RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 31, 2018 11:03 pm
GreenGoo wrote:I hoard money AFTER the bills that are solely (as agreed) my responsibility are paid.
The important point I want to make to couples in your situation is that you are living a fiction. There aren’t expenses that she’s responsible for and expenses you are responsible for. You are married and you have a family. There are only expenses that you both are responsible for, whether you guys want to admit it or not.
It might be better to develop a plan that understands that crucial fact.
No offense Rmn9 but that's gibberish in the context you're implying, and obvious given the nature and laws that apply to marriage.
Parents divide up responsibilities all the time. When you agree to drop off Ricky at karate and your wife agrees to pick up Sally after soccer, no one thinks that's unreasonable, even though you both go to jail for child abandonment if only one of you decides to not bother. Despite that, no one feels like they need to "pick up the kids together" because they are both responsible.
Of course we are both responsible, that's why I save every dollar I can because I know that somehow paying the expenses she agreed to involves going into massive consumer debt, while paying the expenses I agreed to involves hoarding every dollar that gets near me, SO I CAN PAY HER (the bills she's agreed to pay) EXPENSES as well.
Unless you both sign the cheque and bring it to the bank, only one of you is paying a bill. Does your wife watch you click through your nightly/weekly/monthly banking? If not, how is that any different than you being responsible for paying the bills, and her not, despite you both being responsible?
So sure, I'm responsible. She's responsible. We're both responsible. Great. "Honey, did you pay the water and electricity bill this month? Yes dear." is how we operate. Obviously, that's not working. Suggesting that it can't work like that is...insane. You yourself almost certainly operate like that, except the money is pooled instead of split.
Her "job" as part of the shared fiscal responsibilities in this family is to pay the water bill and buy groceries and not accrue tens of thousands of dollars in consumer debt doing it. I don't think that's unreasonable.
And for the record, we don't have separate accounts because some money is hers and some is mine. We have separate accounts so she can't, oops, accidentally spend everything in all the accounts. As I've stressed with her repeatedly, it's not *my* money. It's the family's money and it's there to be used for the family. All she has to do is talk to me and the money is available for WHATEVER she's spending it on, although obviously I get to have a say in that, just as with any two couples who share accounts.