About three years ago we decided we would remodel the house to be more amenable to our upcoming retirements. She wanted to completely rebuild the house from the inside, while I wasn’t as keen on the scope and cost of the work, I had enough stock options to sell to pay for it, as well as the living arrangements while the work was done.

We still got a HELOC (home equity line of credit) in case there were cost overruns, which there always are. I signed and approved the estimate, which was for mid-six-figures. I said since my stock sale should cover the estimate, the line of credit shouldn’t exceed 100k at the absolute most.

The work took a year, during which time the builder said that due to supply chain cost increases the materials would cost a bit more than the original estimate. Of course he waited until demo was complete and the entire house was down to the studs to tell us this (warning sign #1). I never saw an invoice, I would have been more assertive about looking at them, but I’d started work at a Major Internet Company, and they were doing their best to burn me out (they succeeded BTW), so I just trusted her to handle those aspects, and let me know if anything dire occurred that needed my attention (my mistake #1).

So the work was completed and we moved back in. One day I happened to open a mortgage statement and had a shock. The balance on the HELOC was over 250k. The mortgage was effectively doubled, and the HELOC interest rate was already ~6% (and rising). I was simply furious. Like I said, I’d never seen an invoice, and figured that much of an increase would have been seen as worthy of flagging my attention.

In fact, it turned out the builder ultimately charged us more than double. Of a mid-six-figure estimate. And only sent the invoices to her. And she just paid them. Without breathing a word to me.

Then a little later on, her company was clearly being grossly mismanaged, and it was obvious about 3 months before it happened that they were going to fail and close. I urged her to start looking for a job, since the economy was already awful, and our mortgage payment was already high. She basically told me to stop saying things that upset her.

Then the company closed. She was really upset, and rather than being supportive, I was thinking “first she doubled our mortgage, now she halved our income” and basically was unsupportive (major mistake on my part, and probably the end of the marriage right there).

We’re in couples counseling, but she’s basically got an answer for every objection I bring up (she tried to show me the invoices but I wasn’t interested, etc, etc).

I’m almost 60, and know that dating in the last 1/3 of my life is much harder than the first two thirds (and it wasn’t easy in my 20s either). I’m watching my marriage fail slowly, knowing that I really need to prepare for that, and acknowledge my part in it.

Really no right answers, just different shades of wrong.