I've been beating myself up over the conversation I had with W yesterday. I broke every rule. I need a giant helping of STFU and have to focus on LRT again and moving myself forward.

W threw out a little zinger last night - "Well, if you think we can afford it, the town wants $10 to renew the dog tag." I suppressed a laugh.

She has accused me of saying things like that, and now she is the master of them. I have tried hard to be aware of what I say to avoid things like that now, which makes me all the more aware of when she serves them up to me.

I know that she takes this whole access/visibility to finances as very controlling, and with our R in the state it's in now, it is controlling. I give her visibility to expenses, which she says isn't enough. I can't see giving her joint access at this point when she has no commitment.

And she has a couple of cards that I never knew about that she's pegged out and stopped making payments on. She's been taken to court before, (I found out much later) and the collectors are about to take her there again. I still have trouble understanding why she chose going to court instead of coming to me.
Was I that unapproachable?
Was she that embarrassed or afraid that I would be disappointed?
I guess I have always set the bar high, maybe she was afraid I couldn't accept any less?

I really wish her nature hadn't been to internalize things like that. There's some insecurity there.
I have to learn how to make people feel that I can accept less than perfection. [upside: work to improve me]

And while it's not my job to hold her responsible for her financial behavior, I no longer have the urge to rescue her. I offered when I found out in the fall to sit down and come up with a plan, and she has never taken me up on it.
I'm sure this comes across as very paternalistic. Is it wrong for me to think that I keep getting forced into that role? I guess I enabled it by not involving her in finance from day 1.

So the finance thing is now a catch 22. In a good R, both parties should have full access. Once R goes south, and you learn about hidden cards, that's a tough thing to 180, and now I'm controlling. And she recognizes now that her financial history is what's preventing her from walking out the door right now.

What a mess. In my next life, I'll do this differently.