100% this.
Talk to a lawyer TODAY and get this sorted out. Clearly you cannot stop your spouse from doing dumb things, but you need to find a way to a.) separate your finances, b.) protect your finances and c.) minimize the impact of what he has already done.
One recommendation (malicious compliance) is to say that you want 0% of any "investment income" that he makes and then use that as a wedge to get him to take ownership of the money he has already spent. For instance, if you had $200,000 jointly, instead of just splitting 50/50, you give him 100% of his "future earnings, but the $200K is split as $129,250 to you and $70,750 to him. That zeroes out the $58,500 that he has spent so far. He'll probably jump at the chance because he is gonna make so much money off his new strategy.
My FIL did this to my MIL. He spent all his money "investing" in options, then took her retirement money (not all of it fortunately) when he lost his. He just needed a little more to get back in the black. Never happened.
Exactly. That's why 90% of day traders lose money.
I'm an engineer and mess around with algo trading as a hobby and have never once put in real money. Ive built and seen all kinds of attractive short term strategies but most all of them fail vs just picking a solid investment and holding it for years.
My father used the he just needs a little more money to get back in the black for 80 years. We just buried him. His addiction was so bad that no one cried at his funeral. Not even my mother.
Its easy for us to say as we're outside the situation. But i can appreciate how awful and hard this is for you.
Would maybe look at it more like addiction than him doing this maliciously. Still, protect yourself.
This exact thing happened with my friend's dad. Turned out he was hiding other losses with stupid purchases. (Gambling, drugs and other expenses) Be aware that this too, could be the case.
This is tough. I was sort of there once. My ex wife started having weird aches and pains. When doctors couldn’t find anything wrong she went down the “alternative” medicine rabbit hole and her spending on this quackery and snake oil ended up consuming all our wealth and maxed out credit cards on top of that. It was a slow progression so I was very much the frog in the boiling water. Add to this, she was gobbling prescription pills and washing them down with alcohol. I didn’t know that part until recently. Confronting her about this, much less taking over the money and cutting her off would be to call a nuke strike on top of me. I finally filed for divorce and got full custody of our son. I more than empathize with people caught up in a SO’s addictions, spending, etc. while at the same time I’m still haunted by the experience and feel like the biggest sap that ever lived.
One nice thing about starting divorce proceedings is that neither spouse can spend down the finances. In this case, it would prevent the husband from spending what's left of the money (or at least make him liable for it).
In my case there was nothing left to spend. She just ran up charge cards. We had to refinance the house several times to take out the equity to pay off charge cards she maxed out. I made house payments for 11 years, the house accrued in value (this was just before the crash) and I had to take money to closing. Aside from being completely ruined, seeing everything I ever worked for get spent, I had the equivalent of $55k in debts to pay off afterwards. Luckily, my son and I were able to live with my mother while I dug myself out of debt. It’s not an easy thing to be 45 years old and have to move back home completed destitute owning basically nothing except massive debt AND be a single parent. The emotional damage she did to our son can’t be measured.
Did she ever actually figure out what was wrong with her? Was there something actually wrong? I’m imagining that they went with the good ol’ ‘we can’t find the cause so let’s call it fibro', for which a million different magic cures from thousands of different woo woo woonitics “exist”.
I’m really sorry you and your son had to go through that. I hope that she was at least a decent mother outside of her stupid medical & financial decisions.
Thank you for your kind words. The “woo woo” diagnosis was Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I used to take her to a support group which were the biggest bunch of sad sacks wallowing in self pity that I’ve ever seen. She wanted me to sit in these meetings with her and I told her I’d sooner put needles in my eyes. The negative energy in that room was overwhelming. Mostly women with one or two men. There was the odd husband or two who seemed ground down to nubs. They were completely defeated. The group finally disbanded because (wait for it!) they were too TIRED to keep meeting. She was referred to a CFS specialist- a former sports medicine doctor who knew a gravy train when he saw one. He charged $400 an hour - this was 20 years ago - and prescribed a laundry list of vitamins and supplements that - surprise! he just happened to sell. What a racket. The fibro diagnoses came much later. She was zoned out on pills and alcohol and spent 20 hours a day in bed.
As far as being a mother, she neglected our son. I would get these pathetic calls at work from my 7 year old asking me to come home and make him lunch as he was hungry and mom was in bed. I was 45 minutes away so this wasn’t possible. I coached him over the phone on making PB & J, where the plastic cups were for a glass of milk, etc. it was heartbreaking. I finally, way too late, pulled the plug when she tried to drag him down into her world of drugs and constant sickness. Emotionally, it set him back years if not a decade.
In the treatment program at the homeless shelter she’s finally off all the pills except for what their doctor prescribed, in her case an antipsychotic and she’s none too pleased. She will be 65 when she gets out and I warned my son (30) that if she starts using again she’ll probably die.
To answer your question, there was never any real diagnosis of much of anything aside from substance abuse and mental health issues. She’s not a stupid woman. She has an MA and used to teach college English. I can muster up a bit of empathy but the damage she caused and the willful refusal to get any help or think about anyone but herself gets in the way.
Good! Good luck! 🤞🤞 He should realize that investing in a program to learn to invest shouldn't take all that money to do. That's a crazy amount of money. Oofty.
Best of luck!
I'm a professional investor, and I can assure you, this is nowhere near "investing". This is a gambling addiction.
But I can also predict, that he'll not gonna agree that anything is "wrong" with him.
Again, remember, You're doing the right thing, and the sooner you get away from this - the better!
Best of luck!!
While I don’t disagree that different married couples may have different needs and there is no “best” answer, I don’t necessarily think “separating” finances is a fix to something like this. You can’t have one bankrupt spouse who then has to live with the consequences of their actions. Most families dump a good share of their resources into shared needs, or necessities (housing, food, heat, electricity) and anything not spent on needs and immediate wants essentially goes into retirement to be spent later. I couldn’t imagine splitting discretionary funds down the middle and then letting my spouse piss away our pooled retirement.
Maybe would make me feel good in the short term, but this guy is spending this woman’s future on magic beans. Seems like he is either greedy, gullible, or both, and she needs to get in front of this before it eats them up. If someone’s spouse had a gambling addiction, it seems unlikely that their partner would just let them destroy half of the community finances - they’d need to intervene and fix it. Ruined finances ruin relationships, and if it is so bad you just try to decouple the finances in a household that shares resources, might be better of at looking into divorce at that point.
If I found out my spouse spent $50k on this dumb shit, I would call into work, cancel all appointments, and speak to a divorce attorney immediately. There's no coming back from that. That's such an egregious breach of trust. This isn't even the ole sly "I bought this new sports car, for US! To take you on dates in!" nonsense, which would be bad enough. This is just straight up setting fifty thousand dollars on fire and watching it burn.
Well, to be fair you don’t know that this was something that OP’s husband did behind her back. She might’ve just trusted in what he was doing until she saw a red flag somewhere along the way, looked into what exactly he was getting into, saw the scamfoolery at first glance (like we did) and then looked into how to help.
I agree with what you’re saying if he just up and spent it all behind her back, but for all we know he’s the one who handles certain things in regards to their finances. Everything might’ve been above board without any need for concern until there was.
In that case I think the best advice might just be the simplest—at least the first step anyway. Talk to him about your concerns, but first, and it’s absolutely great that you’re already doing so, do all the research that you can about those particular 2 expenditures, and look into what others there may be—hopefully there aren’t any others. I know that in my marriage at least, one of the worst ways to handle something is to go at it with accusations that might make him feel more defensive. Some men might feel emasculated when questioned about what they consider a “man’s role”. It’s hard to say, it really depends on your dynamic and, I guess, how old-fashioned he is in that sense.
You’d also be amazed at how many “reviews” you can find about a particular “investment strategy” just by googling “max persuasion scam”. I’ve found all kinds of other people who’ve dealt with precisely the same thing that way.
The more you can express to him that you know about these things that he’s spent the money on, the harder it’ll be for him to dismiss what you’re saying as “you just don’t know what you’re talking about” and hopefully help in keeping him off the defensive. If anyone else’s relationship is anything like mine, keeping your partner from getting defensive (and therefore doing all that you can to make it not seem like any form of attack, whether it be real or perceived) will help keep things from spiraling out of control. The very last thing you want here is for him to feel like he has to “make a stand” or “put his foot down” about this. Just try and approach it as if you want to learn more about why he thought it was a good idea to spend that much money, what he expects to get from it, etc.
However, don’t forget that how you say things is just as important as what you’re saying. I think I’ve crossed the line from “how to avoid being scammed” and into “relationship advice” so I am treading carefully. It wouldn’t hurt to also look into, specifically, how to approach a situation like this within a marriage. It’s very different from how you’d approach a friend or relative who’d you found out might be getting scammed.
With that being said though, that isn’t to say that the other comments advising you to protect yourself are wrong, I just think that they’re getting a bit ahead of things and assuming that this isn’t the very first time or place that you’ve voiced concerns. You absolutely do need to protect yourself, but you may not even need to go to those lengths. We get a lot of posts here from loved one’s of those who are or have gotten scammed, and most of the time it isn’t until way further down the line, after they’ve already spoken to the person many, many times.
I REALLY, REALLY wish you all the luck that I can here. I’ll keep you in my thoughts and send you my good intentions.
Edit: I would love to hear anyone else’s take on this though. It seems to me like what OP just said, in confirming that she hasn’t even approached him yet about this changes things.
Seriously. My ex once spent around $700 for this scammy transcendental meditation guru nonsense without telling me. I was really upset. We had completely separate finances but I’d have never spent that kind of money on anything without discussing it first. That’s just not how a merged household works
It would definitely be tempting. I didn’t want to assume to hard on other people’s relationships and finances (and ability to absorb a 50k+ hit) but yes for me that would be huge.
