Fifty Stolen Cards And The Man Who Paid For Ten Years

He used my ID to open fifty credit cards. I made him pay for ten years. “This is an automated call from Capitol One. Your credit card account is past due. Please remit payment immediately.” The voice on the other end was mechanical and cold. I froze. “A credit card? I don’t have a credit card.” “Ma’am, the card under your name has been delinquent for three months. The outstanding balance, including principal and interest, totals forty-seven thousand eight hundred and ninety-two dollars.” I assumed it was a scam and hung up. The next day, another call came in. A different bank. A different number. The same chilling message: Your credit card is past due. A cold, sick dread began to pool in my stomach.

1. I took a half-day off work and went straight to my bank. The teller checked my Social Security number and looked up, her expression strained. “Ma’am, are you sure you want me to pull all credit card records?” “Yes. All of them.” She tapped the keyboard, and the printer whirred out a long sheet of paper. I took it, and my breath hitched. It wasn’t one card. It was nine. Nine credit cards, every single one delinquent, the oldest overdue by eight months. My hand started to tremble. “This is impossible. I’ve never applied for a credit card…” The teller hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “Ma’am, the application address for all of these accounts is the same.” She pointed to a line on the printout. I looked where she indicated. It was my home address. I found myself crouched outside the bank lobby, my mind a blank static screen. I hadn’t opened the cards. But the address was mine. The only person who had access to my ID and knew my address intimately… I couldn’t finish the thought. When I got home, Garrett Wells wasn’t back from the office yet. I tore through our bedroom, and in the very bottom of his dresser drawer, beneath a pile of unused ties, I found a manila envelope. Inside were more credit card statements. Not nine. Twenty-three. Every single one used. Every single one carrying a crushing balance. The smallest owed eight hundred dollars, the largest, twelve thousand. I tallied them, my hand shaking so hard I had to stop. What was the total? I couldn’t bear to calculate it. The sound of the key turning in the front door lock made me jump. Garrett walked in and saw me sitting on the floor, the colorful bank statements scattered around me like fallen leaves. His face went white. “You… you went through my things?” I looked up, meeting his eye. “What are these?” He didn’t answer, his gaze shifting wildly around the room. “I’m asking you, Garrett. Were these credit cards opened using my Social Security number and my ID?” “…” “Garrett Wells!” He finally spoke, his voice weak and reedy: “I meant to pay them off, Astrid… I’ve just been short lately…” I gave a short, bitter laugh. Three years of marriage. Every month, I deposited my paycheck, kept five hundred dollars for groceries and incidentals, and transferred the rest to him to “help with the mortgage.” I hadn’t bought a new dress over sixty-five dollars since our wedding. I packed my lunch every day, never splurging on takeout. I thought we were saving, paying down debt together, building a future. I was wrong. He had been using my identity, opening cards, charging them to the limit, maxing out my credit history. And I knew nothing. “How many cards, Garrett?” He said nothing. “What is the total balance?” Still silence. I stared at him. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll go find out myself.” “…Don’t go, I’ll handle it.” “Handle it? How will you handle it?” “I’ll figure something out…” “With whose money? Mine?” He lifted his head, a complex flicker in his eyes. “We’re married. We’re a unit. What’s the difference?” I was stunned into silence. I’d heard that phrase a thousand times. When we married, he said “we’re a unit,” so his name alone was on the house deed. When we bought the car, he said “we’re a unit,” so I paid the entire down payment. When it came to my monthly paycheck, he said “we’re a unit,” so I handed it all over for him to manage. I’d always thought it meant trust. I realized then that, in his mind, “we’re a unit” meant: Your money is my money, and my debt is yours. I didn’t sleep that night. I lay in bed, listening to his heavy, oblivious breathing. He slept like a baby. And I spent the entire night grappling with a single, horrifying question: Who exactly did I marry? The next morning, I called in sick. I drove to a different bank. I found five more cards. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth bank… With every discovery, a new layer of frost settled over my heart. The final number was a punch to the gut— Fifty. Fifty credit cards, all opened in my name, using my identity. Some had been opened in person, others applied for online. The application forms—for employment, income verification, contact details—were all fraudulent. But the handwriting in the signature boxes was unmistakable. It was his. I stood in the bank’s printing area for a long time, clutching the thick stack of paper. A staff member asked, “Ma’am, are you okay?” I nodded. “Do you need me to call anyone for you?” “No.” I walked out of the bank with the debt statements in my hand. The sunlight was bright. People rushed past, preoccupied with their own lives. No one knew that my world had just collapsed. 