Well BB thinks of me as her dad sometimes and tells me I don't allow her to buy the things she wants, when she wants them, with her money.
We have different wants and ways to look at life. According to the co-dependency books, she should be allowed to have most of the things she wants and I should go along with it and I should do my own thing.
Maybe we were too emeshed but this separate, my way, your way model is not working for me as well as it does for some people.
Lou, it strikes me that the two of you have this huge overfunctioning/underfunctioning thing going on. You are off the scale on the conservative spending and she's off the scale on the liberal spending.
Feel free to tell me to back off, but when I read your posts about your wife, her family and their spending habits, there are these whiffs of "righteousness" from you that I pick up on. I figure the uncle who is in his 70s and got a 30-year mortgage probably thinks he pulled one over the financial institution who was goofy enough to sign up on that.
I do agree that your wife's spending has been and is over the top. As regarding the respect issue, I don't think you respect her now. So, it's not that your respect is going to run out if she continues in this fashion, it's that your tolerance will.
There's nothing inherently wrong with your wife sending back food that isn't what she ordered, there's nothing inherently righteous about you stoicly eating the incorrectly prepared order.
From your description, your wife is a complainer. Some folks are just like that by nature. We call it the "black hole syndrome" because they tend to suck the light and life from the surrounding area. You don't have to try to correct that by countering her utterances of unhappiness with your assessments of "the glass is really half full!" Because it will only wear you out and pi$$ her off. You can let her know that you can't handle the negativity right now and ask if she would stop and then calmly remove yourself from it if she chooses not to do so. And if it is in regard to *you* specifically, then I would address them (ie, the food you dumped in the sink after her complaints).
On home repairs - I would seriously consider not doing anything else *unless she is right there with you helping*. Even if it is just handing you the tools.
She comes across from your posts as an incredibly lazy person. Is she? People who aren't doing the work or who have never done so, often can have a skewed idea of how long something should take to accomplish. I have hung every strip of wallpaper that has ever been hung in any home we've ever owned. I have painted every room that's ever been painted. So, it's not as if women can't do these sorts of home things. So, why are you plodding along doing all the decorating and home repairs why she sits on her butt? Is that what is happening? What is *she* doing while you're doing all this physical labor?
As to dog pee - close off every door to all the other rooms. Let Mr. Pee Pants have access to only one or two rooms. If you don't want to close the doors because of air flow, then get a few child-gates to keep them out. Would she argue about that?
The point of separating out your finances is so that she can't damage you any more than she has and so that you can remove yourself as the poobah of her spending. I understand your fear that if you remove yourself as the gatekeeper, that she's going to go off the scale. That very well could happen.
The opposite might actually happen as well.
If she's not fighting your verbal as well as non-verbal control, she might stop her teenaged-type push to go against Lou and might develop some financial restraint. I wonder that you are doing as much damage to your own feelings toward her by placing yourself in that position as you would if you just let her go.
Because it will only wear you out and pi$$ her off. You can let her know that you can't handle the negativity right now and ask if she would stop and then calmly remove yourself from it if she chooses not to do so.