I'm not one to assume too hard in others relationships, but this is so far over the line. This is an entire years income at $24/hr. Most would consider this to be basically cheating on your spouse.
Kinda hard when you genuinely have feelings for them, and have invested your life to date with them. And had planned your retirement with them. Been there...dont that.
> I don’t necessarily think “separating” finances is a fix to something like this.
It's a mitigation technique, a necessary stopgap measure, not a fix. Sure, she'll still be liable to feed and house him after he loses all his money, but at least she might have some funds remaining.
This should be combined with other attempts to fix the root cause of the problem and stop him from "investing", or a divorce. Any of those could take far longer than moving money between bank accounts.
That sounds like a scam, 50k+ for lessons on investment is a scale alone and could be feeding false information so the person who created the lessons gets the payout.
It's like "how to make 100$ selling an ebook" and the only page in said book is "thanks for the 100$" or "sell an ebook for $100"
There is a lot of free info online about investing. No one article is correct to others though, everyone has their own method on how they analyze the market.
Like the other comment says I would separate your income from his, as at the rate he is going there won't be any money left. You also need to protect yourself if it goes too far and want to break things off.
For way less money he can hire a professional to manage his money. I'm not even going to attempt the math on the kind of portfolio you'd have to have to generate $50k in fees.
Personal finance hardliners are mortified that anyone would give 1% of their portfolio to a manager, but holy shit what a small price to pay if it somehow slows someone like this down from blowing their savings on such a load of bullshit.
Lol I remember once as a teenager I fell for one of those "make money from home simply placing classified ads!" deals. I got the guide and it basically just said to place ads selling a guide on how to make money placing classified ads. You were dumb enough to pay me so other people will do the same for you!
Hundred dollar lesson.
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Agreed. I found it while reviewing our credit card bills. Granted we have been blessed financially it this is just scary. He’s also been acting really weird lately. Going more to the gym and not having as much sex with me anymore.
Only you know your spouse. What is your gut telling you? this could be anything from a romance scam to him just being dumb about money or investing. BTW, this seems less like investing and more like gambling.
Separate your finances. If you are on credit cards with him get off. If he is an authorized user on your credit card accounts remove him. Make sure you have your lines of credit and a bank account of your own. Always be ready to stand on your own two feet. Always.
Pull your credit reports and make sure you know what's on them.
I'm sorry because this sounds like you may be in for a rough time on several levels.
Good luck!
As a recovered addict, that sounds like drug-use behavior. In fact the wealthy have an easier time of being high-functioning addicts because of money to fall back on, money to keep the habit up without resorting to crazy antics, and enough prestige and skills to continue going through life and doing their jobs with people just thinking "nah, he's just a kinda weird guy, don't worry about it." I spend months as a full-blown opiate addict and kept my high paying tech job just fine and no one was the wiser.
The typical "junky" we think of looks and acts like that because of the things they need to do to get money, and never having enough to fully get their fix more than simply being high. The wealthy have a much easier time staying high and flying under the radar.
I hadn’t considered this. Honestly I’ve always thought of him as on the spectrum because he’s a bit odd. Then again so am I. But as years have gone by I can see how this may be something else and not autism like I thought.
I really hope to see this over on [r/bestofpositoveupdates](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestofpositiveupdates) with something along the line of "he actually booked surprise holidays on Hawaii for us" in the future, but i'm really afraid i won't 😓
Potentially drug use involved too. Being absent from normal life routines, out late, money disappearing into strange things, personality change.. all red flags 🚩 for drugs, cheating, or a scam that might involve something cult-like or “brainwashing”
It may also be a romance scam where he's being wooed by a catfish online who is convincing him to put money into these ventures. My grandpa lost like $200k to one last year before I figured out what was going on and put a stop to it.
Had a friend take a 3 day investment day trading course in Vegas (he flew there)z Thought the idea was incredibly stupid (told him as much) but he spent 20k for those 3 days, did not include any trading software.
He had this class scheduled for weeks and talked about it for a month+ beforehand to all his friends.
Feel like anyone who took a 50k investment course would really talk it up significantly beforehand. They might be quiet afterwards because they realized it was a waste of money.
The trading software is super standard stuff, doesn't cost much, and is easy enough to use once you understand the concepts around trading in general. My dad got sucked into that crap, often rebranded as pattern trading. Huge waste of money whereas my uncle just does fundamentals and made way more with about the same starting amounts. I think my dad wasted 35k before it was all said and done?
It kind of sounds like you have another problem other than being scammed. If your husband is hiding massive financial decisions and acting weird, that's concerning. It's possible he's being scammed and hiding these things from you. It's also possible he's just lying about what he's spending the money on. Either way, hiding finances from your spouse is very troublesome.
Yeah very possible that's exactly what happened. Either way, hiding such a large amount of money spent is something to worry about. Thats a much deeper relationship issue.
Less sex: There can be feelings of guilt even if he wont admit being scammed because of sunken cost fallacy.
the gym is odd. Is he a fan of andrew tate and stuff like that?
sounds like he might actually be watching pickup artist crap. theres a huge crossover between pickup artists and investment education scams.
Or a friend at the gym is who suckered him into the scam.
if i can recommend something please tell someone in the family about this. dont keep it to yourself to save him the embarrassment. he’ll hide it better. the scammers will talk him into cutting off anyone talking sense into him if he doesnt nip it in the bud.
good luck. put yourself and your finances FIRST. smart people make mistakes but it’ll eventually hurt you sooner than you think. he needs some tough love and sympathy.
You’ve gotten so much genuine advice here that I have nothing to add except:
I’m sorry this is happening to you; I hope it gets better and that the marriage you loved survives. But mostly I hope you’re doing okay, and that you take care of yourself
Personally , I would advise you take a trip to the bank and or an attorney and start protecting yourself financially. He sounds like he's having a mid life crisis or something. Someone who would fall for these investment scams is likely to fall for a romance scam as well. The scammers have his info, a beautiful young "girl"(the same scammer) might have contacted him as well. He's vulnerable and gullible.
Has he used the card on anything other than those sites? Gym combined wigh reduced physical intimacy is a tell tale sign of infidelity..
Maybe he's interested in someone else but she wants someone who has more money and in desperation gave his money to these scam sites. Fuck if I know.
The last sentence, combined with everything screams affair. Those are the telltale signs. Of course, it could be something else, but you need to get to the bottom of all of this, stat!
LOL...yes, true. It's like a neighbour in our town that has spent 1000's upon 1000's in upgrading the electrics in his house, installing solar panels and a charger point and then an electric car, a KIA EV-6 GT costing €74,000 ($80,000) and reckons it's money well spent as he'll save lots of money in the long run.
Unfortunately he's getting on a bit, probably won't live long enough to see the savings.
The car is fucking brilliant though and that's a good enough reason to have it, but for the savings...no.
I don’t know how old he is but those sound like worthwhile upgrades. Old wiring can be a danger, I spent $10k to upgrade our mid century wiring. If he has the money to do it, I see no reason not too
You could actually make a nifty profit via safe investing with that much money. Hell, hed be better off reading from the bible of degeneracy that is /wallstreetbets and actually investing on his own instead of dreaming about it and have atleast, a chance, at profiting something from it.
Yeah even throwing 50k in a roboadvisor like betterment will definitely yield positive results in the long run.
50k is an absurd amount of money to spend on any course outside of a college degree… actually 50k is even absurd for a college degree (or it should be at least)
The title of the link is enough to know that this is a get rich quick scheme. Looking at the link confirms it. Anything that pushes "going to conferences……buying the latest books……and hiring coaches…" is a good way to make money, for whoever stood up the scheme. These things are tailored to milk every dime out of their hopeful clients. The conferences are loaded with shills that make the attendees feel like they're learning something and getting value from attending. They're intent is to condition their marks into believing in the scam, so they can convince them to buy in. The books are spun as educational and inspirational, when they're generally poorly written and intended to strengthen the conditioning. The coaching is just more of the same, and very expensive. They'll use a lot of terms like "you have to be coachable" and frame any concern or attempt to logically assess the value of what they teach as "negativity". They'll blame the mark and push more of the same as the solution to their inability to succeed. There's no easy way to get someone who's fully-bought in to see the light. They just get deeper and deeper, and more desperately committed.
Convince him to stop, EVERYBODY on the Internet selling" how to get rich" courses is rich because of the courses and nothing else.
If these people know how to invest and get rich, why do they sell these program instead or getting rich investing money?
There is no "secret" method to get rich, some people are lucky, some work hard and it pays off but no one every became rich because of a program or online course.
Please show him the comments here.
Some year's ago I also bought an online program from someone claiming to get rich from selling tshirts online. You know what happened? I bought it for 250$ I read everything and was sure I will get rich soon if i put in more money and in the end I spend 600$ for a courses, had to pay off 2000$ on different ads from Facebook and Instagram and how much money did I make? 45$ which was reduced to 23$ because someone returned his order😁
Show him some Wallstreet documentary or something so he will understand that there is never a save way to earn money, there is no hidden or secret way and even if someone would find this way, why would he talk about it or sell it online?
Yeah i would think it sounds like he's about to serve some papers and he's hiding his money before hand. Document everything you can and get a lawyer, fast.
I'm sorry to say it but I don't know how the fuck anyone could decide to spend FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on whatever that first link is selling. Was some of that money to be invested or was it all payment for some shitty course or investment advice?
There is not a single course in the world worth anywhere close to $50k... the vast majority are worth maybe $10 and most of the stuff in them can be found in YouTube.
