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!
