Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I don't feel comfortable mixing marriage and business. When you are married to someone for a long time and care about them, money like this shouldn't be such an issue. On the other hand, if there are bills to be paid down, a budget to cover, etc... then being frugal is important and money should be used for that first.... although I know in this situation that is not the case...
I think in this situation it's not the money or the amount that bothers me, there's something more....
After thinking about it I realize there are other things in the past that bothered me. Things that made me feel unimportant and unvalued in the marriage. And some of it was tied to fianancial matters. For example, when my husband first got a cell phone. He bought one for himself, never spoke about adding me to it, and then he eventually added our daughter to his plan... but I had my own pay-as-you-go plan that I had been using for years. He didn't add me on for years. I never complained about it, but in some ways it made me feel like I was unimportant, or "not part-of-the-family."
Anyhow... I don't like quibbling over stuff like this, so I decided that he doesn't need to pay me anything. I don't mind helping him sell the car. I like helping others and that's who I am. I don't do it for money. I think if this extra money is so important to him he can keep it. It doesn't make me feel closer to him or valued, but I can't force that or change it.
There is no arriving, ever. It is all a continual becoming.
