Low blow from my husband has me questioning everything
My husband and I are both freelancers in creative fields of work and do well financially. We save a little more now that we’re older and we never want for anything. My husband has always made more money more consistently than I do, and with his salary, we are more than comfortable. I am in a field that pays generously but sporadically. Last night, I picked a fight I probably shouldn’t have—it doesn’t matter what it was about. At one point I said, “My feelings are hurt when you talk to me like this.” And he responded with, “Your feelings don’t matter, because I pay for everything.” I was dumbfounded. We went to bed angry, and, honestly, I’m so shocked these words came out of his mouth that I don’t even think I can look at him. What can I do or say here? Should I just keep my mouth shut? Do I have any ground in which to stand—because, as he said, right now, he is paying for most things. I feel like a 1950s housewife all of a sudden and am questioning everything about my marriage.
—Paying for Everything
Re: Low blow from my husband has me questioning everything
This is tough. That's a totally shitty comment that would stick with me, too. She's gotta sit down and talk - not yell - talk to him about it. Tell him how she feels about the comment and how it affected her.
My husband makes nearly double what I do. It doesn't upset either of us, but I think I'm more aware of it. I do all the cooking, most of the cleaning, other things to sort of even it out. If he ever said anything like that, it would take a while to get over it.
Looking back, he sure as hell didn't feel that way when he was unemployed/underemployed. Yet another reason he is now former.
Okay, so my rant for today, since this is related and fresh in my mind. I make about 3x what DH makes. It's never seemed to bother him much and we have kept joint finances. We put his income direct deposit into a separate account for savings, so it helps him to feel like he's contributing because "his money" pays for all our big ticket items (house, car, vacations), even though his income doesn't pay for our regular bills, unless necessary. Lately, we have been having some financial stress and DH doesn't seem to want to live on a tighter budget. DH doesn't want to be involved in the finances or bill paying, so I'm the one that deals with all of it and stresses about it. He figures that as long as there is money in the account or available credit cards that we are okay. The last several months, my income has been tight (self employed so my income varies and this is my slow time of year) and we seem to be slowly building more debt every month (not much, but some). And I've recently learned that we have very different views on how much debt is acceptable to each of us. We talked about it in the past, but his views seem to have changed lately. I personally am at the point that I want to cancel cable and all non-essential bills to help keep us from going further in debt, but DH doesn't think it's needed. Last night he was upset that he ordered some $100 sunglasses online and he was worried that it was a fraudulent site. So, while he was going off about wanting to sue Facebook for not vetting the ads they post (I still say it's his fault, not Facebook's, but it's only been 2 days and he really has no reason to think the ad/sale is fraudulent anyway... he's upset that they gave him a confirmation number, but no invoice, which isn't uncommon), I'm sitting there thinking about why in the hell he's spending $100 on sunglasses when we are tight on money... and when we just recently discussed needed to cut back on spending. Plus, he put it on a credit card that I've told him not to use because it has nearly 30% interest rate and we can't afford to pay it off right now, so those sunglasses are going to cost us even more now. I've probably had the thought that my opinion matters on money more than his, but I would never say it out loud. Plus, my thinking that my opinion matters more is based not so much on our income levels as it is on the fact that I'm the one who looks at and balances our finances, so I have a better understanding of where we stand... and the idea of "not adding debt" thinking makes more sense than his "spend money we don't have" thinking, so my RIGHT opinion matters more than his WRONG one in this case. But, I still wouldn't disrespect him by saying his opinion doesn't matter at all, because we are a team and his opinion does matter.
We have the same arrangement where his paycheck goes into our savings and we don't touch it for regular expenses (unless we absolutely have to, which is rare). For us it seems to work well that while I did make more money, he also does most of the everyday bill pay so we both monitor where the money is going.
With us, I think it would be more resentment for me not doing enough around the house, and to an extent, he'd be justified.
Or maybe a budgeting app that allows you both to be a bit more participatory? I've heard a lot of good things about 'You Need a Budget' http://www.youneedabudget.com/
I think his change in attitude about spending came from a few factors, gradually occurring over time. We've gone through several stages of finances since we've been together. At one point, DH wasn't working and was very much on board with zero unnecessary spending. Then we went through a point where we were both laid off and we were very much in sync with our thinking during that time and recovering from that. After DH started working again, he feels more entitled to spend money on personal things, which I can understand. He hates the idea of working his ass off everyday and not having anything to show for it. About a year ago, we were doing pretty well financially and probably let our spending get out of hand, and didn't focus enough on saving, but the money was there, so it wasn't really a problem. We did save some, but not as much as we probably should have. The disconnect has really only happened recently, when money has started getting tighter again. He wants to keep spending like we have been. My views have changed also, but in the opposite direction, where I think we need to focus more on saving than we have in the past and think more long term. So, the disconnect isn't all his fault either, because we've both just changed thinking in different directions. We just need to figure out the right compromise point that we can both live with, which isn't always easy, but we have been making progress to meet closer to the middle. He has cut back some of his spending lately, but it still annoys me when he spends on things that I think are unneeded. I get needing sunglasses for working outside, but he doesn't need $100 ones. And I wouldn't be so annoyed if he had purchased them out of his budgeted allowance, and making cuts in his other spending to make up for it, instead of putting them on credit.
Oh they's either not having any nukkie for a good long time or there's gunna be some AMAZING make-up "coitus"... Either way - that bed is going to be REAL cold for a while!!!
Ultimately she has to be the one to make the choice on what she's willing to accept or not in their relationship. If she's out - then don't waste eachother's time. While in truth that he's paying, to say that her feelings on things don't count - that's low blow fighting words by someone who was losing the argument, and time for a visit to the therapist, or time to put in place "Rules of engagement" for arguing, or figure out division of stuff instead of paying for a divorce attorney to manage the divorce... Address it and either clear the air immediately or "that's the moment of clarity"...