My DH won't even try

[Better Half]

It sure does sound that way, doesn't it So, therein lies the way out, too, if you want.

Im not sure how to untrain myself.

It seems to me, if I may be so bold, that you are sticking your nose in where it has no business being, especially since you do not like the effects of it being there

Since were married his lack of financial planning does affect me. For example if he doesnt pay his auto insurance then gets in a wreck my wages can be garnished, our house could be sold out from under us to pay off whatever damaged is caused.

I agree with most of what you wrote but what he does affects me greatly. There is no His credit card. It just has name on it. I dont want our credit rating ruined. He can max the card out then run off and join the circus or heaven forbid, die and Ill have to pay it off.

Letting cable or phone get shut of is not a game (unless you intend it as such), it is just a natural consequence of not paying the bills and if *you* are willing to live without the cable or phone then it's not your problem.

I dont know. If I have the money and dont pay the bill when we get a late notice because that was his bill to pay I feel like Im playing games.

But honest, you can't MAKE a husband be different than he wants to be, and my observation is that generally the more we try to make someone be the way we thing they oughta, the more they pull harder in the opposite direction. Men especially

So true. Men can be difficult. My sister-in-law spends like crazy but my brother has a much easier time keeping her in line. My brother states his case and if sister-in-law doesnt agree he calls her dad who will buy it for her.

 

[FarmerChick]

hmm...I have total control over all financials. he has the credit card but wouldn't dare charge a big item, like that $1500 tractor rototiller without asking.

you can easily give him a "loaded" card...like load the credit with $1000 and see how fast he goes thru it....kinda gage him.

I want total financial control, I enjoy it. I don't mind ever being the "heavy" saying no to any purchase. He follows my lead and says now, I WANT, like a hydraulic dump trailer, it costs $4K and when can I get it....then I say..about 6 mos...you can have that..LOL..and I start saving like crazy.

BUT this works for us.

What works for one couple never might work for another. So just think of the least invasive way to let him have some freedom, but not make you insane..LOL


hope some of that makes sense...just my take on things, cause money used to drive me insane and I learned that...in the end if we truly make money a huge problem area, we lose big time in the good things in life.........but again, I put that against my own situation.

take care Karen

 

[me&thegals]

I guess I'm pretty lucky to mostly control the $ in our house.

What I have learned, though, is you really cannot change someone who does not want to change. I have it much easier than you, but my husband does minor things that make me a bit crazy sometimes--like taking 15-min showers the the hot water blasting full force when I save my veggie-washing and egg-washing water to water outside plants.

What would happen if you told him there simply was none left for luxuries, since all had to be spent on bills, gas, etc.? Does he have a good view of the family finances? Sometimes one spouse really has no idea how much money is available, in savings, being earned, being spent...

It works for us to have a little bit of spending money--like $10 every couple weeks--and then talk to each other about any purchases that are questionable--like only for our own use or pleasure.

Good luck!

 

[Sebrightmom]

My DH and I disagree a lot when it comes to money. I am the saver and he is the spender. Our big problem right now is the way he is with his father. He does everything for him like all the baling of the hay and straw, but doesn't get anything for it. His father has 100 acres of hay and does a lot of straw too. Plus, my Dh and I own an hay field that is only 10 acres. This year hay has been really good. We got more hay than we can use just off the first cutting. I wanted to sell the rest for the money, but he says that it isn't his hay to sell. His father owns the equiment and pays for the gas, but we own the field plus he does all the work for the other fields that we don't even own. He is such a daddy's boy. The bad thing is we live right across the street. I think men have a hard time seeing the bigger picture. work = money He does the work so he should get something from it even if it is just using his father equiment for free without owing his father any of our hay.

 

[FarmerChick]

He does the work so he should get something from it even if it is just using his father equiment for free without owing his father any of our hay.


**********LOL---I laughed when I read this....I have that type of situation sometimes. We own tractors but the tractor Tony uses to bale the hay is his Dads and we use hubby's square baler but when we make big round bales we use his Dads round baler...

Tony is the same way....his Dad never sells hay...keeps it all and we have a monster barn loft filled with OLD hay.......and Tony is now the same way. I say sell it to not stock it up and let it get old, but since his Dad "always" might need hay, Tony just stocks ours up in the hay barn also. Kills me not to sell it....make money cause that money only goes back into the fields, fertiziliers, diesel, lime, etc. etc.

By not selling this older useless hay is just money down the tubes...UGH----MEN---when will they get a financial brain????
HA HA HA

But now I just let it slide cause if I think too much about it I might strangle him..HA HA

Letting this go for me is mentally soothing..HA HA...sometimes you just can't win with the "other" half---

 

[patandchickens]

Since were married his lack of financial planning does affect me. For example if he doesnt pay his auto insurance then gets in a wreck my wages can be garnished, our house could be sold out from under us to pay off whatever damaged is caused.

SOME things are like that, but most are not. And the things that are like that, you can Make Sure they get taken care of. Like, YOU can be the one to physically pay the auto insurance and he has to give you the money for that (an automatic deduction from an account that his paycheck is direct-deposited into would be the simplest and most impersonal way to do that). Similarly, you might oughta be the one sending off the mortgage payments That sort of thing.

But there is a whole lot you've mentioned that doesn't really fall into that category, except that you may be affected somewhat as a byproduct (but only in the same way that everything everyone does affects us, and vice versa). You could get a phone for yourself and let the household one get shut off if he doesn't pay the bill. Cable could get shut off if he doesn't pay the bill. If he asks for money for stuff b/c he's run out of 'his' money, you don't have to give it to him - so he borrows it from friends, that's HIS business.

I agree with most of what you wrote but what he does affects me greatly. There is no His credit card. It just has name on it. I dont want our credit rating ruined. He can max the card out then run off and join the circus or heaven forbid, die and Ill have to pay it off.

