Why doesn't she open her own checking account if she's working?
You beat me to this, Sandi -- I was going to ask the exact same thing.
Zew, I would suggest that you each maintain a separate checking account, and then continue to have the joint account as well. Agree on a set allocation, based on your incomes, that the two of you will contribute to the joint (family) account. For example, if your total joint HH expenses are $3000/mo, and you earn twice what she does, you'd contribute $2000 into the joint account and she'd contribute $1000.
She can then use her own account for going out with her friends, in any way spending money on her affair, etc.
Your paycheck should be direct-deposited into your new SEPARATE account, with just the pretermined amount (the $2000 above) then automatically transferred over to the joint, family account.
Why doesn't she open her own checking account if she's working?
commission based. It will likely be 3 months before she sees a dime. She has startup costs now, and her spending exceeds what I'm paying on her card monthly. By the time she gets first check, she will likely have maxed out that card. She's got some debt to deal with that I won't touch.
and now I will wander through tea leaves and crystal ball land... (don't worry)
W figures that in about a year, she will have sold enough to be financially independent enough to survive D. So she wants to be nice and quiet and tolerate me for that time, eating cake, then whammo, file. OM files at same time. Then 6 to 18 months of contentious negotiations later, she and OM live happily ever after. What could go wrong?
She's counting on me to hang around until she's ready. She knows she's financially vulnerable. She has fully convinced herself that she hates me and I never loved her. She wants me to be gone, except for that money thing. She thinks she can string me along as long as she needs to. Once she has a few big sales under her belt, filing will be possible for her. That will be a major decision for her. I don't know how much it depends on OM filing or not. Once she files, I don't see her ever turning back.
As you know, I can work on this for some period, but not indefinitely. I'm almost 5 months into this now. There would be financial penalties to me if I go too soon before we can establish an annual income for her. I certainly don't intend to plan my life on that fact, just saying finances will affect kids too. Sadly, she has never been able to save anything ever (which partially explains my grip on the finances all these years), so I am concerned about their financial future. i.e. anything I lose in D will be gone quickly, forever. Financial reality will not treat her kindly.
Summer will change things. OM will be busy with work. W will be in peak sale season. Kids will be home from school. I'm afraid they will be spending a lot of time alone and eating a lot of chicken nuggets.
I fully realize that I can't base anything on her state today because she is all over the map. I can continue to make changes in me that she sees and doesn't appreciate, at least, so she says today. Since I'm doing that for me and kids, I need no validation from her. That gets me a few months down the road.
My vacation in July will be some kind of pivot point. I'm still thinking it through, and things will change between now and then, but I wonder about spending 2 weeks in isolation with her in this state. At one point, she wanted to bring along one of D12's friends. I don't even know if W plans to go anymore. It could be the isolation we need (no OM, no texting). She may prefer an OM-fest at our house with no H or kids. I'm thinking that if she's in her current state, I really don't want to put up with that on my vacation, I'd rather just spend time with the kids. I also realize that I'm slowly building my own wall, and by July she really won't be able to rain on my parade anymore. Too many variables, so I'll stop, but starting to plan ahead.
Anyway, spring is almost here and I plan to start cleaning out the basement, getting the house ready to list.
Then I would at least figure out a monthly amount for her REASONABLE family expenses, and give her THAT amount of cash. If she then spends it on going out drinking with her girlfriends, that's up to her, but there's only going to be $x/month, and no more.
In my wife's case, I figured groceries, hair CUTS (but not coloring), reasonable drugstore expenses (again, no hair coloring), $x/week in gas, health insurance and auto insurance .. plus our usual mortgage payment and utilities.
NO to hair coloring, NO to her credit card payments that were being used to pay off her tummy tuck, NO to her cellphone (because she was using it to carry on her affair) -- basically NO to anything that was making her look younger and more attractive to someone other than her husband, and no to anything that wasn't contributing to the family.
For those things, she added more and more hours to her part-time work as a personal trainer, and she found a way to pay them herself.
Oh, and a big-fat "NO" to paying for her legal retainer. Turned out OM paid for that!
Zew, I would suggest that you each maintain a separate checking account, and then continue to have the joint account as well. Agree on a set allocation, based on your incomes, that the two of you will contribute to the joint (family) account.
