All These Stupid Little Secrets--"Thank You Ashley Madison" excerpt

     (Friday, November 30, continued) 

    “1. I have been hiding some debt. It's about 11K, less about 2.5K in outstanding expenses from work. Amex, citibank and chase (sic). The sources of the debt will be detailed below. I have been whittling it down steadily.

     “2. I drink more than you may realize, and it's gotten a little bit worse in the past year. I probably have 3 beers a day on average, sometimes a little more. That's too much and given my family history, troubling. There is also an association in me between booze and poor judgement. It's one of the many things about myself I really need to examine. I think my guilt over my secrets may be a factor in my increasing use of alcohol. Also, I have learned that I have high blood pressure, which is not helped by my lifestyle of drinking lots of beer and coffee, plus the stress of trying to keep all these stupid little secrets. 

     “3. I have hid additional taxes in the past. On a few occasions over the past years, I've had you write checks for estimated taxes and then I filed later, sometimes we owed an additional 1-2 K which I would put on amex (sic) or on my citicard (sic) rather than tell you about it. 

     “4. Rather than come to you to talk about our share of the Michigan expenses, I've just buried them. We generally owe about 1500 per year for our share of the taxes, utilities and so on. I've been lax about collecting from Troy and Leslie but have recently sent them a statement. Leslie settled up but Troy still owes me about 1K. We have the fall taxes looming on the Michigan property. Our share is about $700. I also bury my life insurance payments, which are about 500 a year, but it all adds up.

     “5. The buyout checks are larger each month than I have told you. I've used the difference (about 600) to work off my debt. 

     “6. Some of the buyout checks that didn't come were genuine because the companies renegotiated the buyout deal. But on a few occasions I used that precedent as an excuse to keep the checks to try and whittle down my bills. This month is an example. I've probably done this 2 or 3 times over the past couple of years. 

     “7. I borrowed the capital one (sic) card in the basket in your office on my last trip as a just in case. I ended up using it but have paid it off already. It should have a zero balance right now. I returned it to the basket in your office and will not us (sic) it again.

     “All of the financial issues can be addressed if we sit down and really go through our finances, as unemotionally as possible, and figure things out together. Maybe right now isn't the best time, but we can't put it off for too long. Next year refinancing may be necessary to stabilize our finances as we figure out what our futures will look like. We'll probably need some professional advice.

     (To Be Continued)