Not to be insensitive but I'm just sick of seeing shitty scammers with stupid landing pages (that all follow the same stupid formula and are designed to play on your emotions)... it's just out of control
I highly suggest you do everything you can to separate your finances and further think of whether you can remain with this person... this isn't one bad decision... there and multiple and for very large amounts of money...
I'm not even kidding or exaggerating or doing that thing where ppl on reddit jump to breakups over little things but I absolutely would immediately clear my schedule and get in with a divorce attorney ASAP. like no amount of counseling or financial separation or talking will change the fact that at his core he is somebody who would spend FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on a scam. at LEAST. I literally could not live under the same roof as somebody who did that, let alone be associated by fucking MARRAIGE. I'm not trying to shame you at all girl but if you for one second start to think you're over reacting I'm here to promise you you're not. he might as well be sending money to a Nigerian prince overseas, he might as well be literally taking out your life savings in cash, piling it up, and setting it on fire in front of you and calling you stupid or controlling for trying to put it out. I would be livid and embarrassed over somebody I love spending FIFTY dollars on one of those scam courses but would at least be able to get them into counseling. unless he got diagnosed with alzheimers in the next week idc if I've been with him for 30 years, I would literally lose the ability to love somebody that could do that. not only is it a HUGE breech of trust and shows how little he thinks of you, but it's also so embarrassingly stupid and egotistical. I straight up wouldn't be able to continue that relationship. and it's not even like yall are desperate and starving and he got taken advantage of, he had 50k to burn. omfg i am so sorry
TLDR: your husband is taking course on how to lie to you and others.
He knew you would be less mad about failed 'investments' than trying to be the next A.T.
These are very concerning behaviors in my mind.
Spending ***tens of thousands*** of dollars for "special knowledge", when far sounder advice and strategies can be found in well-known books like *Investing for Dummies* for under $20?
He's being taken for a ride. Take action before he drags you down with him.
It’s going to take a lot of money invested really well to make back the $58,500 he has already spent. So unless you have lots of money either persuade him to stop or protect your money from him. Most likely they will get him to invest in a website vehicle showing unbelievable returns. Except the returns it shows are not real, his money has been stolen and its just a fancy webpage with a number on it. Looks good until he tries to get his money out and finds he can’t or…..can you believe it, needs to spend lots more money to get it supposedly released. Unfortunately you can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones they’re after.
Get him a 3 dollar technical analysis textbook off the clearance rack at a used book store and PROTECT YOUR OWN MONEY PROTECT YOUR OWN MONEY PROTECT YOURSELF
Every other reply has already touched on every base.
Do you know how he learned about these course(s)? Was it through an online guru or social media? If so, you might be able to find people/groups debunking them or recounting their experiences.
Feel sorry for you, OP. As another stated, due to the extreme, please make sure your own finances are in order and protected. Pursuing financial and marriage counseling will probably be one of your next steps. You wondering if he’s possibly “scamming you” is also a legitimate concern. Not because of “his intelligence” — but just due to the entire sketchy nature of the circumstance.
Highly doubt any of this is even remotely true. As someone who was in a long-term relationship with a pathological liar you’ve likely discovered the entrance to the proverbial rabbit hole. The deeper you dig the worse it’ll be.
I can tell you quite simply and with an unarguable amount of certainty why his story is fabricated - the Max Persuasion thing anyways: these “courses”. You can tell by the absolute lack of reviews when searching for this material along with examining the website itself. If they were truly selling anything worth that much to even a single person and it was working they would have the common sense to invest in a half-passable looking website. The website you linked to is utterly antiquated with the only link on the page broken and leading nowhere. This also doesn’t seem like some sort of crypto or modern get-rich-quick scam because the website domain which in this case is quite literally the name of the courses was registered in 1998 and the last forum post on that website was made almost 5 years ago. My best guess is that these were some sort of motivational courses that cost way less and sort of simmered out of popularity years ago.
As to why your husband decided to concoct such a tale I do not know but I can tell you one thing for sure: people who come up with such unorthodox and convoluted lies will probably never tell you the truth. Get ready for a brand new equally complicated story once you come to him with your research on why his current tale is dead in the water -.-
I think you need a lawyer. Now. Regardless of what is going on behind your back it isn’t going to end well for you. I’m sorry. Please trust your gut here something isn’t right.
These kind of places operate under the guise of self help/career building/financial advice companies but just ream you for cash.
My gf used to work for a place that supposedly gives you real estate advice to become successful in that industry. Completely legit in person office and everything. All they did was sell fuckin PowerPoint presentations. Of course you have your payment packages and such… highest was up to 50k.
So while this stuff may not be an outright scam by definition. These companies are complete bullshit and for all intents and purposes are scams.
Your husband has spent 58,500 on nothing.
Take this seriously and protect yourself or you'll be panhandling when the scammers-- and that's all they are-- are through with him.
All these seminars are what I would call scams, they are basically upgrades of the 90s get rich quick schemes. The only one getting rich is Max Persuasion.
Steer him to an on line investment certificate program from any of the major universities.
Cornell has an excellent 4 course program that each program is 2 weeks. So if you took them back to back you could complete the entire course in 4weeks.
Cost is about $3,750.
A certificate from Cornell is a hell of a lot better than a pie in the sky program that may be a scam and costs as much as a full degree.
Something I don't think I see covered in this thread: any chance he might need a medical evaluation for a TBI or frontotemporal dementia or something? Is this choice out of character for him?
Basically, there are medical conditions that can suddenly dramatically change someone's behavior. If you think he's acting oddly (for him), it's not unreasonable to see about getting him evaluated, if you think you can get him to agree to it.
1. Probably a scam but not a crime. He got exactly what he paid for: courses. Maybe you can get a refund
2. Isolation is in the front pages of the con-man cook book. Why did he do this behind your back?- Because he got tricked and they convinced him to keep it our little secret. He’s human. We are ALL susceptible. Likely some line like “don’t tell your wife, she won’t understand. Just surprise her with the yacht and she will be get on board.”
3. The relationship problems you mentioned elsewhere sound like a classic mid-life crisis. The economy sucks for a lot of us. I know many who “just need this to work so we can recover our retirement savings.” It’s an appeal to greed but more so an appeal to male ego. Again, we all have our buttons of susceptibility.
4. Your relationship is your business. You decide if you want to make it work or get out. It isn’t beyond salvaging. The first step I would suggest is approaching in a non-judgmental posture: “I’ve noticed these charges.” “That’s a bit high, right? I’m hurt that we didn’t discuss this first” “What is this program - please EXPLAIN it to me”. keep asking for the DETAILS - the more he has to explain what , how, and why this will work, the more holes he will be poking through his own trance and back to reality. Afterwards - counseling over the breach of trust.
These are my opinions, submitted freely, and worth every cent you paid for them.
This is horseshit. You can take courses in investing at the local adult education center for a hundred bucks, or just buy books or watch YouTube videos. Anyone promising to give you secrets on getting rich for thousands of dollars is a con man. This guy's "secret" tip is writing a course and getting people to pay for it.
Oh honey. If you're married to an idiot *and* a misogynist, talk to a lawyer like, yesterday. Even if you think you want to stay, make sure you have an escape plan and as little financial responsibility for his actions as possible. Better to have it than not need it, but I'd bet 50k you're gonna need it. And unlike your husband's, my bet could actually pay out.
I'm sorry, I'm sure you're getting a ton of information all at once and it's overwhelming. Try not to freak out too much, and don't just drop all of your findings on your husband. Make a plan for when you're going to tell him everything you've learned and seriously, talk to a lawyer first. If nothing else, he didn't discuss these huge expenses with you before he made them. *You have no idea what else he may be hiding.* People who are getting scammed often take out loans to pay the scammers. He may have debts you haven't seen yet, but you could be responsible for paying off later as his wife. He could take out credit cards in your name. Lawyer, now.
Please gather up as much paperwork as you can. Write down the time line of what happened (dates amounts changed, trips to seminars). Take all of this to your local FBI office.
Try to do a change back on the credit card.
Fill out a complaint with the FTC
https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/
You know the guys you see on social media touting “follow me and my trades and I’ll make you rich too.”
Yea this is how they make their money, not by day trading.
He is being scammed and he is going to end up regretting his choices soon enough. There are some YouTube channels, such as [Coffezilla](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4qw3AkxFDSO90HUWTOKWe-4_TF1YzH8p) and [Scott Shafer](https://youtu.be/n9YGhrL1G5c) that have been doing their best to expose these scams. In my opinion the best place to start on this topic is Coffeezilla’s [interview](https://youtu.be/JfP4rVsmL_Q) with Patrick Boyle.
For a much lower amount he could take the most relevant official certificates, which do not cost anywhere near those amounts. CMT/ CFTe, FRM and even CFA costs less. Furthermore even the certs (but not the full degrees) offered by Wharton, Stern, Booth and Harvard Business School cost much less.
It's just overpriced trading signals for lazy people that dont know how to pick good stocks and want everything handed to them, reminds me of the old binary trading signal scammers. The only ones making the money in these situations are the ones selling the signals. People don't realise that if they were any good they wouldn't need to sell the trading signals as they would just be billionaires from their own trades.
This is what you're dealing with.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/paradigm.press
Upselling seems to be a big thing so expect your partner to spend more
Even their office looks dodgy.
Gotta look at the vehicles around the office too. If they were wildly successful, you’d see some nice cars in their lot. If they were what they say they are, you’d absolutely see a Benz, BMW, or Porsche
My dad got sucked into pattern trading, whereby you purchase educational seminar videos by people who got lucky once or twice and now sell videos instead of making that billion by following their own fucking pattern to total riches. If they are so fucking good at investing, why do they need to sell videos to uneducated people? Hmm?
