A reader writes:
I want to tell this because two years ago I would have given anything to read it.
My husband Winston and I bought our house in Portmore in 2009. Three bedrooms, a small yard, a Julie mango that bears every other year. We were never rich but we paid the mortgage every month for over twelve years without missing once. I used to be quietly proud of that. I would see the payment go out and think, that is us, we are responsible people.
Then two things happened close together. Our daughter got married, and I wanted her to have the wedding I never had. I told Winston we could manage it, and I put a good part of it on a credit card and a small loan from work. I did not tell him how much. Six months later, the company Winston had been driving for lost its big contract and cut him to three days a week.
The first month we missed the mortgage, I told myself we would catch up the next month. The second month, I stopped opening the envelopes. I put them in the drawer of the dressing table, under my church hats. By the fourth month there were letters and phone calls and I was not answering numbers I didn’t know. I was still singing in the choir on Sunday. I was still on the welcome team, smiling at the door. Nobody knew. Winston knew we were behind, but he did not know how far, and he did not know about the card.
What I felt was not just worry. It was shame. I kept thinking: a woman my age, a Christian woman, twelve years of paying on time, and I have thrown it away for one day of flowers and a tent. I could not pray about it properly because I felt I had no right to ask for help with a mess I made myself.
It was my son who broke it open. He came to borrow the car and saw a letter I had left on the kitchen counter by mistake. He is not a soft-spoken young man. He said, “Mummy, how long has this been going on?” and I sat down on the kitchen floor, right there by the fridge, and cried like a child.
That night I told Winston everything, including the card. I expected him to shout. He was quiet for a long time, then he said, “So we are in it together, then,” and went and got the drawer. We spread every letter out on the dining table and read them, one by one, in order. It was the worst night of our marriage and also, I think now, the start of getting better.
The next morning I called the bank myself. I was shaking so badly I had to hold the phone with both hands. The lady I spoke to was not unkind. She said, and I remember this, that they would much rather hear from people early than late. She explained some options for people in difficulty and what they would need from us: income, expenses, what had changed. We went in the following week with a folder. We came out with a temporary arrangement, which was hard but possible, and a clear list of what we had to do to keep it.
After that it was just work, and not very glamorous. We sold Winston’s old pickup and kept the car. We let the back bedroom to a nurse from the hospital who needed somewhere quiet between shifts; she stayed fourteen months and is now like family. I cancelled the cable and the second phone. A sister from church who used to work in a credit union sat with me three Saturdays in a row and helped me make a budget I could actually follow. Winston picked up weekend driving for a friend’s delivery business. I spoke to the people at work about the loan and they let me pay it down more slowly.
I also stepped back from the welcome team for a while. Not as punishment. I just needed to stop smiling at the door when I was drowning. I told my pastor why. He did not lecture me. He read me the verse about confessing our sins and God being faithful and just to forgive (1 John 1:9), and then he said, “And now you are going to let other people carry some of this with you.” It had never occurred to me that the shame itself was something I could put down.
It took about eighteen months before we were properly back on track. There were months we ate a lot of cornmeal porridge and chicken back. There was one month the arrangement nearly fell apart because the water pump went. But we kept the house. The mango bore last year, a heavy crop, and I gave bags of it to everyone who had helped us.
If you have a drawer like mine, please open it. Tell your husband or your wife. Call the bank before they call you. The hiding is worse than the conversation. I promise you it is.
— Paulette, St Catherine
Editor’s note
Paulette’s story is really about two debts: the money, and the silence. The money was serious, but it was the months of unopened envelopes that nearly cost the house. Lenders, employers and family can usually only help with what they know about. Her other lesson is quieter. Guilt told her she had no right to ask for help because the mess was partly her own doing. Grace said otherwise. If you are behind on a mortgage or loan, speak to your lender as early as you can, and consider getting free or low-cost budgeting help from a credit union or a trusted adviser before making any big decisions.
This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.
Reader letters may be edited for length and clarity, and names and identifying details are changed.
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