I (26f) Called Off My Wedding With Fiancé (27m) Due To Financial Infidelity Only To Find Out We Are Already Legally Married And Didnt Know

Created this account to post this because my life has turned into a reddit story :’) Location: Texas

My Fiancé (27M) and I (26F) have been together for 7 years and were going to get married in August of this year. We bought a house together 3 years ago and have 2 dogs. He proposed in May 2025, and I thought we were going to live happily ever after. We share finances due to the house, but split everything 50/50. We have joint bank accounts, credit cards, on each others phone & insurance plans etc. I manage everything in that aspect and every month he put in $ no problem and paid his portions. When he proposed, he did the math for exactly how much we each needed to save each paycheck to have the big wedding we envisioned. And he never missed a paycheck saving since that day.

On valentines day, we were almost 6 months out from our wedding and my entire life blew up. I was very stressed at the idea of putting $30k into a wedding. I had sent a non-refundable $10k check to the venue that same week. Before I sent it I told him we could back out of the “big wedding” idea and just elope for a lot cheaper that this was our chance to back out. He wanted the big wedding so I sent the check. Even though we were saving I could tell we will be 2-3k short at the end of this and I didnt want to go into debt for a wedding. He works commission so I was asking if he could contribute more to the wedding fund if he has a good sales month. When he didnt say yes, I asked “Are you hiding something from me financially?”. He broke down and told me that he had racked up $17k of credit card debt on his personal credit card. I was shattered. Finances has always been so important to me as I was on my own at 17 and have always had to figure things out with no help. I had always paid off the entire balance of my credit card every month and he told me he did the same.

I found out it had been 3 years of this debt accumulating. Of course, the part that hurts the most are the lies. The times I asked if he paid off his credit card and he said yes. Through the course of the next week I found out some other lies as well. He has a serious issue of lying to please those around him. He immediately enrolled himself in individual therapy, and offered us to do couples therapy. He knows he fucked up. I said I would go to the couples therapy to talk about all of this, but I have been very clear that I am in a state of limbo and dont know if I want this relationship.

The $10k check for the venue wasnt due until the end of the next week, so we were able to tell the venue to not cash it and we decided to cancel the wedding all together.

The next 2 weeks went by and as we are still trying to figure out where the relationship stands, we had to file our taxes. We bought the house 3 years ago and got solar panels on the house shortly after. There was a tax credit offered in those panels at the time so we went to H&R block to see how we could get that credit (i promise this is relevant). Since we live in TX and live together, the lady there told us we could file our taxes as married in order to get the full tax credit. So we did. When she suggested this 2 years ago I asked what would happen if we broke up, and she said youd have to fill out a separation form. It didnt seem like that big of a deal so we did it.

Well, when we went to file this year, the idea of breaking up was more real. So I asked the same lady at H&R block (its a small town and shes still there 2 year later) again what would happen if we break up? and she said I would be need to consult a lawyer because we are married. And thats what I did. I have a legal shield benefit through my work so I called a lawyer and he informed me we are in fact common law married according to the state of TX and would need a legal divorce in order to separate!

I know its naive, but we genuinely didnt know filing married would make us legally married. If we knew we needed a divorce we would not have done it 2 years ago.

So here I am 2 months after all of the lies came out, legally married and trying to figure out if I need to get a divorce while never having a wedding. The lawyer said the fact that it was H&R block that filed for us makes no difference since we both signed the return. Im curious if we can annul even though its been 2 years? My fiance (husband?) seems set on making sure his debt doesnt become mine if we went the divorce route. If we agree to leave with what we came in with, can that happen or does it have to be 50/50 everything? We also cannot sell the house for as much as we owe on it (new build and bought when prices were higher). We would have to take out a $40k loan to avoid a short sale, or we could rent it out in hopes the value goes up. If we continue owning the house together how does that work in a divorce?