I Thought My Husband Was Paying Our Mortgage — Then I Got an Eviction Notice
The first time I opened the envelope, I thought it was a mistake. The bold red lettering screamed URGENT, and the words “Eviction Notice” made my stomach drop to my feet. I couldn’t make sense of it. This had to be a misunderstanding. We had a good credit score, our finances were solid — or so I thought. There had to be some kind of error. Maybe it was a typo. But when I flipped the notice over and saw the address, I knew it wasn’t a mistake. It was our home.
Panic surged through me. My first instinct was to call my husband, Ben. I’d been married to him for ten years, and throughout our relationship, I had always trusted him. When we bought this house, he was the one who handled the finances. I had a steady job, but he was the one with the head for numbers. He assured me that he’d take care of everything. He said we could afford it, that the payments were manageable, and that he would never let us fall behind.
So how could we be facing eviction?
I dialed Ben’s number, my hands trembling. He picked up after the second ring. “Hey, hon, what’s up?” His voice sounded calm, almost too calm.
“I got an eviction notice today. What’s going on? Why didn’t you pay the mortgage?” I tried to keep my voice steady, but the panic I was feeling was creeping in.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Then, finally, he spoke. “I, uh… I didn’t pay it.”
The words hit me like a slap to the face. I couldn’t process it. “What do you mean, you didn’t pay it? You promised me you were handling this! How could you let this happen?”
He sighed, a sound I didn’t recognize. “I didn’t have the money. I’ve been struggling for a while, and I didn’t want to worry you.”
My mind raced, trying to make sense of it. Ben had been distant lately, but I had chalked it up to work stress, to long hours, to life in general. I had no idea that he was hiding this massive secret — that he had been silently letting our financial situation spiral out of control.
I felt betrayed. The man I had trusted with our future, the man I had built a life with, had been lying to me. I had no idea how long this had been going on. Had he known for months? Years? Or was this something that had just happened?
“What are we going to do?” I whispered, the weight of it all crushing me.
“I’ll fix it,” Ben said, but his voice lacked the conviction I had once known. “I’ll figure something out.”
But as I looked out the window of our home, the place we had built together, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the beginning of the end. Trust, once broken, was hard to rebuild, and I wasn’t sure if I could keep living in a house that no longer felt safe. As much as I wanted to believe Ben, the truth was that he had already shattered the foundation of everything we had worked for. The uncertainty felt suffocating, and for the first time, I wasn’t sure how we were going to make it through.
