<prompt> Human: Ive found myself in an awful financial situation, and Im honestly not even sure where to start to go about fixing it, and I just keep making things worse. Im just hoping someone can at least point me where to start, and what my options realistically are.Basically, my ex left me ruined and I dont know how to go about fixing it. Heres the story:My ex and I were dating for about three years, starting while I was in college. My senior year of college, after wed been together about 9 months, he got sick. He started staying with me, and when I graduated we moved in together. He was no longer working so I was supporting both of us, while he stayed at home. This is where I made my first mistake: because I was working all the time and constantly stressed, he volunteered to manage the finances and I agreed because they were never my strong suit to begin with.This is how it was for the last year and a half of our relationship. I worked full time, often overtime, trying to pull ends together and make sure bills were covered. He managed the bills, and figured out groceries and what few extraneous purchases we could afford. Even so, I was starting to get strained as I was starting to notice that a lot of our extra things were what he wanted, and we could never afford anything I did.Then, about 6 months ago, we finally broke up, and he pushed me to move out. I was honestly so exhausted at the time that I didnt really fight him, I just took the stuff I had and moved in with a friend of mine.It wasnt until I went to try to purchase a new bed since he kept the old one that I learned that not only was my emergency fund credit card maxed out, there were 4 other credit cards in my name that had all been maxed out, and I had missed every single payment for that month on those cards because I didnt even know they existed. Between all the cards that existed, I have nearly 12k in debt spread across 6 cards, only 2k of which I had been aware of due to making some poor financial decisions while in college.I confronted him about it and there was a big argument. I dont really want to go into to much detail about our actual relationship, but needless to say my ability to stand up for myself had been broken down over the years without me really noticing. Eventually I agreed to his offer to send me 150 a month until hed paid me back which I now know and realize was a really shit offer and I honestly shouldnt have even given it consideration.I can barely get by. Between rent and the bills at my new place, I cant afford to pay down the credit. I can barely afford to pay the minimums, and often miss at least 1 payment a month. My credit score has dropped from the 700s to 400, and thats after borrowing a ton of money from my parents just to cover the surprise costs of the original move.x200B;I know the obvious answer is to sue him for credit fraud. The evidence supports it: for nearly a year there were 4 credit cards in my name with his email and phone number as the contact info, and all of the purchases made with those cards are still in his ownership. But I cant afford representation, and he has a law degree and I know him well enough to know he wont settle, and I dont think I can afford to support myself for the duration of a legal battle even if I do end up winning; which, given that I verbally gave him full access to my finances and verbally accepted his offer to pay me back and, over the course of the 4 months since we came to that agreement, have accepted 600 in payback money from him, I dont even know if I still have ground to stand on. On top of that... I honestly dont want to. I really dont want to have to deal with him again, and if I can find a way to recover that doesnt require me turning back to him, Id certainly prefer that.I still have college loans to pay back, rent, gas, and internet at my new apartment, plus the credit debt on all 6 of these cards which I havent managed to reduce at all. I dont know where to turn or how to even begin fixing this mess, so Im asking for help here. And yes, I know I made a bunch of terrible choices in how to handle this mess, so Id appreciate if you guys could skip over the mistakes I made to point me in the right direction to actually start repairing my life.Thank you for your help.EDIT: Honestly dont know how I didnt include this initially, but during that 6 month period I also switched jobs. My new job is higher paying and not dependent on tips, but because Im still new the hours havent evened out and it makes it difficult to budget based on that, but Im hoping it will at least alleviate some of the monthly bill problems once I get things on a regular schedule.  <response>: Im so sorry youre going through this. If youre not married to this person and they opened any credit accounts in your name without your knowledge or consent, it is Identity Theft which is illegal and has serious consequences for him, if convicted likely. Your agreement that he handle the finances while you were in a relationship and cohabiting was not permission to open lines of credit and run them up, defrauding you and ruining your credit. Its theft. If he has the benefit of the goods and services purchased with that credit, this may be part of the case. Because its in your name you can do a few things. If it were me, these would be my steps:1 get a free consultation with an attorney 2 follow all federally recommended actions regarding the reporting of identity theft3 the step above likely includes freezing creditplacing a fraud alert 4 get printed detailed purchase receipts and monthly statements for all accounts in question including your ex contact info and payment history in their billing profile5 once protected per above, let the ex know youre seeking legal advice and youre serious about pursuing this with the authoritiesKeep us updated and good luck. 