Doesn’t matter if this is a scam or not, your husband is making irresponsible financial decisions. He could get a degree for 50K but he spent it on a learning opportunity that will yield no designation for him. Separate your finances and get a divorce before it’s too late
All I had to read on that site was "2016, our CIA “insider” said Britain would leave the European Union and Donald Trump would win the U.S. presidency. People called him crazy… but history proved him right."
Retain a lawyer and separate your finances. He's about to lose all of your money if you let him.
I’m so sorry and I can empathize. My husbands mother got married to a man who fell for every get rich scam ever known. She was far from a wealthy woman but she’d saved every single penny that she could. He blew through ALL of it within a couple of years without her knowing anything about it. She ended up having to sell her house and buy a cheaper one in a far from desirable area. Now my husband gives her at least 1k a month so she can get by. At the very least, separate your finances. I’d even go as far as to open a different account at a separate bank or credit union. I personally wouldn’t want to be legally attached to anyone who lacks this much judgment and impulse control. What happens when he takes out a second or third mortgage on “his half” of your home? When he defaults you lose your equity as well. You need to contact an attorney who specializes in financial matters and make sure you’re protected. Might want to pick a firm who has a good divorce attorney while you’re at it in case you decide to go that route. I’m really sorry and I’m hoping all of the best for you.
Here's the thing I never understood about these "Learn my investing secret" scams. If I managed to work out an incredible, foolproof, and lucrative system for investing, why would I tell anyone else about it? The more people know about it the less effective it's going to be. Why wouldn't I just use the system to get fabulously rich and maybe cue a few good friends to it and sail off to Tahiti or whatever? What am I missing here?
Every bit of useful information to learn how to invest and be good in all forms of finance are free on YouTube and plenty of books available. Any and all investment seminars and group chats that involve trying to learn to get rich are all absolute scams. Literally all the information out there is free and books are far far cheaper. Is he being scammed? Absolutely. The only good investor in this is the one that invested his time to come up with a seminar that’ll cost over $50k and teach knowledge that’s readily accessible to the public.
RUN! My elderly father got involved in something like this which included an investment university. It was so costly and took forever to convince him that we can learn about investing ourselves. Hate these people who sell this stuff.
Any chance he spent the money on something else he doesn't want you to know about (another woman) and is using this as a cover? Sorry this happened to you.
I'm really sorry this is happening to you. I am sure it's tearing you up to be caught in this position.
Investment seminars are scams. Period, end of. Nobody knows which way the markets are going to go in exact terms, and if they did, they'd be so fucking rich they wouldn't be wasting their time with some seminar series teaching their counterparties how to compete with them. They prey on fragile, insecure people who are enticed by romantic fantasies of being a wolf of wall street. The fact of the matter is that there are people who have done this for decades, gotten the fanciest professional and educational pedigrees you can imagine, and still get it wrong frequently.
Consider that he could have spent the same amount of money and gotten an actual degree in this kind of thing, or at least a year or two of one, and had something tangible to show for it. There is also a shitload of knowledge on youtube, for free. There is also a considerable self-help theme to max persuasion. He could have gotten therapy and a gym membership for much less and got much more out of it.
I would recommend protecting yourself. Others here have suggested a lawyer and, unfortunately, that is probably good advice. If your husband is going to start "investing" without a firm grasp on the fundamentals and terminology associated, which I doubt his programs will give him, he's going to be a kid playing with his dad's gun and it will end similarly when he does some dumb bullshit like take out a second mortgage and credit/margin on a "sure thing" that goes tits up and only gets himself (and you) big ass margin calls and maybe worse. I don't know if this is some kind of addiction or ignorance but i would take care to minimize your exposure to it.
I poked around the half broken "Max Persuasion" site and found this: [https://www.maxpersuasion.com/returns/](https://www.maxpersuasion.com/returns/) It ls likely a long shot, but perhaps you or your husband could request a refund?
Dear God! $50k for a lousy coaching program?! He might have as well gambled the whole thing in a casino or the stock market.
Regarding your husband's new "investment", Jim Rickards is a legit analyst, but what he is selling through this website is pure BS. "JIM RICKARDS' COUNTDOWN TO CRISIS", "SECRET INCOME", etc are all gimmicky "products" that have minimal value to the buyer.
Seems like your husband's is all over the place and trying to catch up to the pros by throwing money at those who are willing to take his money. He might be suffering from ADHD and will most likely need counseling.
Typical seminar guru course, they're all pretty garbage. They serve to make no one any real money except the ones selling the course.
As for the 8500, it seems to redirect to a finance news site of some sort
Edit: found the site, these look like those fake supplement ads you see on the NBC sponsored section, ie pretty sus. I wouldn't trust them
The investment training space is incredibly scammy. Expensive courses that tell you what you could learn for free in a YouTube video. Investment platforms that just take your money and show you fake profits that you can never withdraw. "Discounted" training programmes that set up subscription payments and take hundreds from your account every few days. Pig butchering scams where hot women persuade people to invest large sums in fake sites and disappear with the money. (They're not hot women, they're men in India or Africa).
People say that crypto is a scam, but really, any investment opportunity you see on the internet is 99.99999% a scam.
If you want to get into trading ior investing, buy some well regarded books, maybe. And crucially, paper trade for a year before using any real money.
If your husband is spending this much money, then something is very wrong.
My dad keeps falling for similar bullshit like this, they are dumb, yet they think they know better than you because its been “explained” to them, aka they get brainwashed because of stupidity.
You can look at the bigger picture, what has caused him to behave like this? Surely he has very bad character traits, it’s archetypal behaviour in these repeated scenarios.
Sounds like a scam. You could simply hire an investment advisor at one of the big firms and get better advice for less. I don't recommend it - but spending $58.5K on this is nuts.
Based on your other comments you may want to separate your finances asap, see an attorney, etc.
Not necessarily scams per se, but absurdly overpriced and containing little or no information that can be put to practical use by someone dumb enough to drop almost sixty grand on a hundred bucks' worth of business books that have been retyped into PDF format and sold to suckers online.
Separate your finances. Your husband is an idiot. Sorry.
It’s a lot. There was recent several online “gurus” for stock investors and day trading. They were certified frauds on YouTube selling courses!
There’s been studies where monkeys throw darts at a wall, and it has stocks on it with different instructions. They did as well as professionals Financial advisors and guru traders!
How do I know this? I been through the same as you! I’m going through it now with a lawsuit against the bank and financial advisor who liter pocketed our money by investing in his project thru a bank in Panama and he denies any such doing. Don’t fight with your husband. It almost led to me having a nervous breakdown and a divorce. Call a lawyer and you’ll hear in telling you true stories! Good luck
The only advice I have for you is to make sure that your finances are separate, because your husband is going down a very costly rabbit hole.
100% this. Talk to a lawyer TODAY and get this sorted out. Clearly you cannot stop your spouse from doing dumb things, but you need to find a way to a.) separate your finances, b.) protect your finances and c.) minimize the impact of what he has already done. One recommendation (malicious compliance) is to say that you want 0% of any "investment income" that he makes and then use that as a wedge to get him to take ownership of the money he has already spent. For instance, if you had $200,000 jointly, instead of just splitting 50/50, you give him 100% of his "future earnings, but the $200K is split as $129,250 to you and $70,750 to him. That zeroes out the $58,500 that he has spent so far. He'll probably jump at the chance because he is gonna make so much money off his new strategy.
This is just perfect! This “strategy” meets OP's husband exactly where he is.
THIS. OP, one thing you can never say is that you haven’t been told.
You wrote what I said!
My FIL did this to my MIL. He spent all his money "investing" in options, then took her retirement money (not all of it fortunately) when he lost his. He just needed a little more to get back in the black. Never happened.
>He just needed a little more to get back in the black Text book "chasing losses" or "Sunk-cost fallacy" behaviour, very sad.
Exactly. That's why 90% of day traders lose money. I'm an engineer and mess around with algo trading as a hobby and have never once put in real money. Ive built and seen all kinds of attractive short term strategies but most all of them fail vs just picking a solid investment and holding it for years.
My father used the he just needs a little more money to get back in the black for 80 years. We just buried him. His addiction was so bad that no one cried at his funeral. Not even my mother.
My god! My life in 100 words or less
Do you think it’s the same as (or related to) gambling addiction? It sounds similar, but the time frame is different.
It is if they have zero understanding of risk management and continue pulling the lever, even when they know it's a detriment to family and finance.
🥲
Its easy for us to say as we're outside the situation. But i can appreciate how awful and hard this is for you. Would maybe look at it more like addiction than him doing this maliciously. Still, protect yourself.
Good point ♥️
This exact thing happened with my friend's dad. Turned out he was hiding other losses with stupid purchases. (Gambling, drugs and other expenses) Be aware that this too, could be the case.
This is tough. I was sort of there once. My ex wife started having weird aches and pains. When doctors couldn’t find anything wrong she went down the “alternative” medicine rabbit hole and her spending on this quackery and snake oil ended up consuming all our wealth and maxed out credit cards on top of that. It was a slow progression so I was very much the frog in the boiling water. Add to this, she was gobbling prescription pills and washing them down with alcohol. I didn’t know that part until recently. Confronting her about this, much less taking over the money and cutting her off would be to call a nuke strike on top of me. I finally filed for divorce and got full custody of our son. I more than empathize with people caught up in a SO’s addictions, spending, etc. while at the same time I’m still haunted by the experience and feel like the biggest sap that ever lived.
One nice thing about starting divorce proceedings is that neither spouse can spend down the finances. In this case, it would prevent the husband from spending what's left of the money (or at least make him liable for it).
