My husband with mild cognitive disorder is causing huge financial problems. Who do I go to for help?

In the long run, it will be cheaper to have the court appoint a conservator than to allow him to continue the financial implosion. Petition the court, ask the son to be the conservator and if you both agree, it should be over in one hearing.

Does he have a durable POA in place? I would recommend calling a Certified Elder Law Attorney to plan for the future with your husband. If he will do a Durable POA you can take charge of the finances. If he does not agree to do a POA then the attorney can work with you to pursue guardianship. Once you have the legal right you can work with the bank and credit card companies to limit his access to money.

Sorry, pushed send. Provide doctors with details on how he's not able to manage money, and other evidence of impairment to assist in getting him care and you access to managing both of your affairs. Hope your son can help with some of this.

So sorry that you have these burdens. You should see a lawyer about your options. I know that can be expensive, but you might need to consider guardianship or, possibly, divorce. I am a lawyer, but do not specialize in this area. Ask friends for a recommendation.

You'll likely need doctors to provide updated diagnosis as well, so you might need to provide them with

You need a team of people to help you. Is your son willing to be totally supportive in helping you work out this problem? If so then you really should proceed with contacting an attorney who deals with Elder Law and the complications that can occur. Since POA's can be verbally rescinded you want to make sure you get the appropriate document for your state. Have you notified the mortgage company? make certain that you always have written down and even send a hard copy of any information that you feel is necessary...do not assume anything! Guardianship and conservatorship are expensive and a lawyer and a judge will have to talk with your husband and maybe you and your son. You do not need to go into financial ruin as a result of your husbands inability to manage money. After you get this in place you might want to consider giving him something that he can still do financially....even if it is limited and monitored. Good luck .

My husband who is late stage dementia, started out this way. His daughter came from out of state and convinced him to let me handle all the finances. He was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. We sat with him at the computer and learned all of the passwords and I took over. He was relieved because he was spending all week trying to juggle everything. He had us $18,000 in debt and it took me a year to pay everything off and we have a good income. Luckily I already had a durable power of attorney which is extremely important and which I needed over and over....even to get a handicapped tag for the car when I took him to his doctors, etc. I also needed it to take to the tax preparer, when he was admitted to a nursing facility for a fracture on his leg, and also for now when he was just admitted to an assisted living facility. You should see if you and your son can persuade him to do a durable power of attorney if you don't have one yet. We've had one for 17 years. Of course I voided the one that gave him power of attorney and will name someone else in his place for the future. Hope this helps!

What I would do is call the credit card companies with whom he has a card and stop all of the credit cards. You can also stop paying the bills on those cards and put them on the back burner until you can afford to pay them off. Not paying the bills or not paying them in full will stop the cards at some point and they will become locked or in active. Another thing you can also do is speak with your bank and remove his name from the bank account in question. Put a small amount of money for him into a separate account. The alternative is to get yourself a new account and leave him on the old one and just move all of the money to the new account except for a small amount for him. That way, he'll have no access to your money and he won't be able to take you down financially. I'm not sure he even realizes what he's doing if he's mentally declined. Another idea is to not keep any cash at home or on you, just don't keep any cash. Normally I don't even carry cash and neither do many other people because most people do use plastic. What you can do is give him a prepaid debit card with a very small amount of money on it. I heard about this idea somewhere on this site and I think it's a good idea. That way, when he runs out of money on that card it will be declined if you have the bank set up the account to not overdraft. This is done by having them go into the account settings on opting out. This might take about a day or two to take take effect, and I wouldn't give him the prepaid debit card until then. The first place I would start is with the unnecessary accounts such as the regular credit cards but get so many people in financial trouble when they rack up a big bill. Again, just have every card stopped and don't pay any more on those cards until you can afford to. Stopping all of those cards is going to be key to preventing any more future debt. If he gets any more cards or reactivate the old ones, just keep stopping them. One final trip is to Google the words 'opt out'. You can opt out of everything and put your number on the national do not call registry.

My mother wrote checks to do-good organizations around the country - the world! - and dozens of checks to sweepstakes companies, to shysters, to psychics, to anyone wanting money (from a stack of over 100 letters she received, coming into her mailbox in a week). I, of course, volunteered to drop them off at the post office on my way home. In the car, I would sort them out, mail the one or two legit ones, and take the rest home to go through the shredder. Next week, repeat. it went on and on until her checkbook at home got 'lost', but by that time she could hardly write her own name anyhow.

You need to talk to your bank manager immediately and ensure that every transaction (check, money transfer) your husband wishes to make from now is not valid unless countersigned by you or your son. Create a new bank account funded with low amounts of cash if he insists on keeping a bank card to keep cash in his wallet, but seriously low balance, renewable by you monthly. Try to convert your joint account to a new account with your signature only, not just because you are working but to ensure that all necessary bills and overheads get paid.. Move to get a properly operating POA.

My SIL's mother got hooked on sweepstakes. She sent in $$$$ to these sweepstakes "opportunities" promising to get rich quick. She and her husband were elderly and when her husband found out she was addicted to sweepstakes, he had to take over the mail by getting a Post Office Box.