Completely pissed off
I have been pretty upset with my wife since last night. She is going to be student teaching soon and has some time off until the school year starts. This week she has gone out shopping for clothes and setting things up for school every day. Our ‘budget’ has some room for her to be able to spend some money on clothes, but what happens when it’s gone? That is where the fighting started.
She came home with a few more bags then I had expected. At first I brushed it off because I just didn’t want to know what she spent on all this stuff. Later that night she modeled the various things she bought and I tried to keep my cool. Then the ultimate question came up: how much did all this cost? She told me not to worry about it which confused me at first, then she told me she opened a new credit card and charged about $250 on it. It feels every effort I make to pay off debt is shifted into a new debt.
This is when it got interesting because she told me that when she is done with student teaching and gets her job, she wants her own checking account to handle her money. I told her it is a good thing I’m not that selfish with my income in that I consider it both of ours since it pays the mortgage, bills, and general cost of living. It’s not like this stuff is invisible either because I show her the exact amounts of what all this stuff costs and the extra at the bottom is the only wiggle room we have. Its not that we don’t have enough money, there’s just not enough extra for her anymore.
It always seems like a simple solution is when there isn’t enough money for lifestyle, instead of cutting lifestyle for a period of time, try to make more money so the standard of living doesn’t change. We are effectively going nowhere quickly because any progress is balanced out by overspending. I’m also being compared to our friend who is in the banking industry and recently was promoted to a VP at the age of 25 (same age as me) and got a huge pay increase from his already large salary, which I’m not sure what to think about that. My wife wants me to keep pushing for promotions and pay increases and my response is always the same, it all takes time. It is starting to depress me when I’m trying so hard to make our lives better and she only sees success as job title and salary. She still doesn’t know for sure if teaching is what she wants to do for a career. I don’t know what to do anymore but things are really ugly right now.
I say give her a checking account now. She can fill it with her zero income. Then tell her to go get a job as vice president of a bank, since apparently its just so easy.
I can tell you what I’d do, but you wouldn’t like it!
My mother once told me that three things broke up marriages: sex, children and money. She and my father then got divorced because he was spending money faster than she could make it. It wasn’t that he was spending, it was the fact that he cared so little about her feelings and what she was trying to do that he couldn’t even be bothered to try to meet her halfway. And, I’m probably seeing this through the veil of my own experience, but that’s what I see happening here. Your wife cares and respects what you’re trying to do so little that she doesn’t even understand the difference between cash and credit. Give her all the finance books you want, she’s not going to care enough to change.
I get that you’re mostly venting here, but it’s evident that you have a really serious problem that isn’t going to let you get ahead as long as you let it persist.
I have similar money problems with my partner. I decided 6 months ago that it was time to pay down my debts. We discussed this, and I thought he was on board with my decision. But the lifestyle changes I have made in the past 6 months have really thrown our relationship into a tailspin.
I think there are some people out there who just have a knack for getting other people to buy things for them. They have this insidious way of making themselves into victims so that you want to help — or are manipulated into helping, I should say. My partner has been in full “me victim, you bad stingy person who is only about money” mode for the past 3 months. I’m sick of it, and have lost all patience with him. I can’t save him from his debt, but I sure can save myself from my debt.
The sad thing is that your wife feels that she is entitled to expensive things, even if she doesn’t have the money, and that she is willing to put a large burden on you to get these material things. I don’t think it is malicious. With my partner, he simply doesn’t see the distress he is causing. He just wants what he wants. But the resulting arguments when I say no, and the anger I feel when he opens another credit card account and puts himself further into debt just aren’t worth it.
The sad thing is, she is exploiting you, but she is blind to this. Which means she will continue what she’s doing because she doesn’t have any moral issue with doing so. In the end this will cause her pain too, and she won’t understand why.
For me, the way to handle this is to put a firm line in the sand saying this is mine, that is yours, and don’t cross over. I am leaning toward ending my relationship with my partner. I guess I really AM ready to pay my debts down, and nothing, no one is going to stand in my way.
Good luck.
I honestly think you guys should get some counseling.
It sounds like you married a princess. I’m not saying that like it’s en evil thing, I’m just calling it like I see it. If you don’t get some help with this relationship, the money issues are going to destroy it. And, honestly, it sounds like the majority of the problem is on her side.
The only thing that perhaps I could say to you would be to put your foot down more often and just say “no”. No, she can not have her own account. No, she can not open new credit accounts. No, she can not spend outside of the written budget. And, yes, the money both of you bring in belongs to both of you. You are married, there is no “his money” and there is no “her money”. It’s “our money”.
Tell her to return all of the items she put on the new card, and then get the account closed.
