not because I’m angry and malicious but because I’m trying to preserve the family which includes our three children, one with a significant handicap. BTW, she is on board with this plan should we do it. I want the CC companies to feel some pain and remember she is a bad bad bad risk…stay away from her!!

I think a stop payment on all the cards would either accomplish reaching a settlement or getting sued. She’d be w/o any assets to pay it back (she has no bank accounts, no cash, no job, nothing but a Roth IRA which is protected). I can live with creditors calling all the time; in fact, if this is the decision we choose I could see even having some fun with it. I’m much more concerned with the legal ramifications.

I have two main concerns: 1) Can I become liable for payment without having signed for the cards and essentially destroying my own credit and 2) Just how high can credit card interest compound to on a card? When does it stop, $1,000,000? Plus court fees, etc. On a current $70K debt just how much could it snowball to? If it snowballs and then they legally come after me it will destroy us. But if they legally can’t touch me, then it becomes a viable option that sounds better to me than bankruptsy.

Bottom line, I want to ensure my wife can never do this to the family again but at the same time use my good credit to keep the family from financial Armageddon. I know this is long-winded but it would be very helpful to know if it’s reasonable to move in this direction. I feel like I have little time to decide.

We barely have had enough money to pay our mortgage, food and utilities. We recently brought in a relative who is mentally and physically disabled and my wife tends to her needs. It helps make our house payment. I’m not eligible for unemployment. I have been able to bring in a little money by doing odd jobs for a few friends. I have not been paying on our credit cards for quite sometime and now it looks like we’re being brought into court. I tried explaining to the credit card people our situation months ago. They even offered a fairly large reduction on what we owed but we weren’t able to meet their monthly payment for that (it was quite a carrot they dangled in front of us). They said nothing else could be done. I just received a summons to appear in court. I have 21 days to contact the credit card attorney and maybe work something out. I’m hoping they will listen. What is so hard to accept and that I always paid my cards on time and paid large amounts each time I’m going to call the attorney’s this week but only after I talk to a few knowledgeable people. I really don’t want to file for bankruptcy if possible. I just thought I’d put my story out there. Thanks for listening and I believe if we all stick together we’ll make it through these stressful times