‘I dated a man with a hidden gambling addiction and lost $10K’
These tips will help you protect yourself from financial abuse
When Emily met James in her mid-20s, their spending habits and approach to money were like those of any other young couple, landing first jobs and earning just enough to get by.
While the Sydney woman had a “frugal and financially savvy” upbringing, she was always a bit more prone to treating herself. But, she’d never been in debt.
So when it came time to move in with her boyfriend, she didn’t think twice about opening up a joint bank account — which she’d never done with anyone before — and pouring “a chunk of her savings” into it.
“The intention was to save together,” she tells us. “Supposedly.”
The ‘chunk’ Emily had deposited was actually $10,000 that her parents had given her to put towards a house or a wedding.
“They essentially said, ‘This is what we can afford to give you while we are still around to help out’,” she explains. “So I put it in the shared account to kickstart our savings.
“Boy, do I regret that move!”
Gaslit as the account drained over time
Despite the chunk of savings inside the bank account, Emily says it started to go down instead of up and the “confusion set in”.
“I asked about it, and the gaslighting began,” she explains. “I can’t recall now what his reasons were at the time, but I trusted James and the hopeful, naive part of my brain latched onto any excuse or promise that would help me believe things were fine.”
So Emily stopped checking the account, the couple stopped going out socially, and the young woman found herself paying for more of the groceries while James remained “glued” to his mobile.
“One time I saw him playing a gambling game and asked him to his face, ‘Are you gambling’,” she says.
“He said, ‘No, I swear I would never spend a dollar of our real money on gambling’, with the most convincing expression.
“And I believed him.”
It wasn’t until Emily found an excel spreadsheet on James’ computer one day, with names and numbers next to them of people that she knew, that it clicked.
“My brain connected the dots which had been floating around in the back of my conscious mind, not willing to be brought together until they had to be,” she says.
“These were dollar amounts and people he owed money to.
“I looked in the shared account and it was empty.”
$10K gone
When James came clean about his gambling habit, Emily discovered that it had been going on for several years.
“But he was so deep into addiction that lies still poured out of his mouth for a long time while I extricated myself from the six-year relationship,” says Emily, now in her late 30s.
“He said he was going to Gamblers Anonymous when I knew he wasn’t. He said he would pay things back and didn’t.
“I left and we stayed in touch, with him promising to pay the $10,000 back, and very slowly, over about five years, he actually did.”
Emily knows just how lucky she was when others would never have seen that money again.
Victims ‘unaware’
Financial abuse — when you’re unable to understand or access your finances due to the control of somebody else — is far more common than is spoken about, according to divorce lawyer Cassandra Kalpaxis.
There are many victims who are unaware that they’re even in a financially abusive relationship, but when the truth comes out or realisation sets in, it has the power to pull lives apart.
“Not being able to understand or be fully transparent with finances has the capacity to crumble a marriage if one person thought they were financially secure and the other was spending excessively or gambling and putting their life together at risk,” Kalpaxis tells us.
“Finances are actually up there as one of the biggest things that causes a divorce.”
How women can protect themselves from financial abuse
1. Never put all your eggs in one basket
When it comes to opening up a joint bank account, “never put all of your eggs in one basket” says Kalpaxis.
“Don’t put all of your money in it, have your own separate account, have your own emergency fund, have your own savings, and use that as a platform to protect yourself,” she says.
“Of course, if you want to put a small amount of your pay in there, but it should never be the case that that is your be-all and end-all.”
2. Understand that not all agreements will be legally binding
“There are documents that can be drafted in anticipation of entering into a de facto relationship or a marriage, but documents at the outset of the dating of course have some utility, but they’re not always going to be legally binding,” says the lawyer.
“This is where getting financial advice from the outset and having a separate resource available to them is also going to be a significant step that they should be looking at at the outset.”
3. Seek advice early on
“Women who’ve built their own wealth really need to see a lawyer before they enter into a relationship to be able to get the fundamental planning around protection of their wealth,” the divorce lawyer says.
Then keep getting advice. “Women should be seeing financial advisors and meeting regularly with their accountants, especially if they’re married and have a joint accountant,” she adds.
4. Be prepared for things to crash
Say a couple moves in together, but one person earns significantly more than the other, so their ability to contribute 50/50 to an asset is unreasonable.
“This is where those documents about entering into a de facto relationship would set out the expectations around those things to protect the couple’s positions,” Kalpaxis says.
“I’ve seen time and time again women who’ve entered into those types of relationships where they’re being told, ‘Oh, you don’t have to pay any bills’, and then all of a sudden something goes awry and they get a text message saying, ‘You now need to pay 50 per cent of an asset’ that they simply can’t afford to contribute to.”
5. Take out a prenup
In Australia they’re called a binding financial agreement in anticipation of marriage, and Kalpaxis thoroughly recommends one.
“That does not mean that you sign a document a week out of marriage — it means that as part of the planning process, like you plan a wedding, the dress and the party, you see a lawyer early on with a view of making sure that everything has been factored in as part of this agreement, so that it is held up in accordance with the law,” explains Kalpaxis.
“There is a case which sets up the steps that lawyers need to take in order to make a binding financial agreement stick, and leaving things to the last minute is not one of them.
“So it needs to be appropriately planned, and it’s something that should be done well before a wedding date.”
6. Get independent help
“Women should independently have people check their finances, particularly if their husband is somebody who is running the show,” says the expert.
“So getting independent advice before they sign off on tax documents, company documents and loan documents to understand how that puts them at risk or exposes them to risk in the future or in the present moment.”
She says women should have a thorough understanding of the financial platform that they currently sit in within their marriage and independently.
7. Get your ducks in a row
If you’re already in a relationship and feel like you’re suffering from financial abuse by your partner, Kalpaxis has this advice:
“Get as many documents as you can to be able to get questions about,” she says.
“Make sure that you’re reaching out to people to make them understand that if it’s a joint asset, that you should also be spoken to.
“Reach out to people like an accountant at first instance, who, if your name is on things, is obliged to speak to you.
“Please get advice from a lawyer. You do not need to get permission from anyone to speak to a lawyer about it. Just get some information.”
Kalpaxis says there are also a number of free resources that women can access confidentially if they think they’re being subjected to financial abuse, such as 1800 RESPECT if you are in Australia.