Do I use the blog to vent? Sure do, otherwise it would build until I explode. She is the youngest daughter in her family and grew up getting her way. I would agree that she has the princess mentality in that she expects everything to be the way she would like. It is difficult to get my wife on board with the idea that we need to sacrifice to have a better life. I get a lot of complaints about how unhappy she is and life sucks, so by buying things it makes things better?
The step at this point is we need to find some common ground here somewhere. I didn’t make her go back to college to become a teacher, she decided to do this. She has borrowed a lot of money in order to go back to school that has to be paid back. We both brought credit card debt and student loans into the marriage, and something needs to be done about it. She needs a decent income now to be able to handle just the minimum payments on her student loans alone. I have been hanging in there supporting our household while she would bring in some extra money to help us with our other expenses. With her income no longer coming in, now is the time to take it easy and watch what we’re doing.
The budgeting challenge is to hold things together for a week and a half at which point I get paid again. Mortgage payment always comes out of that first paycheck and the rest is usually used to get us to the middle of the month. My second paycheck pays our living expenses like utilities, my student loans, and our credit cards. The remainder of that has to hold us out until the start of the following month. We used to make it on only my income before in the past, but our rent was half what I pay now for my house, and credit card minimums are higher on average. The difference this time is now we are married and the money can’t always keep up with the expenses.
Glad someone else recommends counseling. You really don’t want to hit rock bottom here, because one of my friend’s parents went through a similar thing.
She spent and spent themselves into debt (mostly on fancy house stuff) while he worked and she went to school. Now granted they had other problems with their marriage, but in the end she got an advanced degree while he supported her and she never worked, so as thanks she divorced him, took the kids, slapped him with child support and alimony, sold the house and took all the equity and bought herself a new house, saddled him with ALL their debt (almost all of which was her spending) because she couldn’t “handle” the debt with the expense of the kids, and got into her professional career making good money while he supported her fancy lifestyle with huge alimony payments. He ended up in a 1 bedroom apartment barely making ends meet.
That’s rock bottom. You aren’t even close to there yet, but you still have a chance to make things right.
I just saw your blog right now. I don’t know how long you have been working on the finance stuff. Did you guys talk about this at the beginning? Was it a joint decision or just your decision?
In my situation, when I met my now husband, I was still paying off student loans. He is older than I am by 6 years, and actually had a significant level of savings with no debt. It has taken us a while to get on the same page financially. While I was paying off my loans and paid them off very early, living below my means and saving a big portion of my income, my husband was on the cheap end of the frugal spectrum.
I know a lot of people like your wife. It is really really common in the US. While a lot of people are telling you that you are in the right, etc., I think that you both just need to talk and get on the same page. Maybe you can schedule some no cost date nights–cook a romantic dinner for her and go for a moonlit walk.
It seems like you guys are both young, it takes a lot of people time to understand the idea of living below your means. When you are borrowing for school, which a lot of people do, and which I can’t say is such a bad idea in many cases, it can be difficult to make sensible financial decisions because all the money is borrowed.
Your wife may feel like okay, this has all been a long term investment in my future earnings that will pay off because I will be started off in a career that I am excited about. This is a perfectly valid point of view! You only mention $20K of student loans. While I am glad that I am done paying my loans off, 20K is not a number way beyond the pale for the average college student these days, especially if it includes a master’s degree. Starting out is difficult. Maybe she was afraid of getting caught in the admin trap, and she loves teaching.
You guys made a commitment to each other not so long ago, that your relationship was the most important thing. You have different ideas about money. Both of you care about long term prospects, you just see it differently. Her master’s degree is a long term investment, even though it is financed by debt. The ipod and video games aren’t, but a fun money system might be able to help you all control those impulses. As long as she buys in to your plan. You want to convince her that you are right, but you also need to listen to her.
I will tell you that in my case, after being together for only three years, my husband and I have influenced each other a lot. Both of us have learned from the other about the value of money. As I said, I paid off my student loan a little while into the relationship. We still live below our means. I have thought a lot about living more simply, and have realized how little joy I get out of stuff, bigger living quarters, etc. Frequently I’m the one that suggests that we skip the movie or meal out and prepare a nice evening at home. I encourage him to be more generous and even more of a spendthrift when it comes to expenses related to family, inviting them to a place to stay, inviting them out to dinner. Because family is important to us, and better to spend our money enjoying being with family than knowing that we will retire $1K richer, frankly.
I hope you guys get through this rough patch, but if you love each other, try to focus on the relationship. Make the effort to initiate free or low cost time together. The Millionaire Mommy next door has a list on her blog of 50 cheap dates. Good luck!