@Akaj How do you and your spouse handle the bill-paying every month? Is everything set up for automatic payment or do you sit down, without her, and go through the pending bills, writing checks or making online transfers yourself? If you are handling this alone, she is not learning what a budget is, nor that there is a direct connection to income = outgo = what’s left.
Years ago, I saw in one issue of Reader’s Digest the following story, as best as I can remember it. A father saw his daughter off to university. Every month before the end of the month, she would call him up and ask for more money than he gave her at the beginning of the month. After a few months of this, he told her that she needed to show him her budget. As it happens, she was coming home in a week or so for a school break. She showed him all the receipts she had and a nice little logbook of expenses that did not incur receipts. He looked through it all and told her, “This is not a budget. It’s a diary. You need a budget. Let me show you the difference.” He then sat her down and taught her what a budget is and how to build it and stay within it.
BTW, there’s nothing wrong with a nice set of Tarot cards. When I lived in Germany, I had a very pretty set. Of course, being in Germany, my friends and I used it for its intended puporse: playing cards. Divination is nonsense, as is all that crystal healing stuff. If she wants to have a nice set of whatever because she thinks it’s pretty, or even because she believes it works, I echo other people’s suggestions that it comes out of her “dedicated fun money” for each month.
If she’s resistant to any of your suggestions as to financial stability–and that’s what you seem to be facing–you might be at the point of cutting her off completely and, sadly, there’s really only one reliable way of doing that. I seriously doubt a family court judge would consider all of the woo expenses you described as necessary outgo.
I really hope you can get her to come around. It’ll be better for all concerned. Well, except for the con artists taking y’all’s money now.
Comes a time when someone has to take control of the situation before it gets really ugly.
I’ve had to be the bad guy many times. No one wants to do it. We’d all love having filthy riches to spend on all manner of junk. Whatever they may be.
But reality has to be understood. The mortgage has to be paid. The insurance, car payments.
Buying ‘stuff’ at the detriment of needed things is just wrong.
Man, woman, or child. Someone has to be responsible for making them understand.
I can see doing it as calmly and sweetly as you can. But in the end buying a crystal ball is not gonna cut it. And she needs to know it.
I think I agree with you. It’s really gone past the point of just polite intervention-ish discussion, ISTM. Sitting down and discussing why she is into all of this stuff all of a sudden, why she believes she has this “gift”, and what she expects to get out of it. It looks like her circle of friends/acquaintances buys into it and–lucky them!–they’ve convinced her she has a gift and are getting “treatment” at little to no cost. This discussion needs to be scheduled, planned in advance, and as non-confrontational as possible (no “You’re a moron for believing this BS” or such expressions, but rather, “Let’s discuss point by point”) and stick to the scheduled agenda.
I hope reasoned discourse works. But this doesn’t seem like a position she arrived at by rational thought processes, and if so it’s unrealistic to expect her to moderate that position by rational thought processes.
I would also like to add another 2 cents: with people like the OP’s wife, the danger is that when she insists she’s right on the verge of turning the corner and just about to hit her big breakthrough of success - like a gambler, she’ll always insist that she’s right on the verge of it. Just like a conspiracy theorist or prepper who insists that because Big Thing XYZ hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it won’t.
In addition to a never-ending series of moving goalposts, another tendency of people like the OP’s wife is that they feel like they’ve always been either 1) disadvantaged for their whole life or 2) deprived of their rightful “big break” or something, and this woo-woo stuff is their way of leveling the playing field or getting an advantage, so to speak. Does your wife feel like she’s been unfairly denied a lot of good things or achievement that she deserves, and this magic is her way of climbing the ladder?
Yeah the issue with that approach is that his paycheck is their money. They both have every right to every penny of it. Same for her income. That’s how marriage works, legally. Sure, it can be done, but IMHO will only escalate tensions and worsen the situation.
The only way to address this is to have a crucial conversation, not by making decisions and taking action behind the other person’s back.
