I love Gail Vaz-oxglade and her show "Til Debt Do Us Part" which takes couples through reworking their finances to get out of debt and ALSO to get along with each other. Her premise is that marriage is a partnership and partners work together and keep the finances open and honest that way (no judgement here from me - I also have been known to hide the credit card bills when I've spent money after we agreed not to) . Maybe with your pastor's help or a friend savvy with $$, you can learn to work together, and have the finances open to both of your eyes and for both of you to make decisions. Past mistakes are past - and we are allowed to learn from them - in fact I recommend it, lol . I feel strongly that sitting down and creating a budget together and checking with the spending weekly or more often even creates a strong, honest, true bond in a marriage, and will also give you both such peace in your lives you won't believe you ever lived without it....sorry, I guess I"m preaching now, but even with struggling to adjust our budget and having my children home for the summer, my husband and I talk about where the money will be going each week and we try to make it fun, but we keep it real. hugs.

I got divorced in 1983 because of those issues. Ex was addicted to credit cards, and that was the only time in my life that I've ever had any financial problems because of her spending with CCs. The marriage ended because she refused to negotiate on it and I refused to take out a loan for a trip when we were already flat broke.

The problem was, she was one of those people who cannot distinguish between "wants" and "needs". What you need is food, clothing and shelter. Everything else is wants. She would do things like buy stuff "on sale" but not think that if you're paying six month's CC interest on it then that negates the "savings" from the sale, no? That's when I began to lose respect for her.

Dishonesty in a marriage is very destructive, and it got to the point that I simply didn't trust her any more, and I knew her promises were worthless so there was no point in continuing on with it. So I went my own way, bought my own house, (paid off in 14 years) and found a wonderful woman who is often more frugal than I am. The only time she paid CC interest was when she was in her 20s, her car - which she needed to get to work - needed an expensive repair so she charged it, and paid it off in three months. That sounded reasonable to me.

I understand your desire to pay this bill on your own, but realistically, finding a good work-from-home job is very difficult, and really how much work can you get done with 4 children in the house?  Your options are pretty limited, like providing child care or taking in work for a special skill (sewing, computer work, repair services, etc...) 

Another route is taking a job that provides free or reduced-cost child care, such as working in a gym, community college, school, government office, etc as someone else mentioned.  Or find a job where you can bring your child along, such as driving a bus/van, a paper route, local deliveries, etc... Or can you trade-off child care with another stay-at-home mom?  Then you can have regular time available for a part time job while providing the same benefit to another mom.

Finally, and I really hesitate to add this because it might sound judgemental, which is not at all what I mean, and obviously I'm a complete outsider who knows nothing about your relationship or overall situation. But from a total third-party perspective, I always cringe when I hear a stay-at-home parent say the biggest obstacle to them achieving what they want (in your case, an independent income) is their spouse's job.  It keeps the SAHP from acheiving some self-sufficiency and traps the working parent in a job that, quite frankly, sounds really unpleasant.  Regularly working until 10, having no flexibility in his schedule, even occassional 20 hour days is really hard for a man with 4 young children at home.  It seems really unfair to both of you.  You're probably both exhausted and that makes it really difficult to have a rational perspective.  And it doesn't necessarily get easier when they're all in school.  There will lways be sick days, school vacation days, parent-teacher meetings, etc..  I suggest, as part of your "recovery" from this one incident, try and come up with a more equitable arrangement - so that you can earn some income, and so that he can spend more time with his family.  If you do seek counseling, this should be part of the discussion.  Again, this is just a suggestion and totally not a judgement, just an opinion from an outside perspective.