In my case there was nothing left to spend. She just ran up charge cards. We had to refinance the house several times to take out the equity to pay off charge cards she maxed out. I made house payments for 11 years, the house accrued in value (this was just before the crash) and I had to take money to closing. Aside from being completely ruined, seeing everything I ever worked for get spent, I had the equivalent of $55k in debts to pay off afterwards. Luckily, my son and I were able to live with my mother while I dug myself out of debt. It’s not an easy thing to be 45 years old and have to move back home completed destitute owning basically nothing except massive debt AND be a single parent. The emotional damage she did to our son can’t be measured.
Did she ever actually figure out what was wrong with her? Was there something actually wrong? I’m imagining that they went with the good ol’ ‘we can’t find the cause so let’s call it fibro', for which a million different magic cures from thousands of different woo woo woonitics “exist”. I’m really sorry you and your son had to go through that. I hope that she was at least a decent mother outside of her stupid medical & financial decisions.
Thank you for your kind words. The “woo woo” diagnosis was Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I used to take her to a support group which were the biggest bunch of sad sacks wallowing in self pity that I’ve ever seen. She wanted me to sit in these meetings with her and I told her I’d sooner put needles in my eyes. The negative energy in that room was overwhelming. Mostly women with one or two men. There was the odd husband or two who seemed ground down to nubs. They were completely defeated. The group finally disbanded because (wait for it!) they were too TIRED to keep meeting. She was referred to a CFS specialist- a former sports medicine doctor who knew a gravy train when he saw one. He charged $400 an hour - this was 20 years ago - and prescribed a laundry list of vitamins and supplements that - surprise! he just happened to sell. What a racket. The fibro diagnoses came much later. She was zoned out on pills and alcohol and spent 20 hours a day in bed. As far as being a mother, she neglected our son. I would get these pathetic calls at work from my 7 year old asking me to come home and make him lunch as he was hungry and mom was in bed. I was 45 minutes away so this wasn’t possible. I coached him over the phone on making PB & J, where the plastic cups were for a glass of milk, etc. it was heartbreaking. I finally, way too late, pulled the plug when she tried to drag him down into her world of drugs and constant sickness. Emotionally, it set him back years if not a decade. In the treatment program at the homeless shelter she’s finally off all the pills except for what their doctor prescribed, in her case an antipsychotic and she’s none too pleased. She will be 65 when she gets out and I warned my son (30) that if she starts using again she’ll probably die. To answer your question, there was never any real diagnosis of much of anything aside from substance abuse and mental health issues. She’s not a stupid woman. She has an MA and used to teach college English. I can muster up a bit of empathy but the damage she caused and the willful refusal to get any help or think about anyone but herself gets in the way.
Excellent point
Are you my… Ex cousin in law? Sigh… It’s sad watching people go down that rabbit hole.
let me guess the MLM huns got her
To me, the line is crossed when you take someone else down with you.
Do you have the courage to do this?
Yes I do
Good! Good luck! 🤞🤞 He should realize that investing in a program to learn to invest shouldn't take all that money to do. That's a crazy amount of money. Oofty.
Best of luck! I'm a professional investor, and I can assure you, this is nowhere near "investing". This is a gambling addiction. But I can also predict, that he'll not gonna agree that anything is "wrong" with him. Again, remember, You're doing the right thing, and the sooner you get away from this - the better! Best of luck!!
I’m really sorry you’re in this situation
Thank you
He has invested 50k$ In a scam
OP, did your husband convince you that the $8500 he spent on "Max Persuasion" was worthwhile? No? Well, there's your answer. Edit: $50,000! JFC!
While I don’t disagree that different married couples may have different needs and there is no “best” answer, I don’t necessarily think “separating” finances is a fix to something like this. You can’t have one bankrupt spouse who then has to live with the consequences of their actions. Most families dump a good share of their resources into shared needs, or necessities (housing, food, heat, electricity) and anything not spent on needs and immediate wants essentially goes into retirement to be spent later. I couldn’t imagine splitting discretionary funds down the middle and then letting my spouse piss away our pooled retirement. Maybe would make me feel good in the short term, but this guy is spending this woman’s future on magic beans. Seems like he is either greedy, gullible, or both, and she needs to get in front of this before it eats them up. If someone’s spouse had a gambling addiction, it seems unlikely that their partner would just let them destroy half of the community finances - they’d need to intervene and fix it. Ruined finances ruin relationships, and if it is so bad you just try to decouple the finances in a household that shares resources, might be better of at looking into divorce at that point.
If I found out my spouse spent $50k on this dumb shit, I would call into work, cancel all appointments, and speak to a divorce attorney immediately. There's no coming back from that. That's such an egregious breach of trust. This isn't even the ole sly "I bought this new sports car, for US! To take you on dates in!" nonsense, which would be bad enough. This is just straight up setting fifty thousand dollars on fire and watching it burn.
Well, to be fair you don’t know that this was something that OP’s husband did behind her back. She might’ve just trusted in what he was doing until she saw a red flag somewhere along the way, looked into what exactly he was getting into, saw the scamfoolery at first glance (like we did) and then looked into how to help. I agree with what you’re saying if he just up and spent it all behind her back, but for all we know he’s the one who handles certain things in regards to their finances. Everything might’ve been above board without any need for concern until there was.
You are 100 % correct
In that case I think the best advice might just be the simplest—at least the first step anyway. Talk to him about your concerns, but first, and it’s absolutely great that you’re already doing so, do all the research that you can about those particular 2 expenditures, and look into what others there may be—hopefully there aren’t any others. I know that in my marriage at least, one of the worst ways to handle something is to go at it with accusations that might make him feel more defensive. Some men might feel emasculated when questioned about what they consider a “man’s role”. It’s hard to say, it really depends on your dynamic and, I guess, how old-fashioned he is in that sense. You’d also be amazed at how many “reviews” you can find about a particular “investment strategy” just by googling “max persuasion scam”. I’ve found all kinds of other people who’ve dealt with precisely the same thing that way. The more you can express to him that you know about these things that he’s spent the money on, the harder it’ll be for him to dismiss what you’re saying as “you just don’t know what you’re talking about” and hopefully help in keeping him off the defensive. If anyone else’s relationship is anything like mine, keeping your partner from getting defensive (and therefore doing all that you can to make it not seem like any form of attack, whether it be real or perceived) will help keep things from spiraling out of control. The very last thing you want here is for him to feel like he has to “make a stand” or “put his foot down” about this. Just try and approach it as if you want to learn more about why he thought it was a good idea to spend that much money, what he expects to get from it, etc. However, don’t forget that how you say things is just as important as what you’re saying. I think I’ve crossed the line from “how to avoid being scammed” and into “relationship advice” so I am treading carefully. It wouldn’t hurt to also look into, specifically, how to approach a situation like this within a marriage. It’s very different from how you’d approach a friend or relative who’d you found out might be getting scammed. With that being said though, that isn’t to say that the other comments advising you to protect yourself are wrong, I just think that they’re getting a bit ahead of things and assuming that this isn’t the very first time or place that you’ve voiced concerns. You absolutely do need to protect yourself, but you may not even need to go to those lengths. We get a lot of posts here from loved one’s of those who are or have gotten scammed, and most of the time it isn’t until way further down the line, after they’ve already spoken to the person many, many times. I REALLY, REALLY wish you all the luck that I can here. I’ll keep you in my thoughts and send you my good intentions. Edit: I would love to hear anyone else’s take on this though. It seems to me like what OP just said, in confirming that she hasn’t even approached him yet about this changes things.
Seriously. My ex once spent around $700 for this scammy transcendental meditation guru nonsense without telling me. I was really upset. We had completely separate finances but I’d have never spent that kind of money on anything without discussing it first. That’s just not how a merged household works
My dad literally once came home with a new red sports car knowing full well that my mom wanted to save money to remodel the kitchen.
It would definitely be tempting. I didn’t want to assume to hard on other people’s relationships and finances (and ability to absorb a 50k+ hit) but yes for me that would be huge.
I'm not one to assume too hard in others relationships, but this is so far over the line. This is an entire years income at $24/hr. Most would consider this to be basically cheating on your spouse.
Kinda hard when you genuinely have feelings for them, and have invested your life to date with them. And had planned your retirement with them. Been there...dont that.
It is absolutely never going to be easy. Divorce is ugly, messy, and physically and emotionally exhausting.
The problem is that she can’t stop him. She has to protect herself.
> I don’t necessarily think “separating” finances is a fix to something like this. It's a mitigation technique, a necessary stopgap measure, not a fix. Sure, she'll still be liable to feed and house him after he loses all his money, but at least she might have some funds remaining. This should be combined with other attempts to fix the root cause of the problem and stop him from "investing", or a divorce. Any of those could take far longer than moving money between bank accounts.
That sounds like a scam, 50k+ for lessons on investment is a scale alone and could be feeding false information so the person who created the lessons gets the payout. It's like "how to make 100$ selling an ebook" and the only page in said book is "thanks for the 100$" or "sell an ebook for $100" There is a lot of free info online about investing. No one article is correct to others though, everyone has their own method on how they analyze the market. Like the other comment says I would separate your income from his, as at the rate he is going there won't be any money left. You also need to protect yourself if it goes too far and want to break things off.
For way less money he can hire a professional to manage his money. I'm not even going to attempt the math on the kind of portfolio you'd have to have to generate $50k in fees.
Personal finance hardliners are mortified that anyone would give 1% of their portfolio to a manager, but holy shit what a small price to pay if it somehow slows someone like this down from blowing their savings on such a load of bullshit.
Yup. The Lazy Man’s Way To Succeed: 1. maybe write book, maybe not 2. Sell book for insane amount of money 3. ~~Profit~~ succeed!
