Well, since I've been neglecting posting about my sitch, I'll need to put in a little background to bring y'all up to speed on my current dilemma.
One of the bad dynamics in our marriage was that I tend to be the cautious, conservative one, and ended up in the 'mommy" role of saying "no" to H's wild ideas sometimes, which he resented. (Meanwhile, he was free to pursue any wild idea, knowing he could rely on me to rein him in when it got out of control). One of the 180's which I implemented was to let go of my worries more and try to go with the flow with H. Overall, this has worked out pretty well. But it has also gotten us into a bit of a sitch today.
This summer, H announced he was going to suspend his outside consulting work for the summer (which makes up about 20% of his income). He also planned this long (expensive) trip to Baja for the family. As the family accountant, (H doesn't want to pay bills or even think about them, really), I thought I had enough to scrape us by for the summer. And, since H is still on my case about me getting a job, I felt pretty powerless to say anything about it. He seemed to be going through a small depressive slump and i figured he needed the break, we would get by.
Unfortunately, between the trip, and several thousand other unanticipated expenses like car repairs etc., we find ourselves quite a bit in the hole after paying our quarterly estimated taxes. No big deal, but we both hate carrying any balance on our credit cards, and it will mean really serious scrimping for the next several months to get back in balance.
But while we were in Baja, H fell in love with the idea of buying beachfront property down there. I think a big part of it was that he felt relaxed there while we were on vacation, and this is his way of trying to recapture that feeling. His idea is to hold it for 10 years or so, then spend part of our (hopefully early) retirement there, and part here.
Now, I don't object to the idea in principle - it was nice, that would be nice - but it seems really impractical financially right now. I tried to stick to my 180 and just go along with H (hoping he would calm down and the idea would fizzle out) but he is still full-steam-ahead. He tried to talk friends into splitting a property with us, but they all backed out. We are going back there in a month anyway for a business trip, during which we planned to look at more property, but H insisted on scheduling a trip for himself this weekend to go down and look at property. $500 we don't have right now, to take a two day trip to look at property he could see in a month anyway.
I finally did try to gently approach him, that I thought he was being manic about this, and showed him the finances (again - he always thinks, since he makes a good income, there should be money for anything he wants - he doesn't understand how much goes out in fixed expenses every month). He acknowledged all my concerns, surprisingly - but then just said he was going ahead anyway. Finally, last night, he admits it isn't wise to be spending this money right now - but he's leaving tomorrow and can't refund the tickets, so now he feels like he HAS to go.
And of course, his answer to how we'll pay for it is, "you can go to work a few half-days". Unfortunately, I already need to do that to pay for upcoming college expenses - me working part-time will NOT cover college for 3 AND more property! And I still have D14 homeschooling - she's only got one day a week where she's at school long enough for me to do anything, and I refuse to leave her alone while I work - she still needs lots of supervision.
All of this, of course, while H is cutting his own hours and complaining about going to work every Monday - but wanting to take on additional debt that will make it less likely that he can retire early when he wants to.
(Have I mentioned we already live in beautiful San Diego with an ocean-view home 1/2 mile from the beach??? Or that H refuses to consider other less-expensive lots in Baja that are a few lots away from the beachfront?).
Arggghhhh. I don't want to be the mean mommy who squashes H's dream of beachfront property in Mexico. But I don't want to go back to work full time to finance it while my kids still need me. And I don't want to be the one who lies awake at night worrying about the finances. And I don't want to end up in a financial hole because of H looking for yet another thing to temporarily soothe his chronic depression. (Yes, he's still taking his low-dose antidepressants, I check the bottle periodically to be sure.) And, I feel like he blames me for not being back to work (my illness first, then his affair, then D's eating disorder and now homeschooling her - kind of put a hole in my career) and feels he could have everything he wants if only I was back to working outside the home. Meanwhile, I feel like we have everything we need, I'm needed at home, and although it would be nice, I don't want a place in Mexico badly enough to go back to working full time, or to have H go back to working crazy hours either.
