True, but WH could make Ebenezer Scrooge look like a spendthrift! He HATES to spend money!
That's why I took the checkbook away from him early in the marriage - he'd stress over little things, like a can of peas that cost 23.2 cents per unit vs 23.8 cents. It was more than I could deal with then and WAY more than I can deal with now, given that our monthly expenses are in the thousands.
I'm trying to be calm and collected, but DD 10 told me that when she asked Dad last night why they couldn't go to summer camp, he said it was "Because Mom spends too much and doesn't earn enough."
WTF?!
Maybe I should submit a bill to him for all the housekeeping, laundry, cooking, taxi service, and most expensively, CHILDCARE I've done over the last ten years while he's worked 70-80 hours a week -- to show him how much I SAVED by NOT working full time? All the stress I've taken off of him for NOT having to fool with children?
If you want my opinion I would take on a full time job and STOP doing teh house related work ... Hire someone to do it...
if you are committed to Full Time work too then he is in no position to expect you to do more than he is... AND you have your own income
He is still in the lurch for his % of expenses
To my mind if 80% of the household income is his then he is accountable for 80% of the expenses...
Generally this is good advice. BUT....be very careful to not change your situation too much. Should you...heaven forbid....head to divorce court, your status as sahm for over a decade, sets a precedence for your lives. It also sets how spousal support and child support will be determined and for how long. I was advised to not get a job of any kind, to not get any job training or education of any kind until D was final. I am to continue as always.
I would suggest, if H is only giving a percentage, only pay that percentage of the bills. I would also start cooking mac and cheese, broccoli, and a hamburger patty (frozen) EVERY NIGHT. My kids would love it and H would hate it, (but That's all we can afford!!) Oh and I would get that really cheap TP that falls apart in your hand!lol
Also, start a stash. 10 here, 20 there. in cash.
"If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!" 1st thread
He paid all the regular bills, but the groceries and misc stuff - movies, gifts for b-day parties, clothes, etc., I usually cover with income from my internet biz. But summer's ALWAYS slow online, I make as much all summer as I do in one month the other 9 months, and asked him to cover those expenses. He didn't - guess he thinks I'm lying.
Cheap dinners? Brilliant idea! He'll complain about all the calories, but I'll tell him that's all we can afford since summer's so lax and he won't fork over the funds.
What is the percentage distribution of the income?
In my opinion the fairest thing to do is NOT to split responsabilities but distribute income to expenses proportionate to income
If your husban'ds annual income is say 75% of the household income, he should be covering 75% of groceries, movies, gifts, etc across the board, and you should cover the other 25%
BUT... since you are doing household responsabilities this goes ou the window...
I dunno, I just don't like this whole setup... It's a throwback to medieval times.. That's it, why not take the whole family to Medieval Times for dinner!
For the first 9 years of our marriage, while he was in grad school and doing his post-doc, I earned more; for the last 14, he has. For years we always put all of our money in a shared account, and lived and played off that.
But about 5 years ago, when he started earning extra money reviewing grants and speaking, he opened up his own account and put all that extra money there for his personal use, about $6,000 year. He still had his full paycheck deposited into the household account, but the 2nd account ticked me off since I had no such funds of my own. He told me, "tough". (OW gifts came from his personal account.)
About six months after he opened his own account, I did a promotion in my internet business that garnered me a hefty 5-figure payday. I was ecstatic! What was the first thing out of WH mouth? "Great! Let's buy me a new car."
Bastard!
After the last exposure in March, he had his full paycheck sent to his personal account instead of the household account, and now I have to list and give him the bills so he can review them and transfer money. So that's new, but you're right -- it IS medieval, and we need to discuss a more equitable arrangement.
Funny, but one of the things that stuck with me from Larry's call yesterday was that he told me I wasn't very womanly, emotion-wise. Instead of crying or getting really emotional about things, I tend to be very task-oriented and look for logical reasons for why people do the things they do.
I told him that I had little patience for the drama and felt that it was one of the reasons WH was initially attracted to me, because I'm self-sufficient and not high-maintenance. Heck, I even drove myself to the hospital with our first born!
To which Larry responded, "It WAS one of the reasons he was attracted to you - because with you making good money and taking care of everything at home, it meant he got meals/laundry/sex with very little effort so he could focus on his primary concern: himself.
"You placed no demands or boundaries on him, which is why he worked 80 hrs a week without accounting for himself. He resents the kids and has no use for a clingy, demanding woman - which is what you became after you discovered the affair.
"That's why he's come down so hard on you - because you burst his egotistical bubble with the exposure, criticizing and embarrassing him in front of his peers. He spends most of his time at work, had completely rationalized the affair, and then you came along and make him look like a fool. BTW - Al Capone didn't think he deserved criticism, either.
"Remember: a MLC just amplifies every BAD characteristic a person has, with an extra dose of selfishness. If he was selfish and self-centered BEFORE, which yours was, an MLC will send him off the charts." Which it has.
It all makes perfect sense.
And how did Larry know this? Because, like my husband, he came from an abusive, dysfunctional home - 5 people stuffed into a tiny two-bedroom apartment on the west side of Chicago in the 60's. When his father didn't gamble away his whole paycheck and gave his mother grocery money, she'd spend most of it on booze.
"Alcoholics don't buy many groceries," Larry told me. And since he had to compete with two older brothers for the food she DID buy, the only way it wouldn't be taken away from him was if was already in his mouth. "I still have a tendency to gorge, even to this day," he told me. His hoarding and "grabbing everything for himself" nearly lead to the collapse of his own marriage.
So why did I fall in love with my self-centered husband?
Because he's smart and good looking and knows EXACTLY how to use his Southern charm to get what he wants - just like his father. Both of them can turn it on in an instant and have women of all ages giggling like school girls. I certainly fell for it.
The good news is, Larry gave me another set of instructions yesterday - a manual really - on how to turn this around. We've talked about our personalities, our history, why this happened, and how to stop negative emotions, and now we've gotten to the "make a change" part -- and it looks phenomenal...AND fun!