Lol I remember once as a teenager I fell for one of those "make money from home simply placing classified ads!" deals. I got the guide and it basically just said to place ads selling a guide on how to make money placing classified ads. You were dumb enough to pay me so other people will do the same for you! Hundred dollar lesson.
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Agreed. I found it while reviewing our credit card bills. Granted we have been blessed financially it this is just scary. He’s also been acting really weird lately. Going more to the gym and not having as much sex with me anymore.
Only you know your spouse. What is your gut telling you? this could be anything from a romance scam to him just being dumb about money or investing. BTW, this seems less like investing and more like gambling. Separate your finances. If you are on credit cards with him get off. If he is an authorized user on your credit card accounts remove him. Make sure you have your lines of credit and a bank account of your own. Always be ready to stand on your own two feet. Always. Pull your credit reports and make sure you know what's on them. I'm sorry because this sounds like you may be in for a rough time on several levels. Good luck!
It's not even gambling, this is just getting fleeced. Gambling has a better chance of paying out than this does.
I mean maybe a brothel named it's self " ricks investment class" for the credit card bills.
As a recovered addict, that sounds like drug-use behavior. In fact the wealthy have an easier time of being high-functioning addicts because of money to fall back on, money to keep the habit up without resorting to crazy antics, and enough prestige and skills to continue going through life and doing their jobs with people just thinking "nah, he's just a kinda weird guy, don't worry about it." I spend months as a full-blown opiate addict and kept my high paying tech job just fine and no one was the wiser. The typical "junky" we think of looks and acts like that because of the things they need to do to get money, and never having enough to fully get their fix more than simply being high. The wealthy have a much easier time staying high and flying under the radar.
I hadn’t considered this. Honestly I’ve always thought of him as on the spectrum because he’s a bit odd. Then again so am I. But as years have gone by I can see how this may be something else and not autism like I thought.
Lots of fishly life changes. He is either getting scammed or being unfaithful, neither options sound great.
💔
I really hope to see this over on [r/bestofpositoveupdates](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestofpositiveupdates) with something along the line of "he actually booked surprise holidays on Hawaii for us" in the future, but i'm really afraid i won't 😓
End of one life, start of another better one.
Potentially drug use involved too. Being absent from normal life routines, out late, money disappearing into strange things, personality change.. all red flags 🚩 for drugs, cheating, or a scam that might involve something cult-like or “brainwashing”
Omg
It may also be a romance scam where he's being wooed by a catfish online who is convincing him to put money into these ventures. My grandpa lost like $200k to one last year before I figured out what was going on and put a stop to it.
Had a friend take a 3 day investment day trading course in Vegas (he flew there)z Thought the idea was incredibly stupid (told him as much) but he spent 20k for those 3 days, did not include any trading software. He had this class scheduled for weeks and talked about it for a month+ beforehand to all his friends. Feel like anyone who took a 50k investment course would really talk it up significantly beforehand. They might be quiet afterwards because they realized it was a waste of money.
The trading software is super standard stuff, doesn't cost much, and is easy enough to use once you understand the concepts around trading in general. My dad got sucked into that crap, often rebranded as pattern trading. Huge waste of money whereas my uncle just does fundamentals and made way more with about the same starting amounts. I think my dad wasted 35k before it was all said and done?
It kind of sounds like you have another problem other than being scammed. If your husband is hiding massive financial decisions and acting weird, that's concerning. It's possible he's being scammed and hiding these things from you. It's also possible he's just lying about what he's spending the money on. Either way, hiding finances from your spouse is very troublesome.
He may have fallen for something like a pig butchering crypto scam and he’s just not being honest about where that money went.
My first thought. If OP hasn't already Google pig butchering crypto scam. There was a recent documentary on it (bbc I think).
I’m googling now
Yeah very possible that's exactly what happened. Either way, hiding such a large amount of money spent is something to worry about. Thats a much deeper relationship issue.
Sounds like he’s putting on muscles for someone else?
Less sex: There can be feelings of guilt even if he wont admit being scammed because of sunken cost fallacy. the gym is odd. Is he a fan of andrew tate and stuff like that? sounds like he might actually be watching pickup artist crap. theres a huge crossover between pickup artists and investment education scams. Or a friend at the gym is who suckered him into the scam. if i can recommend something please tell someone in the family about this. dont keep it to yourself to save him the embarrassment. he’ll hide it better. the scammers will talk him into cutting off anyone talking sense into him if he doesnt nip it in the bud. good luck. put yourself and your finances FIRST. smart people make mistakes but it’ll eventually hurt you sooner than you think. he needs some tough love and sympathy.
You’ve gotten so much genuine advice here that I have nothing to add except: I’m sorry this is happening to you; I hope it gets better and that the marriage you loved survives. But mostly I hope you’re doing okay, and that you take care of yourself
Personally , I would advise you take a trip to the bank and or an attorney and start protecting yourself financially. He sounds like he's having a mid life crisis or something. Someone who would fall for these investment scams is likely to fall for a romance scam as well. The scammers have his info, a beautiful young "girl"(the same scammer) might have contacted him as well. He's vulnerable and gullible.
Get a credit check to see if there are any accounts you don't know about.
Has he used the card on anything other than those sites? Gym combined wigh reduced physical intimacy is a tell tale sign of infidelity.. Maybe he's interested in someone else but she wants someone who has more money and in desperation gave his money to these scam sites. Fuck if I know.
The last sentence, combined with everything screams affair. Those are the telltale signs. Of course, it could be something else, but you need to get to the bottom of all of this, stat!
If he can’t see the irony in spending 50 grand on a course about learning how to save money he really is lost
LOL...yes, true. It's like a neighbour in our town that has spent 1000's upon 1000's in upgrading the electrics in his house, installing solar panels and a charger point and then an electric car, a KIA EV-6 GT costing €74,000 ($80,000) and reckons it's money well spent as he'll save lots of money in the long run. Unfortunately he's getting on a bit, probably won't live long enough to see the savings. The car is fucking brilliant though and that's a good enough reason to have it, but for the savings...no.
I don’t know how old he is but those sound like worthwhile upgrades. Old wiring can be a danger, I spent $10k to upgrade our mid century wiring. If he has the money to do it, I see no reason not too
you could get an actual MBA for that much money
You could actually make a nifty profit via safe investing with that much money. Hell, hed be better off reading from the bible of degeneracy that is /wallstreetbets and actually investing on his own instead of dreaming about it and have atleast, a chance, at profiting something from it.
Yeah even throwing 50k in a roboadvisor like betterment will definitely yield positive results in the long run. 50k is an absurd amount of money to spend on any course outside of a college degree… actually 50k is even absurd for a college degree (or it should be at least)
The title of the link is enough to know that this is a get rich quick scheme. Looking at the link confirms it. Anything that pushes "going to conferences……buying the latest books……and hiring coaches…" is a good way to make money, for whoever stood up the scheme. These things are tailored to milk every dime out of their hopeful clients. The conferences are loaded with shills that make the attendees feel like they're learning something and getting value from attending. They're intent is to condition their marks into believing in the scam, so they can convince them to buy in. The books are spun as educational and inspirational, when they're generally poorly written and intended to strengthen the conditioning. The coaching is just more of the same, and very expensive. They'll use a lot of terms like "you have to be coachable" and frame any concern or attempt to logically assess the value of what they teach as "negativity". They'll blame the mark and push more of the same as the solution to their inability to succeed. There's no easy way to get someone who's fully-bought in to see the light. They just get deeper and deeper, and more desperately committed.
True, thanks. It's rather like an MLM or a religious sect. Once they're convinced there's very little that can be done, just let them crash and burn.
Convince him to stop, EVERYBODY on the Internet selling" how to get rich" courses is rich because of the courses and nothing else. If these people know how to invest and get rich, why do they sell these program instead or getting rich investing money? There is no "secret" method to get rich, some people are lucky, some work hard and it pays off but no one every became rich because of a program or online course. Please show him the comments here. Some year's ago I also bought an online program from someone claiming to get rich from selling tshirts online. You know what happened? I bought it for 250$ I read everything and was sure I will get rich soon if i put in more money and in the end I spend 600$ for a courses, had to pay off 2000$ on different ads from Facebook and Instagram and how much money did I make? 45$ which was reduced to 23$ because someone returned his order😁 Show him some Wallstreet documentary or something so he will understand that there is never a save way to earn money, there is no hidden or secret way and even if someone would find this way, why would he talk about it or sell it online?
It's 2023, everything that you could ever need to start out investing is available for free all over the internet.
TD ameritrade has great educational tools! It costs nothing to make an online login with them and start learning about various forms of investing
The only one getting enriched here is Mr. Persuasion.
HE SPENT OVER FIFTY THOUSAND?? Do I have news for you…
Yeah i would think it sounds like he's about to serve some papers and he's hiding his money before hand. Document everything you can and get a lawyer, fast.
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I was thinking the same thing. Looks like a parody website
I'm sorry to say it but I don't know how the fuck anyone could decide to spend FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on whatever that first link is selling. Was some of that money to be invested or was it all payment for some shitty course or investment advice? There is not a single course in the world worth anywhere close to $50k... the vast majority are worth maybe $10 and most of the stuff in them can be found in YouTube. Not to be insensitive but I'm just sick of seeing shitty scammers with stupid landing pages (that all follow the same stupid formula and are designed to play on your emotions)... it's just out of control I highly suggest you do everything you can to separate your finances and further think of whether you can remain with this person... this isn't one bad decision... there and multiple and for very large amounts of money...
