I don’t dare tell my husband how much I was scammed

We got married seven years ago and have two children. We met at the company we both worked at and dated for a year before marriage. We are living in a town in a mountainous city.

I'm working as an architect, while my husband is an engineer. Our total monthly income could be classified as average and is enough to cover our living expenses.

We also have two pieces of land, of which one was bought with the money we both contributed and one was given to us by my parents. We are planning to build our own house, buy a second-hand car, and establish our own construction company.

But I was scammed when we were working on saving our money to make our plans reality.

I recently got a phone call from a company, who seemed to know about me and invited me to attend a conference, promising to give me discount vouchers on traveling services. I wasn’t interested at first so I didn’t research thoroughly about them, but I then got several other calls from them, which made me decide to go.

During the conference, I paid them VND50 million (US$2,100) as a deposit for a so-called loyalty card, which was said to allow me to travel anywhere I want and stay at 5-star resorts. I know I was stupid, but I was urged to pay as the number of the cards was limited, and they promised me that I could immediately sell my card to others in case I didn’t want to have it anymore.

After I returned home, I did some research on the internet and realized that I was scammed.

I had always been considered smart since I was a kid, as I performed academically well at schools and attempted to improve myself at work. Until this point I had never been scammed a cent, as I considered everything carefully.

Thinking about being scammed while our family was trying to save money, thinking about how my husband and I had been working hard to make that money, and thinking about how we had to even limit our two kids’ allowances, made me regret and feel sad.

I told my husband I was scammed with VND20 million only as I was afraid that he would shout at me, which he did, but then encouraged me that I could consider this a life lesson and I could learn how to be less stubborn through this. But I didn’t feel any better.

It has been weeks since the incident, but I haven’t moved on. I still think about being scammed, which made me not want to eat anything, not be able to send me to sleep, and not motivated to complete my tasks at work anymore. I have even been warned many times by my supervisor. But every time I think about that amount of money, I feel bad for my kids and hopeless.

I don’t know how my husband will react if he knows how much I was actually scammed. I don’t dare tell him about it, but I know if I don’t do so, I will be stuck with this depression I am feeling.

What should I do?