My wife ran up steep debt as well, like you, about $10k, and we worked it down over about 5 years, for it to go up again, and we've been working it down. We have a pretty hands off approach with each others finances for the most part. I do our taxes, but we keep our accounts separate except for a joint account that we use for our daughter ... Like, the Democratic party's Child Tax Credit stipend goes in there, any gifts our kid gets goes in there and into a plain low interest savings acct.
But we've both overspent in the past.
If it was debt from befor eyou got together and even if it piled up around your wedding, I get that. There have been times where I've had to pay for a lot of shit at once, like this summer... My wife's car needed $2000 in repairs, then mine needed new brakes/whatever ($1200), then our water heater failed ($2900 because of some other bull shit), and then this trip I had planned for *months* the bill came due ... $3000 ... and all of a sudden I'm hitting $10,000 in debt on my CC (I usually pay for everything on my CC and then pay it off ASAP, but that kinda money was more than I had in cash coming in).... And I was embarrassed, and I didn't want to disrupt our regular stuff, like say ordering out on Fridays or going out to dinner occassionally, buying beer, etc. I just wanted to "Take care of it in my own time" because even though they were all pretty much shared expenses, I was embarrassed about the amount. And then because you've hidden it for some time, you keep hiding it.
There's a deep shame involved with financial stress, and it's easier to hide it than to talk about it. Part of the talk therapy should be about talking about finances and how to do it, because it can be really hard to do. Nobody wants to feel like a baby or that they can't manage their finances, and you often feel that way when spending spirals out of control.
IMO, she probably hasn't manipulated you, but that she feels a sense of anxiety, dread, and an unwillingness to confront her own spending, which can be embarrassing. She probably hides it from herself as much as from you, knowing it's there, but not really confronting it. I did that before too with a tax bill from the IRS for like $6500 because I fucked up my taxes one year. I knew it was there, but I didn't want to confront it, and the bill sat on my desk for months until I finally owned up and figured it all out.
