This is a continuation on from the post I Married a Monster which you can find here, please read that first if you haven’t already.

Not only was my “husband” violent and aggressive, it seems that he was also stealing from me also.

Back when I first moved into my home, I set up a Santander Account with the view of using it for all my bill payments to go out that were related to the house. In the end, I decided to leave the direct debits set up on my main account and didn’t start using the Santander account until 2020.

When he moved in with me we had agreed that we would both pay money into the Santander account (which was in MY name only and I never changed it over to a joint account) to cover the running costs of the house. I was paying in over half my salary each month to cover bills and assumed he was doing the same.

He was forever lecturing me about how “bad” I was with finances, that I “didn’t understand money”, and how he should have access to the account so he could keep an eye on things, and at some point, I relented and let him have access. I was going through a bad patch with my mental health, and my stress and anxiety were at an all-time high at this point, and that was used as leverage for him to get access. I was told, “Let me look after the finances, you don’t need the added stress”, and I let him.

He had the banking app on his phone, and each time I asked to look at the accounts, I was told that he had it all under control and “only one person can access the app.”

I left him on 2nd July 2025. I sent him a text while I was staying away from the house. I had to protect myself and told him that I would be moving away to give myself some breathing and thinking space. On 14th July, I asked him for access to MY Santander account, which he took his time over giving me the access codes. Another date to mention is 22nd July 2025 when he messaged me to remind me about MY car insurance needing to be paid.

Once I was in the accounts, it became apparent that all the money I had been putting into covering bills had been taken out by him.

It took ages to export all the information onto a spreadsheet and start to get my head around everything. I worked out that I had put in £26,831 over the years the account was active. He put in £14,970.40 and took out ££15,228.11. He was making sure his own bills (car/van insurance, car/van tax, Sky) were being paid, but house bills (council tax, rent, water), or my bills (car tax, car insurance) were not being paid. And to make matters worse, he was clearing the account before the house bills or my bills were able to be paid WITH THE MONEY I’D PUT IN. Below are ALL the statements from my Santander Account. I have covered my address and account details.

These statements clearly show money being taken out of my account and sent to his accounts (it looks like there were 2 accounts that he used… R HOWELLS which he made payments into the account from and ROBERT CHRISTOPH REFERENCE BA , MANDATE NO 2 that payments were made to from the account).

I don’t have access to my old personal account (Halifax) as I shut that down a while ago and moved over to Monzo, but I put money into his account for him over time, totalling £1232.44 as well.

He pretty much financially ruined me. I’ve had Council Tax to re-pay (a couple of years’ worth), water bills to pay (nearly £1000), a salary overpayment from a previous job that he had hidden letters about from me, and an attachment of earnings for benefits that were paid to him that I’ve never seen a penny of. I nearly lost my house because there were rent arrears due to him taking money from my account. I’m even being chased for non-payment of bills that were never in my name but were attached to my Santander Account.

And there’s still more, but I’ll share that in another post.

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