Starting to get it

[mustardseed]

So I guess the process is beginning. He pulled most of the money out of our joint account. In all fairness, his paycheck was the only going to that account and I never used it, except to take out his share of the bill money. Of course he didn't tell me he did this until after I had already written out a check. Now I am going to have to ask him for that money every pay period. There is also an overdraft line of credit that has been maxed out for years that they pull $20 from the account to keep current. That was my biggest concern because I am finally getting my credit back on track, I don't want that to now go into default. When I mentioned it to him he said he will take care of it so we can close the account.

At first I did all the wrong things when I found out. I was all over the place emotionally. I'm scared and I didn't try to hide it. I started asking all of the questions I have been harboring, WHY? What did I do? How did we go from point A to point Z in less than a year, without even trying to figure out if this is salvageable. Then I started doing the really bad stuff of dismissing his feelings. Telling him he is breaking up a family and other stuff that I knew better than to say, but after holding everything together for so long it just all came out. It wasn't a yelling situation, but certainly a pathetic and desperate side of me that just unleashed.

After I took a walk and he took a drive, I decided to just have a finances talk with him, because that is my biggest concern. He isn't the type of person who would deliberately want to leave us struggling, but he really is not smart about money. He has very little concept of prioritizing payments and no concept about paying off debt, forget the idea of saving. He doesn't pay things on time--not even because he forgets but because he doesn't think it is important, which is why I took over the bills (way to late to save our financial situation or our marriage apparently).

I'm afraid of what will happen now that I have to rely on him to give me the bill money rather than me just writing a check from the joint account. But then again, maybe if I didn't find money conversations so daunting and avoided them for so long, we wouldn't have gotten to this point in the first place. Time for me to grow up and approach these things like an adult getting things done the way they ought to be done, rather than as a child feeling like I am asking him to take care of me--it is his home and his kids, too--his responsibility as much as it is mine. Why do I feel guilty asking him for a some money so I can fund the kids lunch accounts? All of the expenses in question our household and family expenses, not for my own personal gain. I always felt guilty about the fact that I didn't contribute much financially, and I always viewed the money he made as his money (even when I wasn't working). He never acted like that and always had the What's Mine Is Yours approach, but also never wanted to talk about finances or come up with a good responsible plan, and because he was the big earner I didn't think it was my place to impose my ideas. So no one paid attention, we got deeper in debt and were always on the verge of having utilities shut off because we were just so careless. When I worried about it and wanted to pay a bill I would ask him, and he usually would say, "hold off on that" and I would. Now I realize what an immature stance that was for me to take. When I separated the finances so that I could take charge of making sure bills will paid, suddenly he became all caught up in the idea of his money, my money, but because he paid no attention to household bills or expenses it turned into me having to ask him for money to take care of things. At the end of the month I have less than $100 in spending money for things that are just for me, and he has close to $2000 or more (hard to tell because he does buy some groceries and things with his unaccounted money). And he has the gall to complain that he contributes more to the bills? And I totally enabled that--well not anymore!!

I need to just get a grip. I need to accept that this marriage is over and take all emotion out of it. He says he is planning on leaving, and the kids and I can still stay here, but I don't know how his employer will feel about that. I guess if it is a separation that will be ok, but once we are divorced I don't think I will be allowed to continue to live here. But, putting it all into perspective, that could take some time and hopefully I will have a better paying job. I have to stop worrying about it. He wants it, he needs to make it happen, and I need to hold my ground to make sure the kids and I continue to be provided for.

Is there anything I can do to make sure the kids and I are being provided for fairly before any sort of actual physical separation happens? We are currently still living in the same home, and as of right now it doesn't sound like he is ready to make the move, when I asked when or where he planned to go he said he has no idea.