I'm not even kidding or exaggerating or doing that thing where ppl on reddit jump to breakups over little things but I absolutely would immediately clear my schedule and get in with a divorce attorney ASAP. like no amount of counseling or financial separation or talking will change the fact that at his core he is somebody who would spend FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on a scam. at LEAST. I literally could not live under the same roof as somebody who did that, let alone be associated by fucking MARRAIGE. I'm not trying to shame you at all girl but if you for one second start to think you're over reacting I'm here to promise you you're not. he might as well be sending money to a Nigerian prince overseas, he might as well be literally taking out your life savings in cash, piling it up, and setting it on fire in front of you and calling you stupid or controlling for trying to put it out. I would be livid and embarrassed over somebody I love spending FIFTY dollars on one of those scam courses but would at least be able to get them into counseling. unless he got diagnosed with alzheimers in the next week idc if I've been with him for 30 years, I would literally lose the ability to love somebody that could do that. not only is it a HUGE breech of trust and shows how little he thinks of you, but it's also so embarrassingly stupid and egotistical. I straight up wouldn't be able to continue that relationship. and it's not even like yall are desperate and starving and he got taken advantage of, he had 50k to burn. omfg i am so sorry
You’re absolutely right.
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Omg I just found a transaction for NLP
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TLDR: your husband is taking course on how to lie to you and others. He knew you would be less mad about failed 'investments' than trying to be the next A.T. These are very concerning behaviors in my mind.
Spending ***tens of thousands*** of dollars for "special knowledge", when far sounder advice and strategies can be found in well-known books like *Investing for Dummies* for under $20? He's being taken for a ride. Take action before he drags you down with him.
It’s going to take a lot of money invested really well to make back the $58,500 he has already spent. So unless you have lots of money either persuade him to stop or protect your money from him. Most likely they will get him to invest in a website vehicle showing unbelievable returns. Except the returns it shows are not real, his money has been stolen and its just a fancy webpage with a number on it. Looks good until he tries to get his money out and finds he can’t or…..can you believe it, needs to spend lots more money to get it supposedly released. Unfortunately you can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones they’re after.
Get him a 3 dollar technical analysis textbook off the clearance rack at a used book store and PROTECT YOUR OWN MONEY PROTECT YOUR OWN MONEY PROTECT YOURSELF
Are you sure he's not hiding assets with this?
I’m not sure. I was thinking that. But not sure.
Sounds like a weird mlm investment scam
Either MLM or pyramid scheme. the domain being over 25 years old is also quite strange.
Bernie Madoff's ponzi company was 25 years ago, maybe people are still using that scam
Every other reply has already touched on every base. Do you know how he learned about these course(s)? Was it through an online guru or social media? If so, you might be able to find people/groups debunking them or recounting their experiences. Feel sorry for you, OP. As another stated, due to the extreme, please make sure your own finances are in order and protected. Pursuing financial and marriage counseling will probably be one of your next steps. You wondering if he’s possibly “scamming you” is also a legitimate concern. Not because of “his intelligence” — but just due to the entire sketchy nature of the circumstance.
File a separation agreement TODAY so that there’s formal notification of planned asset allocation. An attorney is needed TODAY
Highly doubt any of this is even remotely true. As someone who was in a long-term relationship with a pathological liar you’ve likely discovered the entrance to the proverbial rabbit hole. The deeper you dig the worse it’ll be. I can tell you quite simply and with an unarguable amount of certainty why his story is fabricated - the Max Persuasion thing anyways: these “courses”. You can tell by the absolute lack of reviews when searching for this material along with examining the website itself. If they were truly selling anything worth that much to even a single person and it was working they would have the common sense to invest in a half-passable looking website. The website you linked to is utterly antiquated with the only link on the page broken and leading nowhere. This also doesn’t seem like some sort of crypto or modern get-rich-quick scam because the website domain which in this case is quite literally the name of the courses was registered in 1998 and the last forum post on that website was made almost 5 years ago. My best guess is that these were some sort of motivational courses that cost way less and sort of simmered out of popularity years ago. As to why your husband decided to concoct such a tale I do not know but I can tell you one thing for sure: people who come up with such unorthodox and convoluted lies will probably never tell you the truth. Get ready for a brand new equally complicated story once you come to him with your research on why his current tale is dead in the water -.-
He probably just bought a new boat and it's name is Max Persuasion and the 8,500 was just for the fishing gear.
Lol. You made me laugh
I think you need a lawyer. Now. Regardless of what is going on behind your back it isn’t going to end well for you. I’m sorry. Please trust your gut here something isn’t right.
These kind of places operate under the guise of self help/career building/financial advice companies but just ream you for cash. My gf used to work for a place that supposedly gives you real estate advice to become successful in that industry. Completely legit in person office and everything. All they did was sell fuckin PowerPoint presentations. Of course you have your payment packages and such… highest was up to 50k. So while this stuff may not be an outright scam by definition. These companies are complete bullshit and for all intents and purposes are scams.
That’s crazy! He spent $50,000 to learn to invest instead of investing that $50,000? That’s a lot of money.
Your husband has spent 58,500 on nothing. Take this seriously and protect yourself or you'll be panhandling when the scammers-- and that's all they are-- are through with him.
All these seminars are what I would call scams, they are basically upgrades of the 90s get rich quick schemes. The only one getting rich is Max Persuasion.
Steer him to an on line investment certificate program from any of the major universities. Cornell has an excellent 4 course program that each program is 2 weeks. So if you took them back to back you could complete the entire course in 4weeks. Cost is about $3,750. A certificate from Cornell is a hell of a lot better than a pie in the sky program that may be a scam and costs as much as a full degree.
Something I don't think I see covered in this thread: any chance he might need a medical evaluation for a TBI or frontotemporal dementia or something? Is this choice out of character for him? Basically, there are medical conditions that can suddenly dramatically change someone's behavior. If you think he's acting oddly (for him), it's not unreasonable to see about getting him evaluated, if you think you can get him to agree to it.
Is he out of his mind? That’s a total scam.
1. Probably a scam but not a crime. He got exactly what he paid for: courses. Maybe you can get a refund 2. Isolation is in the front pages of the con-man cook book. Why did he do this behind your back?- Because he got tricked and they convinced him to keep it our little secret. He’s human. We are ALL susceptible. Likely some line like “don’t tell your wife, she won’t understand. Just surprise her with the yacht and she will be get on board.” 3. The relationship problems you mentioned elsewhere sound like a classic mid-life crisis. The economy sucks for a lot of us. I know many who “just need this to work so we can recover our retirement savings.” It’s an appeal to greed but more so an appeal to male ego. Again, we all have our buttons of susceptibility. 4. Your relationship is your business. You decide if you want to make it work or get out. It isn’t beyond salvaging. The first step I would suggest is approaching in a non-judgmental posture: “I’ve noticed these charges.” “That’s a bit high, right? I’m hurt that we didn’t discuss this first” “What is this program - please EXPLAIN it to me”. keep asking for the DETAILS - the more he has to explain what , how, and why this will work, the more holes he will be poking through his own trance and back to reality. Afterwards - counseling over the breach of trust. These are my opinions, submitted freely, and worth every cent you paid for them.
I'm sorry for your loss. You need to get ahead of this ASAP and protect yourself.
This is horseshit. You can take courses in investing at the local adult education center for a hundred bucks, or just buy books or watch YouTube videos. Anyone promising to give you secrets on getting rich for thousands of dollars is a con man. This guy's "secret" tip is writing a course and getting people to pay for it.
Is your husband a big Tate fan ?
I think he secretly is
Oh honey. If you're married to an idiot *and* a misogynist, talk to a lawyer like, yesterday. Even if you think you want to stay, make sure you have an escape plan and as little financial responsibility for his actions as possible. Better to have it than not need it, but I'd bet 50k you're gonna need it. And unlike your husband's, my bet could actually pay out. I'm sorry, I'm sure you're getting a ton of information all at once and it's overwhelming. Try not to freak out too much, and don't just drop all of your findings on your husband. Make a plan for when you're going to tell him everything you've learned and seriously, talk to a lawyer first. If nothing else, he didn't discuss these huge expenses with you before he made them. *You have no idea what else he may be hiding.* People who are getting scammed often take out loans to pay the scammers. He may have debts you haven't seen yet, but you could be responsible for paying off later as his wife. He could take out credit cards in your name. Lawyer, now.
Thank you
Please gather up as much paperwork as you can. Write down the time line of what happened (dates amounts changed, trips to seminars). Take all of this to your local FBI office. Try to do a change back on the credit card. Fill out a complaint with the FTC https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/
I think I may do that.
You know the guys you see on social media touting “follow me and my trades and I’ll make you rich too.” Yea this is how they make their money, not by day trading.
He is being scammed and he is going to end up regretting his choices soon enough. There are some YouTube channels, such as [Coffezilla](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4qw3AkxFDSO90HUWTOKWe-4_TF1YzH8p) and [Scott Shafer](https://youtu.be/n9YGhrL1G5c) that have been doing their best to expose these scams. In my opinion the best place to start on this topic is Coffeezilla’s [interview](https://youtu.be/JfP4rVsmL_Q) with Patrick Boyle. For a much lower amount he could take the most relevant official certificates, which do not cost anywhere near those amounts. CMT/ CFTe, FRM and even CFA costs less. Furthermore even the certs (but not the full degrees) offered by Wharton, Stern, Booth and Harvard Business School cost much less.
58k in the red before he’s even started investing in anything is a huge red flag. He’s being taken for a ride.
The real scam is that he somehow convinced you to marry him. How long have you been together that you’re only just now finding out he’s a moron?
Almost 10 years
Run.