What about changing the credit card so it is only in your name (with him *not* being an authorized user) and then keeping it yourself, while he can have a debit card tied to a limited account (e.g. the one that his paycheck goes into and bills are automatically deducted out of?)

It is certainly true that in the early months of such a system, he may figure out timing such that he can suck more money out at the right moment such that there is not enough in there to autodeduct the bills -- HOWEVER when this happens, it will make it more unavoidably obvious to him what is going on.

Letting cable or phone get shut of is not a game (unless you intend it as such), it is just a natural consequence of not paying the bills and if *you* are willing to live without the cable or phone then it's not your problem.

I dont know. If I have the money and dont pay the bill when we get a late notice because that was his bill to pay I feel like Im playing games.

You might think about googling on the terms "codependance" and "setting personal boundaries", just because the discussions thereof would probably give you some ideas about how to get out of your situation.

Retraining yourself, if you wish to do it, is largely a matter of sitting down and working out as clearheadedly as possible what your personal boundaries are -- what you are responsible for w/r/t yourself and w/r/t him, and what you're not -- and using that to construct a list of 'I will do this" and "I will not do that". And then keeping it stuck in your sock drawer to refresh your memory every morning, and readjusting routines to make The New Regime happen more automatically.

But there is no "have cake plus eat cake too" option, unfortunately. Keeping going the way you are is uncomfortable and costly; but change is generally uncomfortable (esp. if it involves realizing the ways in which you yourself have been contributing to, or even creating part of, the problem) and likely to have some extra short-term costs of its own, financial and/or personal. You have to decide which path you want to take.

Good luck,

Pat, who on a good day knows all of this herself and applies it in her own messed-up life, but of course then there is the rest of the time

 

[love blrw]

Hi there Better Half,
I think your goal should be to think along the same lines. Sometimes the harder life is then the better your marriage can be. My husband and I have been through some very tough times, and we argue, but we stand by each other. We just celebrated our 25th anniversary.
A certain amount of the household money should go to the bills, a certain amount to savings, and what is left can be yours, and his, to spend the way both or one of you wants (play money).
If you can cut back on your bills, then you will have more play money. So why not focus on what you yourself can do, and what would make him more motivated to do the same. Start by changing all your lights to florescent bulbs. You may have to realize that you may be the one who turns off most of the lights in the house, but at least it will be less money. Get some power strips so you can shut down many devices at once. Get a few solar panels so that some of those lights your family will be providing the power for. Also there is a website that calculates the amount of electricity your devices use, show him the site, see if he can fill in the numbers for you so that you can see where you use is going (he will be an active participant). Women have used many ways to get men to join their "team", figure out how he can join yours. Sounds like you have some power in the household, give him some control, like put him in charge of getting solar panels or something. Here is the electric usage calculator: http://www.consumerspower.org/home_energy/billestimator.php
lin

 

[Sebrightmom]

The thing is that we have had the field for four years and only used 1/8 of the hay in that time if that. This year I have several more animals and plan to get more. His father makes a fortune off of the hay. For example, he has been getting $80 for round bales and $8 for square last year and this year. Our field made 62 round bales because we had to bale last with all of the flooding. We can still get two more cuttings. We only need 20 round bales at the most and that is with a lot left over. Plus, I would like atleast 400 square in the barn. We would have a lot for sell, but no his father has been making money off of us for years and I am getting sick of it. We just bought this house last August and we had to do a lot of work for the animals to be here. With me being at home with our son, things are getting tight. We could really use the extra money. I even told him that they only charge $20 per round bale when they bale for someone else, which my DH does all the baling and his Father gets the money (another topic that gets to me). So, why do we give his father $20 for every bale we sell atleast then we could make som money and he wouldn't feel like his father is loosing out. It is a loosing battle. The thing is that before I had my son and we were married we lived together for several years and my horses were at my mothers. I had to buy hay off of them(his father) and they wouldn't give me a family discount. So, I feel like his father really has been making a lot of money off of me. I love his family. His father is more like a father to me than my own father, but I totally disagree with the way he uses his own son and my DH is too stubborn to see it or he doesn't want too. I don't know which.

 

[patandchickens]

His father is more like a father to me than my own father, but I totally disagree with the way he uses his own son and my DH is too stubborn to see it or he doesn't want too. I don't know which.

I would bet that a lot of this is probably 'just' coming from different sorts of family traditions. There is so much variation among different families 'cultures' in terms of what is due your elders or your family in general. And I dunno as there's really a right or wrong, just what you're accustomed to and what you're not. Unfortunately when you marry someone you usually to a large degree marry their family too ;P

Pat

 

[FarmerChick]

I hear your frustrations again big time..LOL

I am fortunate that his Dad is very giving and never asks for money on anything, so I am sure to "pay" something when he buys me a ton of feed I wasn't expecting or things like that......so even though I have some diff. of opinions on how our hay field is handled and such, I gotta keep my mouth shut cause they sure treat us very very good...LOL

I think it is more like, my hubby Tony, is trying to impress his Dad, with like, hey we got 120 round bales off this part of our land, here, take what you need.....kinda like giving back I guess.......LOL-LOL---I don't know the warped dynamics of his feelings about all of it..HA HA

BUT yes I agree....pay $20 for the bales and BANK that extra money you can get to sell....but of course costs have to come out of that.

whew....$80 for hay...our round bales were selling for $100-120 late last fall cause of our drought. We got only one spring cutting down here and it was in desparate need.....hay, if ya ain't go it, that sure hurts..LOL

I would definitely pitch working on some deal with him to get some money in your pocket...LOL...I know....I have to do it with my hubby and his family but somehow I do end up with money..LOL

hang in there...soemthing will work right for ya!!