Halima: [00:23:05] I lost everything except my children.
Ramit Sethi: [00:23:09] Would you like to tell me a little bit about what happened?
Halima: [00:23:11] No, I don’t mind. In my first marriage, I divorced my ex-husband due to financial infidelity.
Ramit Sethi: [00:23:22] What’s going on?
Halima: [00:23:24] We were going under, and I didn’t know. I was a high school teacher, and I had a great job, and I got pregnant with my first child and decided that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and have kids, raise kids. And that the man of the house will work. And my ex-husband was in the bank. He was in finance. And for me, I feel like when you’re dealing with money, you know everything about money.
Ramit Sethi: [00:24:07] Ah.
Halima: [00:24:08] Yes Yes. The house we bought while I was working, we were about to be foreclosed on. She was responsible for all the debts, and I trusted her in that like any good wife. At first, I was married to my ex for about 10 years, 12 years in total, with him. So I trusted him, and I loved him.
The house was for sale because I thought—I’m pregnant with my second now. They are only 16 months apart, and we needed to improve. We lived in a really small home of 1,200 square feet, so we wanted to upgrade and buy something bigger and better. So for about six months we were there—we sold the house, but it was actually foreclosed on. The bank took it.
Ramit Sethi: [00:25:10] Did you know this?
Halima: [00:25:11] I didn’t know this. I didn’t know this.
Ramit Sethi: [00:25:13] Wow.
Halima: [00:25:13] We ended up renting a house. And while we were renting this house and selling our house, with that money, we were going to buy something bigger. So for about six months, I became really good friends with the real estate agent we worked with because on my Saturdays and Sundays I would go look at homes with him. Even during the week, we looked at homes. So it was a good plan for him to pull things because he knew that if I found out, I would leave him.
And it ended the day after Halloween, November 1, 2019. We knocked on the door. It was the owner of the house and a policeman, another policeman, they were evicting us. My son, at that time, was about 18 months old. My daughter was a little older. They were both in diapers, and I still have a downstairs hamper that I can fill with whatever I can. That’s how I left the house.
And my whole foundation, my whole world came down. Long story short, he left the country because there really was nowhere else for him to go. No one trusted him anymore. He was borrowing money left and right. He didn’t believe anymore. And he left me with two children.