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The women who hid their shopping addiction from their husbands... and nearly wrecked their marriages

Elenor Smith was putting her baby son down for a nap when the telephone rang. As she heard her husband, Richard, answer the phone, and his voice become increasingly irate, every muscle in her body tensed. She realised that the person on the other end of the line was revealing her dirty secret.

For the past three years, Elenor, now 33, had been spending money the couple did not have on clothes, shoes and cosmetics she did not need, and which were now mostly hidden, unused, in wardrobes and drawers. 

The caller — who warned that bailiffs were to be sent to their home in Nuneaton, Warwickshire — was just one of eight creditors to whom she owed a total of £20,000, accrued on an array of credit and store cards.

Debt: Eleanor Smith got into thousands of pounds of debt after spending money on credit and store cards

Although Elenor’s secret shopping addiction sounds extreme, according to new research, it’s far from unique. In a recent survey, six out of ten women admitted they do not live within their means, while four in ten women regularly lie to their partners to cover up their spending.

‘I was so anxious about making sure Richard didn’t find out what a mess we were in that the only thing that made me feel better was buying more things,’ recalls Elenor. ‘Stuff that a young mum has no use for — evening dresses, designer stilettos, glitzy jewellery.

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‘If Richard got home before me, I’d leave the shopping bags in the car boot until I could sneak them in without him seeing and shove them to the back of the wardrobe, where he’d never look.

‘As long as I could make the minimum payments, none of the lenders seemed to care how much I already owed. But as soon as I stopped being able to, the letters and calls threatening the bailiffs started.’

It was one such call that Richard, a food technician, took when their son was just a month old — forcing Elenor, now a project co-ordinator, finally to come clean.

Stress: When the mother stopped being able to pay the minimum monthly amount the bailiffs started to hound her

‘It was a relief to confess everything at last,’ she recalls. ‘But I’ll never forget the hurt in Richard’s eyes. At a time when we should simply have been enjoying our new baby, I had brought this terrible stress into our lives.’

With a joint income of £30,000 a year, a newborn son, Miles — who is now eight — and Elenor on maternity leave, the Smiths’ finances would have been precarious enough without such a huge debt.

‘Understandably, Richard was furious with me,’ says Elenor. ‘Every conversation we had turned into an argument. In those first few months I was sick with worry that he might leave me — and given what I’d done, who would have blamed him?’

Richard, 31, agrees that someone less committed to his family would probably have walked away: ‘I felt completely betrayed by Elenor,’ he remembers. ‘The humiliation and despair was as bad as being cheated on. But I love my wife and believe that marriage is for life, so we worked as a team to sort the mess out.’

Together, the couple struggled to meet the £400-a-month minimum interest on Elenor’s credit and store cards — the only way of keeping the bailiffs at bay — leaving them with just £5 a week to buy groceries. With so little money, the family ended up living on pasta with tomato sauce and rice with ketchup.

 'The humiliation was as bad as being cheated on'Elenor's husband, Richard

And in June 2005, a month after that fateful call, matters went from bad to worse when Elenor, while still on maternity leave, was made redundant from her job as a trainee advertising account manager.

Reeling, the Smiths contacted debt management company Payplan.com, who calculated that the couple owed £30,000 — including a £10,000 building society home improvement loan taken out shortly after they married in 2003 — and set up a repayment programme for them.

The organisation persuaded some of the companies to whom Elenor owed money to waive the interest on her debt, and arranged monthly repayments of £200. 

Elenor, who has suffered from depression on and off for years, initially turned to shopping as a way of boosting her low mood. But her addiction escalated after the couple’s initial home improvement loan. That gave her the spending bug, and soon she was handing over her credit card to pay for everything from white goods to colour co-ordinated cushions and curtains.

When the loan ran out, and her first credit card was up to its limit, Elenor started applying for credit and store cards in her own name, so that her spending could continue without Richard’s knowledge. When the bills came in, she simply hid them.

Extravagant: Simone Wilson lost her boyfriend of two years when she withdrew £4,000 from their joint account and spent it on an Hermes bag

Eight years on, the couple are still paying off Elenor’s debts, and are trapped in their small two-bedroom ‘starter home’ with their son and daughter, Darcey, five. They have paid back more than £26,000, but have yet to clear the initial debt — and the interest accrued.

Their situation improved a little when Elenor cut short her maternity leave and took a part-time job as a telephone sales operator, with a salary of £10,000 a year, giving the couple a joint income of £25,000. 

Yet while their debt was slowly diminishing, the stress took a toll on their relationship. Eventually the recriminations ended, and Richard’s feeling of betrayal lessened, and their marriage began to reset itself.

‘For several years, Richard and I were less like a married couple and more like two childminders living under the same roof,’ says Elenor. ‘Thankfully we stuck together. With just £6,000 left to pay off, we’ve almost worked our way through it and over the past couple of years we’ve become best friends again.’

That so many women like Elenor shop behind their partners’ backs comes as no surprise to psychologist Nadine Field, who treats an average of six women a week with secret spending problems at her Buckinghamshire practice.

Secret: Simone Wilson said that shopping would provide a relief from stresses in her professional and personal life

‘Hiding things from the people in your life is the first sign of an addiction,’ explains Nadine. ‘So if you are asking yourself “How can I do this without getting caught?”, the next question you need to ask is “Why am I doing this? What void in my life am I trying to fill?”

‘Spending on something you don’t need, and can’t afford, will make you feel good for 24 hours. But once the fix wears off the gap will still be there, so it’s important to identify more constructive ways of filling it.’

