When it rains it pours an unbeknownst to me, I was about to find myself in a monsoon.
At the time, I thought I was in a good place. I had purchased a ring and was ready to propose to Patrice, but my fast and loose ways were about to catch up to me. Before I could pop the question, I found out a woman I had fooled around with was pregnant... with twins! All I could think was, “I’m screwed.” I found the woman I wanted to spend my life with and now I have to tell her I stepped out, and as a result, I’m having not one baby, but TWO! DAMN! I wanted to marry Patrice but, surely, she would walk if she knew. So I stayed quiet. I proposed to Patrice, & she said yes. But now I had a secret. The weight of which was nearly unbearable. But it gets worse. The real estate bubble my dad had been warning me about for years, burst. Overnight, everything changed. Mortgage companies shut down left & right. Even w/ a team of loan officers & agents, we couldn’t close a deal to save our lives. I went from having it all to having nothing, just like that. We began to burn through Patrice’s savings. Notice I said Patrice’s savings... I didn’t have a savings to burn through. Apparently, we'd been living two different money philosophies. Mainly, she was a saver, and well, I wasn’t. You think losing your business is tough? Try explaining to your now pregnant fiancé that while she was saving, you were spending, and now you can’t contribute financially to keep you guys afloat.
Needless to say, this caused a MAJOR pain point in our relationship. In time we depleted her accounts and our primary residences fell into foreclosure. Soon, all of my investment properties were in foreclosure as well. Those luxury vehicles? Repossessed. I had no 401K. I couldn’t afford my life insurance policy. After all of that success, all of my bank accounts combined totaled less than $2,000. Bankruptcy was unavoidable. On top of all that, Patrice was placed on bedrest at Cedar Sinai hospital at 20wks and would stay there for the next 10, until our daughter was born… ten weeks early and at only 3lbs 10oz. And, I had no way to support anybody.
The twins, unbeknownst to me, were born the next day