2. I didn’t go straight home. I found a coffee shop, sat down, and started poring over the statements, one by one. Fifty cards. A total outstanding balance of $485,000. $485,000. My salary was $4,200 a month. How many years would it take me to pay that off, even if I didn’t eat or pay rent? Decades. I was twenty-eight. I’d be in my sixties by the time this was done. The sheer absurdity of it made me feel hysterically cold. I’d been frugal for three years, thinking I was saving for our future. It turned out my husband was using my identity to rack up a half-million dollars in debt. And I hadn’t spent a single penny of it on myself. The transaction records were clear. Hotel: $480. Club/Lounge: $320. Luxury Boutique: $1,200. Jewelry Store: $860. Transfer: $500. Transfer: $1,000. Transfer: $2,000… The recipient of the transfers was the same name, over and over again. Candace Price. I didn’t know the name. But looking at the spending, my husband knew her well. Hotel bookings forty-seven times. No fewer than twenty pieces of high-end luxury goods. Total transfers exceeding $70,000. I stared at the name, feeling a weird, unnatural calm. So it wasn’t just about stealing my money. It was about another woman. I sent Garrett a text: “Meet me. Now.” He replied instantly: “What’s wrong?” “Just come.” He arrived at the coffee shop half an hour later. He sat down, glanced at the stack of bills on the table, and his face changed color. “You… you checked?” “Fifty cards. $485,000. Candace Price.” I spoke the words one by one, watching his face turn utterly pale. “I can explain…” “Don’t bother.” I cut him off. “I only have one question for you.” “How are you going to pay it back?” He blinked, thrown off balance. “What do you mean?” “The $485,000. How do you plan to pay it back?” “I… I’ll figure something out…” “What? Are you going to keep using my ID to open more cards?” He fell silent. “Or are you expecting me to help you pay it?” He looked up, a sliver of desperate hope in his eyes. “Well, under the law… marital debt is supposed to be shared…” I smiled, a tight, horrible expression. “Garrett, I make $4,200 a month. You want me to pay $485,000?” “We can pay it slowly…” “Slowly?” I rose to my feet. “You used my ID to open these cards, maxed out my credit, and used my money to finance your mistress. Now you want me to pay it ‘slowly’?” He flinched at my tone, his voice trembling. “I… I’m so sorry, Astrid.” “Sorry? You’ve been ‘sorry’ for three years. Fifty cards. That took you three years to accomplish.” I picked up my bag and looked him straight in the eye. “You have three days. In three days, you either have a concrete plan to pay this off, or—” “Or what?” “Or I’m calling the police.” I turned and walked away. Behind me, I heard him call out: “You can’t call the police! You’ll ruin me! How can you be so heartless?” I didn’t look back. Heartless? Were you heartless when you opened fifty cards in my name? Were you heartless when you transferred money to another woman using my stolen credit? Were you heartless when you let me pack a $15 lunch every day while you spent my future on her? Three years. Every penny I saved went into his pocket. The “working together” I believed in was a joke. The “shared future” was my one-sided delusion. $485,000. It was a number I would never forget. 3. Three days later, Garrett hadn’t “figured something out.” His solution was to send his mother. My mother-in-law’s call came in, her tone much harder than usual. “Astrid, Garrett told me. You two have had a little misunderstanding.” “A misunderstanding?” “Yes, a misunderstanding. Garrett was just foolish, borrowed a little money. Don’t be so dramatic.” “Ma’am, $485,000. Do you call that ‘a little’?” A second of silence on the line. “…It was for the family.” “For the family? He used my ID to open cards and transferred $70,000 to another woman. Is that ‘for the family’?” Her voice rose sharply. “How can you, a woman, be so mean-spirited? A man has business to attend to, what’s the big deal about spending money? If you’d been a better wife and focused on starting a family, Garrett wouldn’t have had to look elsewhere!” I froze. Not because her words were hurtful. But because, in that instant, I finally saw this family for who they were. A half-million dollars in debt was a “little misunderstanding.” $70,000 for a mistress was “normal business.” And me? I was the wife who hadn’t bought a new outfit in three years, packed my lunch, and gave up my entire salary. In her eyes, I was merely the daughter-in-law who hadn’t produced a child yet. And I deserved to be swindled. “Ma’am,” I took a deep breath. “I will not help him pay this debt. Not one cent.” “What do you mean? You are his wife! His debt is your debt!” “It is not.” “Astrid! Are you trying to destroy my son?” “He used my ID to open cards and stole my money to pay his mistress. This is not marital debt; this is identity theft and fraud.” A gasp was audible through the phone. “You… you’re going to call the police?” “If he doesn’t pay, yes.” “You are wicked! Your heart is black! My son was blind to marry you!” “I was the one who was blind.” I hung up. Garrett came home that night. His attitude was much softer than before. “Babe, I really am sorry. Can you just give me more time? I’ll find a way to pay it back slowly…” “Slowly? What means do you have to pay it back at all?” “I… I can take out a loan…” “A loan? In whose name? Using my ID again?” He went quiet. “Garrett, I’m asking you one last time. The $485,000. How will you pay it back?” He looked at me, his eyes darting away. “I can pay you $500 a month…” “$500? $485,000. How many years will that take?” “…Forty-plus years.” “You’re thirty-two. Forty years from now, you’ll be in your seventies.” “Then… then what do you want me to do?” I looked at him. Three years of marriage. Three years of deprivation. Three years of willful blindness. I felt utterly exhausted. “I want a divorce.” He was stunned. “What?” “I said, divorce. The debt is yours to manage. It has nothing to do with me.” “You… you can’t do this!” “Why can’t I?” “We’re married! You can’t just abandon me!” I smiled humorlessly. “When I was scrimping and saving, did you care about me?” “I…” “When you were transferring money to another woman, did you think of me?”