A lack of self-esteem or confidence is often at the root of shopping addiction, according to Ms Field: ‘Buying nice things triggers the same feel-good chemicals in the brain as cocaine or gambling,’ she says. ‘But the feeling does not last and can leave you feeling as wretched the following day as a cocaine binge or throwing away money on the horses.’

And the consequences — including bankruptcy, house repossession and even divorce — can be just as devastating. 

Simone Wilson’s addiction to shopping has cost her dear: six months ago, her two-year relationship with the man she loved ended after she withdrew £4,000 from their joint bank account and blew it on a Hermes bag.

Her boyfriend, Paul, a music producer earning around £40,000 a year, had been saving to buy a car and for a deposit on a flat — unaware that she had long been chipping away at their nest-egg to feed her £2,000-a-month shopping habit.

‘Paul was very generous and turned a bit of a blind eye to my spending on clothes, make-up and face creams,’ says Simone, 29. ‘But when he checked the account a week after I’d withdrawn £4,000 and found it empty, it was a tipping point.

Luxury: Simone spends large amounts of money on items such as this £1,800 Chanel watch (left) and £4,000 diamond bracelet (right)

‘I’d hoped to pay it back before he realised, but no matter what I said I couldn’t persuade him to forgive me. I couldn’t believe I’d thrown away a relationship that was so important to me for the sake of a handbag.’

Paul’s reaction should have been the catalyst for Simone, also a music producer and part-time model, who earns up to £2,000 a month, to get a grip on her spending. But six months down the line, she admits she’s still splashing out on things she can’t afford.

‘I rent a one-bedroom flat in North London and have about £25,000 worth of clothes, shoes and bags squirrelled away in it,’ says Simone. ‘I shop at lunchtimes, evenings and weekends and, after paying my bills, I spend whatever is left on clothes, posh face creams at £150 a pot and make-up. 

Simone, too, has had periods of depression and acknowledges that she suffers from low self-esteem — which she puts down to knockbacks in her work and personal life. Shopping, even when she has to hide away her purchases, provides a temporary relief from feelings of inadequacy. 

 'I had to admit I'd never worn half my new outfits'Joanne Hollingworth

‘My older sister, Hayley, is trying to help wean me off it,’ she adds. ‘The other day I rang her to say I was about to buy the most gorgeous yellow swimming costume for £285.

‘She told me not to be so daft, reminding me that I never go swimming and that if I really want a costume I could pick up one for a tenner in H&M.’ 

Psychologist Dr Heather Sequeira uses cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), a talking therapy which aims to change the way a person thinks, feels and behaves, to treat compulsive shoppers. She works to challenge the unrealistic beliefs of her clients, who are mostly women aged 20 to 40, many of whom seem to believe that their lives will be turned around by a pair of Jimmy Choos or a Mulberry bag.

‘A woman might tell herself “This will make me look a million dollars, my boyfriend will like me and I will feel fantastic in it”,’ says Dr Sequeira. ‘But those feelings quickly wear off, leaving her feeling even worse because she’s ashamed of having spent all that money.’

Joanne Hollingworth, 44, knows all about those feelings of guilt and shame. After being made redundant from her managerial job in 2010, she took an £11,000 pay cut to work as a customer services adviser — but didn’t cut back on her compulsive shopping habit.

Confession: Joanne Hollingworth had to admit to her husband that she had never worn half of the outfits she had bought

Instead, she hid her Saturday shopping sprees in Manchester from husband, Jon, 50, an engineer, sneaking purchases into the house while he was at work and snipping off labels before hanging them in her walk-in wardrobe.

‘I just can’t resist dresses from All Saints, which can cost around £200,’ admits Joanne, who believes her shopping habit stems from a childhood spent wearing hand-me-downs from her two older sisters. ‘I’d leave them in my wardrobe for a fortnight before wearing them and if Jon asked if something was new I’d tell him, feeling I was being honest — because I’d had it a couple of weeks by then — that it wasn’t,’ she says.

Joanne, from Stockport, was forced to come clean when it became clear her £21,000 salary wasn’t enough to support her £8,000-a-year clothes shopping habit — and she had to start dipping into their joint account to clear her credit card bills.

‘We have a good marriage, so Jon couldn’t understand why I’d lied to him,’ recalls Joanne. ‘He looked in my wardrobe and asked why on earth I needed so many outfits. I had to admit that half of them had never seen the light of day.’

Forgiving: Joanne's husband said that he would warned her not to get into debt, but acknowledges that everyone has their vices

The fact Joanne never got into debt to feed her habit made the deceit slightly easier for Jon to stomach. However, he made it clear he wouldn’t bail her out if she carried on spending beyond her means. 

‘Joanne tells me that she’s much more sensible about her spending now, but we’ve recently had a bedroom converted into a walk-in wardrobe and it’s filling up fast,’ says Jon. 

‘We all have our vices, though — mine’s drag race cars, which eat up a lot of my income, and shopping is my wife’s.’ 

With three more years to go before the Smiths clear their £30,000 debt, it’s not so easy for them to be flippant about Elenor’s addiction. 

‘I felt guilty at Christmas when all of my son’s friends got a brand new Nintendo 3DS and he had to make do with a second-hand games console,’ says Elenor. 

‘You want the best for your children and it’s sickening knowing that every time we have to tell ours they can’t have something, it’s because we’re all still paying for my secret shopping addiction.’Additional reporting: Antonia Hoyle








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