"My first obligation is to protect my family, and I have to consider your financial track record". If she asks what is that supposed to mean, I would give her a long look and then say something like,"I am trying to work with you on this, but frankly, you have given me reason not to feel very safe".
I would leave that line out.......and take off the quotation marks.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
Asked W this morning when she was free to talk about bank. She gave me the "I'm really busy right now" stuff. Told her "now or tonight". Tonight it is.
She gets so tense and defensive at anything I say. It's really sad. She is working so hard right now, and could really use the emotional support, yet she is expending so much energy just to hate everything about me. Man, it's good to be detached.
I expect she's going to flip at the bank thing, too. Ironic, since her complaint was that when it came to finances, I treated her like a child. Now I will calmly offer her equal adult footing, and I bet she will not see anything good in it, only because it is being presented by me.
Oh well. The gravy train is coming to an end. The lessons of finance begin. Whatever our outcome, it's better for all that she start getting a grip on this stuff. With any luck, she'll clue in that things are changing around her.
You know, the more I think about this, the more it seems like a bad idea. I mean, I want to get her involved and change the model and have her contributing, but a joint account makes me much more vulnerable than I am today.
Her creditors can come after me via the joint account. If she is reckless with the joint account, it affects me. Right now, the only way she can get at my finances is through a D action.
All advice is to not open a joint account with anyone you don't completely trust. She is definitely in that category right now.
Might just change this up to keep the model the same with proportional contributions, but have each party pay certain bills directly without actually going through a new joint account.
You may be right. Not sure what your jurisdiction is (here in FL, my wife ALREADY owns half my assets, and me half her debts, and vice-versa), and you're right -- my dynamic was a bit different. In my case, we ALREADY had the joint account, and I was REMOVING my willingness to pay things out of it (like her cc bill, for her tummy tuck, and her cell phone).
If you can accomplish continued detailed financial transparency another way, and stop paying for her frivilous spending at the same time, I am open to that.
We've always had a joint account. The problem we have is my wife doesn't work and I fully support our family. The decision for her not to work was a joint one we made after our son was born but of course she was hesitant but didn't tell me because it was more practical at the time. Of course that led to resentment, etc.
So, W is actively looking for a job and should have one in the next month or two. She has some decent prospects. She won't be making a lot ($10-12/hour at best) but she desperately wants to contribute.
After a long debate, here's what we decided is best. For the most part we live paycheck-to-paycheck but don't go without. But we don't have much extra spending cash for things like clothes, guy/girl trips, mini-vacations, etc. And whenever one of us wants to do things, we have to take it out of the joint account. Which of course you have to ask each other if it's okay because it's our only account and we feel guilty since we don't have a ton of extra cash.
So we've decided we're going to do this once she gets a job.
We'll each have individual accounts where our paychecks get deposited. She'll start paying bills that apply directly to her (student loan, small credit card, gas, phone, groceries, etc.) plus she'll put in 25% of her paycheck into the joint account for child expenses, vacations, savings, etc.. That should leave her with about 25% of her paycheck for "her stuff." It won't amount to a ton of money but about $150-200 every two weeks. Easily enough for her to save or if she wants to get her hair done or buy new clothes, etc.
For me, it's the same thing. Now, I make significantly more than her so it makes sense for me to pay for more. I'll pay all housing expenses, daycare expenses, car payments, insurance, etc. I'll deposit 25% into the joint account for stuff for the kids, vacations, savings, etc. And about 10% of my paycheck will go for stuff I want to do. Which is about $250-$300 every two weeks. If I can't live on that, then I'm spending too much money.
By doing it this way, we both agreed we will no longer have to feel guilty about her going shopping or getting her hair done. And I won't have to worry about feeling guilty for going golfing, buying tickets for a football game, etc.
The ultimate goal being that we can live our lives without constant worry about spending the other's money.
Hopefully that wasn't too wordy but it's something W and I have been discussing here recently because we both agree that we both need to have more of a life so we have outlets outside our marriage.
Me: 33 W: 27 S: 5 D: 2 Bomb: 1/2/14 First Separation: 1/25/14 MC: 2/7/14 (one time only) Moved Back in: 3/31/14 W says she wants a divorce and moves out: 7/26/14 Appt to sign dissolution: 12/30/14
Depending on the judge's interpretation: 1) she already owns half my assets, and I own half her debt, or 2) she owns half of any assets acquired post-M and post-M appreciation of pre-marital assets. (i.e. I might get credit for any pre-marital equity in house/investments) 3) I may be able to evade owning half of her debt that I had no knowledge of.
This is unfortunately vague and significant since I already had substantial equity in my house/401K at the time of my M.
So given that, she already owns half the money. I'm not concerned with her draining the account since I don't plan to keep any real amount in it. The only risk is if she can damage my credit rating or expose me to creditors by doing something stupid with the joint account. Like she goes and buys something big and deliberately writes a bad check to cover it - then I'm on the hook, only recourse is personal legal action against her. This is why I was trying to stipulate no checks. I can just not get checks, but she could always order some. Must phone the bank and see if they can customize an account...
Of course, if she did something stupid like that, it would all come out in the D negotiations, albeit after the fact when the damage is already done.
My faith in being able to move forward with this at all is that she is trying to gain independence, and she knows she has to rebuild her credit rating, and if she does anything stupid, she not only hurts me, but herself. Assuming she's rational.
BTW, did I mention that there is now a financial compatibility section on the checklist for my next W?
At this point, I think I'll propose the whole thing tonight as is. She'll undoubtedly want nothing short of joint access to my primary account, and the whole idea of her contributing to expenses is going to shock her, so it's not like she's going to bite today. It's only worth the risk if she agrees to make contributions.
I took out that whole $750 thing, BTW. That payment can just happen quietly - it doesn't need to be codified.
Ha. Considering people in affairs tend to lose about 40 I.Q. points, right off the top, you might be being generous here.
In the midst of my wife's affair, I caught her once red-handed, hooking up with her OM at a friend of his' house. I had hid a prepaid cellphone in the trunk of her car, in our son's baseball gear bag, and installed a GPS app on it, that would send me emails. I also had a voice-activated recorder velcro'd underneath the front seat of her BMW, and as painful as all of this adultery was, I did have to laugh later on that night when I listened to the voice recorder as I was offloading it onto my laptop archives.
The illicit couple were trying to figure out how I knew they were at that house, hooking up. OM was trying to sound all smart, and says to my wayward wife "Well, it's probably thru that BMW Assist that you have on the car," like some know-it-all. My wife immediately agreed, too, even though you have to have a police report (with case number!) in order to EVER get info on a car's whereabouts from BMW! And even if you didn't know about the ol' GPS-app-on-the-prepaid-cellphone-in-the-trunk Trick, who's to say I didn't just, you know, FOLLOW them or something???
