Well, you already told her you may go outside the M to get your needs met and she came back with "use your own money", not "don't do that, we need to fix this or separate" so that tells you a lot. Does she have a lot of resentment around money issues? Why is MONEY more important than the fact that you just told her you may have an AFFAIR? Hello? Doesn't make sense but her priorities are already screwed up so at least she is consistent
I cannot believe that she really only thinks of it in financial terms.
I think her mind was racing and she was desperately looking for some place with power, some way that she could sabotage your plans, and the only card she was holding was financial.
Is there a way to revisit this convo with less hostility?
Being a man of steel is all well and good, but not when the steel is fashioned like some medieval man with pokey things all over it and daggers and swords.
Oh and you handled the budget conversation perfectly! This is really getting to be second nature to you, eh. Good job..
Quote: I think her mind was racing and she was desperately looking for some place with power, some way that she could sabotage your plans, and the only card she was holding was financial.
I'm trying to remember back about a year. Didn't you move to her job? You have given her everything she wanted and how have you been satisfied? Seems to me you're where my H and I are. He has stepped up to more of the household maintenance, physically vs taking a nap from 1p-6p which in my way of thinking was totally unacceptable. Yet the 5LL's play such a part in my life. I need touch and have bot silky and chinelle(sp) sweaters to have "feelings". I no longer look to him for happiness and can find calm in co-hab now. I no longer expect anything as "normal". I am enjoying the planting and such. It's far from ML and its feelings.
I too have a "things" addiction to a point. When M D23 didnot want certain family heirlooms I was cherrishing for her and the realization of the storms and the distruction hit, I would have gladly been warmed by hugs and such, that will never happen inside this house. The cat is less selfish, ofcourse, it normally shows affection before feeding.
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Regarding the money issue, I tell her very often how much I appreciate her contribution, her budgeting, etc. But she says that the financial stuff is one of the big ways she "gives" to the relationship. I tell her, that although I appreciate it, that's not the kind of giving I want.
She hates watermelon, so I tell her, "It's like me going out and buying you the most beautiful watermelon. And, you accept it the first time gracefully, because you don't want to hurt my feelings. So I get you more, and more and more, until you have all the watermelons you could NEVER want. What you really want from me is some cantelope."
Of course, she turns this around, missing the whole point and says, "oh...so you hate the money I provide this family. Well fine, I'll keep it all..." Sigh.
Quote: She said I should be paying 2/3 of this or that, and all of the van payment, etc. And she said, to the extent that you don't make enough to cover all of your responsibilities, you can borrow the money from me at prime rate.
This is insane. Are you sure you guys are married? Let's see.... she won't have sex with you, she doesn't feel "safe" with you, and she wants to lend you money and charge interest. It sounds like she sees you as (at best) a roommate, or just another business partner.
Quote: "If you do that," she fired, "you'll have to use your own money. You'll probably have to get another job. If it's that important to you, fine, but you'll be giving up your time with the family so that you can afford your trysts."
More concerned with money than with you having an affair? Again, sounds like she's seeing you as just an acquaintance. I don't think you'll go through with it (you're not the cheating type, I don't believe), but I'm not sure if she'd care, as long as you paid for the hotel room with your own money. Or is she just bluffing?
Quote: And she said, to the extent that you don't make enough to cover all of your responsibilities, you can borrow the money from me at prime rate.
Hairy,
It's starting to look like she considers you a 'client' at her 'emotional' bank. She lays down the rates, interest, and penalties for 'borrowing' from her emotional currency, then imposes penalties when you don't live up to your responsibilities of the 'loan', according to her guidelines. Problem being, you have no idea what the rates and interest are because they fluctuate according to how she is feeling that moment.
How can you even hope to come close if she keeps moving the target?
Quote: "If you do that," she fired, "you'll have to use your own money. You'll probably have to get another job. If it's that important to you, fine, but you'll be giving up your time with the family so that you can afford your trysts."
Hairy, I'm so sorry this was her reaction to the statement you made about going outside the marriage to 'make yourself happy'.
It is painfully obvious to me that she is not plugged in to your marriage. If that is the best she could come up with as an arguement, then IMO, you need to see this for what it is. She is not fighting to improve things. She is trying to keep you moving forward within the same parameters so that she can remain in her comfort zone. This has nothing to do with you and your happiness, and all the BS about her feeling safe with you is just that... BS!
Hairy, pull the rug out from under her feet! Do something bold! Stay at a hotel overnight (alone if you must ) without a call and waltz in for breakfast in the morning. Then, play coy and tell her you gave her a 'heads up' already, and don't feel like discussing it any further. Do something to shake her foundations. Heaven help me, I feel like throttling her for you.
She's still hung up on that, I'm afraid. Seems to me that would have changed watching the storms destruction. Or maybe that triggered the "grab the brass ring" feeling harder.
Talk about what she expected in life when you met and how the other house and such is more important to her than you are. Or, better phrased, whom/what did she marry?
I think the likelyhood that you were financially less secure when you married than now. What's changed?(Outside of the economy which has hit some will death blows! H retired 5 years early. Was very depressed. I got tired of picking him up and giving him understanding.)
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
HD,
In what ways does she contribute to the marriage?
Is her fixation on financial matters because that is, at this point, her only contribution?
Edited to add:
I just realized that this is probably not her ONLY contribution but it is..within the marriage...the only thing that SHE rocks at and Hairy sucks at. So she's gotta keep bringing it up to equalize things. To make him see that she's not completely 'broken', after all she's the financial whiz and he's the spendthrift screwup.
So it's not that she really believes that he should be borrowing money from her; it's that this is her way of balancing things out. When he brings it to the surface that she's a sucky wife (You'd rather clean up dog crap than relax with me and some wine) she brings out both guns, blazin, by toting out her financial capabilities.
I used to do this stuff too. Find something, anything, I was good at and hammer him with it.
Needless to say I do NOT do this anymore and not because I have no salary with which I can lend to my own husband who owns half of it, anyway.
) without a call and waltz in for breakfast in the morning. Then, play coy and tell her you gave her a 'heads up' already, and don't feel like discussing it any further. Do something to shake her foundations. Heaven help me, I feel like throttling her for you.