Ok, so right now, there are NO joint accounts, and I have the only income (so far), mortgage, car loan, and all utilities. I pay my CC, which is largely gas and family dining. I pay the CC in her name. Her CC spending covers her clothes, kids clothes, groceries, dining out for her and kids. And now, all her work expenses.
So yes, we could establish a joint account to be contributed to by each. I proposed this. She complained that this wasn't good enough, it still did not give her access/visibility to everything I had. (claimed she was afraid of what would happen if I died, she would have no access to money)
I also conditioned my willingness to create joint accounts on her committing to M and being open and honest with me. I mean let's face it, there is now a major trust issue here. She is not willing to be honest (about A) so she dropped the subject.
But yes, let's dispense with the "access to everything" request. That's for a day full of trust way down the road.
So a joint account could be established that we both contribute to. Not what she wants, but let's say I do this without the condition attached. This is a sign of good faith, a 180, an "I heard you", sort of. An opportunity to get a more equitable, responsible money mechanism into our M. My income is steady. Hers is commission based. That makes it hard to come up with a contribution ratio.
Then there's the issue of what gets paid for from said account. I like paying mortgage, utilities, car loan because those are in my name and my credit is based on that. I don't want to default on any of those. I also want to ensure that we are housed and warm. I considered just giving her the budgeted monthly amount that I currently pay on her card, and making her card her responsibility. And if she stopped buying groceries, well, that would be a problem.
W has spending issues. She has had several cards over the years, that I came to know about much later, where she maxed them out, ditched them, and then got taken to court by the collectors, then defaulted on those payment plans. She has a card right now where she is going to be taken to court. I asked her 5 months ago to go over it with me and we'd come up with a plan. She has so far declined. Again, she won't because she sees it as me being paternal and treating her like a child. (I can't win.) So, when I happened to answer a phone call from a collector 2 months ago, with M in the shape it was, I decided I would not press the issue with her; I would not rescue her. So W acts totally irresponsibly, then accuses me of a paternalistic attitude.
So if I create a joint cash account, I know how she will spend at least some of the money. She will pay down spending I am totally unaware of. And she did comment to her gf one day after BD - "Should I get him to pay off my bills?" And this is why I attached the condition. If you want to be treated like an adult, then dammit, cut the crap and sit down at the table.
Time for brutal honesty: How do I know I love my wife? She has TESTED me. I am operating on the notion that she knows some bounds and that these things can be fixed. But what does it say about our R that she spent on cards I didn't know about? And that when in money trouble, she faced the court instead of me? And now she turns to OM instead of me? And this: "Should I get him to pay off my bills?"
And when I list these things in this way, understand that none of it is lost on me.
The purpose of the joint account is NOT to give her greater flexibility and autonomy (because you were right -- she's not committed to the marriage, so that doesn't fit). It's to give YOU BOTH a fairer contribution to the family's joint expenses.
If her income is commission-based, maybe you come up with a quarterly adjustment -- "I'll pay 90/10, but then you kick in an add'l contribution at the end of each quarter based on your quarterly-to-date commission income, which brings our total quarterly contributions to the family's expenses up to proportional. And since this would be a joint CHECKING account, this would also give you (wife) a debit card for this account, and your own access to cash for day-to-day expenses."
You need to get her OFF of putting things like the kids' clothes and groceries on CREDIT cards. That's insane. All of the family's day-to-day expenses like that should be on the new joint checking account, where you each have a DEBIT card to use.
Greater accountability to each other; fairer contribution by each partner in the family.
Whatever amount she has left over from her paycheck after making her monthly 10% (or whatever is the highest % you feel she can do, considering her commission-based income) she can put in her own individual account, and it is THAT account that she should use to pay her credit card(s)!!!!
Don't know that I agree on the accountability part of a debit card. I can see every credit card charge now - I know where she spends. For example, I know she isn't paying for her secret phone with a credit card. Don't know how she pays for it.
And credit cards don't have cashback feature.
If she has a debit card, she'll go all cash and I'll see nothing but ATM, or she'll use cashback which will be invisible.
No, it's a stipulation that "all family expenses are to be paid for with the debit card." NO CASH ATM WITHDRAWALs.
You can even say "Look, considering where our marriage seems to be headed, this is all financial documentation and transparency that any judge is going to need anyway, so we might as well start getting on the system now. And I'll be the first to admit, the way we've always done it it screwed up."
I guess I should add that historically, I have always paid credit card in full each month, so there was never any balance or finance charge. So think of it as cash that isn't anonymous.