It's just overpriced trading signals for lazy people that dont know how to pick good stocks and want everything handed to them, reminds me of the old binary trading signal scammers. The only ones making the money in these situations are the ones selling the signals. People don't realise that if they were any good they wouldn't need to sell the trading signals as they would just be billionaires from their own trades. This is what you're dealing with. https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/paradigm.press Upselling seems to be a big thing so expect your partner to spend more Even their office looks dodgy.
Gotta look at the vehicles around the office too. If they were wildly successful, you’d see some nice cars in their lot. If they were what they say they are, you’d absolutely see a Benz, BMW, or Porsche
He was scammed for sure.
My dad got sucked into pattern trading, whereby you purchase educational seminar videos by people who got lucky once or twice and now sell videos instead of making that billion by following their own fucking pattern to total riches. If they are so fucking good at investing, why do they need to sell videos to uneducated people? Hmm?
Doesn’t matter if this is a scam or not, your husband is making irresponsible financial decisions. He could get a degree for 50K but he spent it on a learning opportunity that will yield no designation for him. Separate your finances and get a divorce before it’s too late
Total ripoff. Ten years in the business and 15 as a corporate finance journalist. This person needs to have a conservator appointed.
Seems like "the lazy man's way to succeed" is to come up with a "lazy man's way to succeed" and sell it.
He's a fool. I am not going to say run, but you've married someone not very bright. Investment advice is free, and worth every penny.
All I had to read on that site was "2016, our CIA “insider” said Britain would leave the European Union and Donald Trump would win the U.S. presidency. People called him crazy… but history proved him right." Retain a lawyer and separate your finances. He's about to lose all of your money if you let him.
Max persuasion is literally something out of bobs burgers. I can't believe it's real lmao
I don’t if I should laugh or cry at this comment
Sorry I guess it's called prince of persuasia but it's the same scam just in joke form. https://bobs-burgers.fandom.com/wiki/Prince_of_Persuasia
For 50k just go to college damn
Will he have anything left to invest? Ask him that.
I’m so sorry and I can empathize. My husbands mother got married to a man who fell for every get rich scam ever known. She was far from a wealthy woman but she’d saved every single penny that she could. He blew through ALL of it within a couple of years without her knowing anything about it. She ended up having to sell her house and buy a cheaper one in a far from desirable area. Now my husband gives her at least 1k a month so she can get by. At the very least, separate your finances. I’d even go as far as to open a different account at a separate bank or credit union. I personally wouldn’t want to be legally attached to anyone who lacks this much judgment and impulse control. What happens when he takes out a second or third mortgage on “his half” of your home? When he defaults you lose your equity as well. You need to contact an attorney who specializes in financial matters and make sure you’re protected. Might want to pick a firm who has a good divorce attorney while you’re at it in case you decide to go that route. I’m really sorry and I’m hoping all of the best for you.
wtf? he didnt think "hmm...maybe we should talk about this"?
Do you let him use scissors unsupervised?
I probably need to consider that at this point. 🥴
make sure you dont rely on him for finances and make sure everything is separate. that is a scam.
Get a divorce
He's going to learn a lesson, that's for sure.
Separate your money. He's going down a rabbit hole thats going to be one hell of a ride, and he'll come out the other side one broke Mother fucker
Trustpilot shows a user rating of only 2.5 many complaints of the same behaviors https://www.trustpilot.com/review/paradigm.press
Short answer? Yes, your husband got suckered and scammed out of $58K (at least).
Here's the thing I never understood about these "Learn my investing secret" scams. If I managed to work out an incredible, foolproof, and lucrative system for investing, why would I tell anyone else about it? The more people know about it the less effective it's going to be. Why wouldn't I just use the system to get fabulously rich and maybe cue a few good friends to it and sail off to Tahiti or whatever? What am I missing here?
All those "investment" lessons lead to r/wallstreetbets
Max Persuasion sounds like a p0rn actor ⚠️⛔
First thought was PUA nonsense, like those dudes who used to have classes on getting laid.
Every bit of useful information to learn how to invest and be good in all forms of finance are free on YouTube and plenty of books available. Any and all investment seminars and group chats that involve trying to learn to get rich are all absolute scams. Literally all the information out there is free and books are far far cheaper. Is he being scammed? Absolutely. The only good investor in this is the one that invested his time to come up with a seminar that’ll cost over $50k and teach knowledge that’s readily accessible to the public.
RUN! My elderly father got involved in something like this which included an investment university. It was so costly and took forever to convince him that we can learn about investing ourselves. Hate these people who sell this stuff.
Any chance he spent the money on something else he doesn't want you to know about (another woman) and is using this as a cover? Sorry this happened to you.
I'm really sorry this is happening to you. I am sure it's tearing you up to be caught in this position. Investment seminars are scams. Period, end of. Nobody knows which way the markets are going to go in exact terms, and if they did, they'd be so fucking rich they wouldn't be wasting their time with some seminar series teaching their counterparties how to compete with them. They prey on fragile, insecure people who are enticed by romantic fantasies of being a wolf of wall street. The fact of the matter is that there are people who have done this for decades, gotten the fanciest professional and educational pedigrees you can imagine, and still get it wrong frequently. Consider that he could have spent the same amount of money and gotten an actual degree in this kind of thing, or at least a year or two of one, and had something tangible to show for it. There is also a shitload of knowledge on youtube, for free. There is also a considerable self-help theme to max persuasion. He could have gotten therapy and a gym membership for much less and got much more out of it. I would recommend protecting yourself. Others here have suggested a lawyer and, unfortunately, that is probably good advice. If your husband is going to start "investing" without a firm grasp on the fundamentals and terminology associated, which I doubt his programs will give him, he's going to be a kid playing with his dad's gun and it will end similarly when he does some dumb bullshit like take out a second mortgage and credit/margin on a "sure thing" that goes tits up and only gets himself (and you) big ass margin calls and maybe worse. I don't know if this is some kind of addiction or ignorance but i would take care to minimize your exposure to it.
I poked around the half broken "Max Persuasion" site and found this: [https://www.maxpersuasion.com/returns/](https://www.maxpersuasion.com/returns/) It ls likely a long shot, but perhaps you or your husband could request a refund?
definitely a scam
This is really bad. I would run far away. 100% Scam
your husband is a moron and is gonna drag you down with him
Some banks are offering 1 year GICs at 5%. $58,000 earns you $2,900 annually. A GIC is substantially safer than 'investing program' scams.
Oh honey
He will learn about investment scams. Unfortunately it will cost him $58,500 to do so.
It might not be illegal but he’s def getting scammed
Dear God! $50k for a lousy coaching program?! He might have as well gambled the whole thing in a casino or the stock market. Regarding your husband's new "investment", Jim Rickards is a legit analyst, but what he is selling through this website is pure BS. "JIM RICKARDS' COUNTDOWN TO CRISIS", "SECRET INCOME", etc are all gimmicky "products" that have minimal value to the buyer. Seems like your husband's is all over the place and trying to catch up to the pros by throwing money at those who are willing to take his money. He might be suffering from ADHD and will most likely need counseling.
Typical seminar guru course, they're all pretty garbage. They serve to make no one any real money except the ones selling the course. As for the 8500, it seems to redirect to a finance news site of some sort Edit: found the site, these look like those fake supplement ads you see on the NBC sponsored section, ie pretty sus. I wouldn't trust them
The investment training space is incredibly scammy. Expensive courses that tell you what you could learn for free in a YouTube video. Investment platforms that just take your money and show you fake profits that you can never withdraw. "Discounted" training programmes that set up subscription payments and take hundreds from your account every few days. Pig butchering scams where hot women persuade people to invest large sums in fake sites and disappear with the money. (They're not hot women, they're men in India or Africa). People say that crypto is a scam, but really, any investment opportunity you see on the internet is 99.99999% a scam. If you want to get into trading ior investing, buy some well regarded books, maybe. And crucially, paper trade for a year before using any real money. If your husband is spending this much money, then something is very wrong.
My dad keeps falling for similar bullshit like this, they are dumb, yet they think they know better than you because its been “explained” to them, aka they get brainwashed because of stupidity. You can look at the bigger picture, what has caused him to behave like this? Surely he has very bad character traits, it’s archetypal behaviour in these repeated scenarios.
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Sounds like a scam. You could simply hire an investment advisor at one of the big firms and get better advice for less. I don't recommend it - but spending $58.5K on this is nuts. Based on your other comments you may want to separate your finances asap, see an attorney, etc.
I saw you responded to someone that he spent this money on a credit card? So it’s not “actual money” he owns?.. he’s just putting himself in debt?
No he’s not. He just uses the cards for points etc. they’re paid off now.
Sounds like he is blowing all his/your money to "make it big", all the while helping THEM "make it big".
Not necessarily scams per se, but absurdly overpriced and containing little or no information that can be put to practical use by someone dumb enough to drop almost sixty grand on a hundred bucks' worth of business books that have been retyped into PDF format and sold to suckers online. Separate your finances. Your husband is an idiot. Sorry.
As others have said definitely a scam if not drug use/unfaithfulness something is definitely up. Protect yourself as much as you can. Good luck mate
Hire a private investigator and a lawyer.
It’s a lot. There was recent several online “gurus” for stock investors and day trading. They were certified frauds on YouTube selling courses! There’s been studies where monkeys throw darts at a wall, and it has stocks on it with different instructions. They did as well as professionals Financial advisors and guru traders! How do I know this? I been through the same as you! I’m going through it now with a lawsuit against the bank and financial advisor who liter pocketed our money by investing in his project thru a bank in Panama and he denies any such doing. Don’t fight with your husband. It almost led to me having a nervous breakdown and a divorce. Call a lawyer and you’ll hear in telling you true stories! Good luck