I'm 10-Years Into Marriage and Feel Hoodwinked

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. My husband and I have been married 10 years. In that 10 years, we've never had shared bank accounts. Essentially, when I was graduating college, my grandmother on her deathbed told me, don't ever let a man control your money. You make it, you control it. And I kind of took that to heart because she never left a bad marriage because she didn't have money to do so. So we're 10 years in and now I feel completely hoodwinked because my husband has been using the money that he has, like using cash. I don't know where the cash is going, but he's been apparently funding his entire life on an Amex card that I just found out has an $18,000 balance at a 30% interest rate. And when I confronted him about it, I told him he needed to cancel the card that we were going to be eating rice and beans because this was absolutely unacceptable. But he told me he was going to take care of it. He was going to make a budget. He didn't want me talking to him like that. Didn't want me talking to him like he was a child. So you suddenly decided you wanted to interfere in his money after 10 years of telling him you wanted nothing to do with him. No wonder he pissed. Well, I mean, I'm over here like, well, I know, but you, you lost all the right to vote on his money when you said, I'm not going to vote on your money. You, you, you, you, you decided out of the gate, I'm going to, I'm going to row in my boat, you row in yours and now you're mad at the direction he's rowing. Yeah. But my money's paying for our entire life. So that's not a new thing. No, but so this is the other thing. So he is disabled and he gets like this pension. And for years I thought this pension was a pittance. Like I literally was like, okay, he's, he pays like the utilities and whatever. Um, well I found out to this pension is not a pittance. Like apparently, you know, because I'm like paying for all of our insurance premiums, like putting money in a 403B, putting money into our kids, college savings plans, you know, I insurance, dental insurance for everyone. He brings home more money than I do now. Okay. Okay. But hold on. Why are you blaming him? This is the arrangement y'all co-created at your direction based on bad advice from your grandma. You're blaming him that he makes a bunch of money and you didn't know about it. Okay. You get what I'm saying? Well, did you ever ask him? I did. So several times, like I'd asked him and several times I was like, you know, hey, you know, this is what's going, like, this is what's going on. Like, this is how I'm budgeting things. This is what's going on with everything. And you know, I'd be like, do you want to like, go ahead and start working together? And he would be like, well, I don't know how to change my dark depositor. I don't know how to do online banking or, you know, it would always be something, some reason, but then I was just non-confrontational. So I never just, you know, tried to take him down on it. Well, but, but also he has a very real lived experience that things are going to be done your way, the way you want them at your direction. You get what I'm saying? There's a difference between, hey, look at all the stuff I'm having to pay for. Do you want to start combining money and do it my way? And him going, nope. Or you saying, hey, I set us out on a bad course. I thought the greatest way to keep myself safe was to keep myself disconnected from my spouse. And I was wrong. And I want a chance to rebuild this thing from the ground up. Will you be in this with me? And that means we're going to combine everything, including our fears, our shame, our embarrassments, and our money, and we got to be united in this thing. So you see how one of those is an accusation, and one of those is a demand, and one of those is an invitation, right? But now I'm left with like, you know, I've created, you know, this budget, I have sinking funds. I have, you know, my debt snowballed. Listen, you got to change your language. I, I, I, he, he, he. You have to change it to we. So, okay. You know what I'm saying? I do, but now we have this like $18,000 credit card with a 30% interest rate. That's the cost of doing business poorly. Yeah. Yes. So what do I do? How would I tell him? Send the bill to your grandmother. She caused it. We have to decide that we are going to do money differently. We're going to be connected, and we are both going to get this debt paid off, and we're going to decide how we spend money. He didn't do anything wrong, by the way. He's just doing what y'all arranged together. He did nothing wrong in this thing. He did exactly what you told him to do. He went over there and lived his life, and then you're bitching about how he lived it. You can't, that, you don't get it both ways. Yeah. You got to come back together. Yeah. So the two of you sit down, start fresh, and go, okay, I want to do over. The two of us are going to become one, like the preacher says, and now you are one, and we're going to put all of our money in the middle of the table, and I'm not going to gripe at you about the 18,000. We're going to cut up the Amex card, and together, we're going to decide what we are going to spend on fun, what we are going to spend on life, what we are going to put in the kids' 529, how we are going to pay the insurance bills, and we together are putting all of our money, and he gets a vote, and you get a vote on how this budget looks. And if he says no, I'm not going to fix my direct deposit, then you all have a much bigger issue in your marriage than just doing money separately. You get what I'm saying? I guess I do, because it just, I guess it feels kind of like dishonest that he's let me believe for 10 years that he's got this like hidden income. I don't think so. I don't think so. Maybe. You are working really hard to make him a bad guy in this, and I want you to reframe that, because it's your fault. I really, I mean, that'll be good for your marriage. I got to tell you, I don't want to change my deposit, because my wife thinks I've been lying to her for 10 years, and I don't think my vote's going to count in this budget meeting. I'll bet you he didn't want to change the deposit then. Yeah. But I wouldn't either. I wouldn't either. And if you've been saying, hey, I need some help, and he says, I don't have any money, and he's been lying to you, that's one thing. That's a different issue. But it doesn't sound like that's been happening. It might have, but even then, you know, he certainly didn't come full forward and go, look, I make more than you on my disability check. He didn't do that. And he should have. I don't disagree with that part, but I think you guys get the opportunity to start over. But the only way this guy's going to join in with you is if he doesn't have to acquiesce and lose all power because you shame him into it. That's not going to work. It has to be an invitation. Yep. Not going to work. Almost all invitations start with I statements. I mess this up. I want to do this different. I want us to be together. Will you join me in this? And it's going to take us changing the way we do everything. And you get a vote and I get a vote and we're going to agree like two grownups together. I'm not your mama and I'm not going to bitch at you about this anymore. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.