I have a question for Akaj.
How much are you willing to get a divorce for digging your heels in on this. What if she is offended by the idea that she is on an allowance? She’s not a child! What if she counters with that you’re married so it’s not your money it’s both of yours, so how dare you control the purse strings? What if she simply cannot comprehend or follow through on financial responsibility?
Because she is arguing from a purely emotional place and you are arguing from a purely practical and logical place, there is not going to be any rapprochement between you until you both learn to reach toward the other in understanding.
I would try a marriage and family therapist before anything else. This is not an uncommon problem in marriages.
No, she’s OK at math, and she understands budgeting and my argument for fiscal restraint. She just thinks we’re fine since we pay the bills every month and still have money to go out, have fun, etc.
It’s not all of a sudden – it’s been a gradual thing that escalated during Covid – and we’ve talked endlessly about it. I don’t dismiss her POV and have even gone along as a “roadie” for many of her sound bath experiences. I mentally roll my eyes but it can be kind of fun. And I’ve seen other people respond very positively.
I’m not trying to steer her away from this. I just want the spending to stop.
No. She had a challenging childhood but was never materially deprived, and we’ve always lived comfortably.
As I mentioned upthread, she’s uncomfortable about taking money. (Even in her full-time massage days, she regretted that all her clients were wealthy and explored ways to make massage available for people with lower incomes.) I suspect that the “just around the corner” business is to placate me, not something she truly believes or even wants.
Very very unwilling. That’s why I’m trying to find a more productive way to address this without ultimatums or, say, taking away her credit card.
Yeah, that’s the root of it right there. Counseling might be necessary.
I don’t think the money is the problem here. If it was, the title of this thread would be something like “My Wife Is Spending Too Much Money” not “Am I Losing My Sanity?”
The money is a symptom, and PART of the problem. But it sounds to me like there is a third party out that is pulling your wife into a philosophy that is subverting her agency.
This “energy” stuff is insidious, and this third party -whether it be an individual or a collective- is hooking your wife into it. At the moment, it’s making her feel really good, empowered even. Her group loves her energy, and they’ll continue to love her as long as she brings that energy. But I’m pretty sure that as soon as she does something they don’t like - like exhibit a modicum of skepticism or financial responsibility - her “energy” will start bringing the group down, and they’ll let her know.
And if you are agent of that skepticism or responsibility, she may turn it back on you. If she is convinced her successes and failures are the result of “her energy”, and your attitudes are negatively affecting her energy, then everything bad that happens to her will be your fault.
Someone, and individual or group, is gaslighting her, and she’s gaslighting you. I don’t have much in the way of advice, but I’d start by trying to narrow down exactly where this is coming from, is one person in the group spearheading this energy stuff, or is it the collective?
Open a new bank account in your name only and start depositing all of your income into it. Then when your joint account is empty and she can’t pay for the latest geegaws, tell her to stop having negativity about money.
Not so much. She’s not part of any real group, and most of these purchases are just shit she finds online. The $350 crystal was from an out-of-state store she’d never visited before.
She may be a sucker for a good sales pitch, but she’s a self-made believer.
The problem is not what she is spending the family funds on. It’s the lack of respect.
My spouse and I always had separate bank accounts, separate credit cards, separate car payments, separate retirement accounts. The only joint purchase we ever made was our house. We simply split the bills based on our income so we were each contributing the same percentage of our personal funds to joint expenses.
This could work for the OP. But if she objects, you have a much more serious marital problem than indiscriminate spending.
I wonder if you two could agree on a casual – or possibly a formal – business plan that you work on/out together.
You’d understand the capital requirements – how much she thinks she needs to spend – and then a time frame for revenue and breakeven/profitability. Maybe getting her to think about this in pure financial terms could be helpful.
It can also serve as the basis for an agreement, as well as a ‘flowchart’ for what happens when certain things do or do not occur to plan.
In her mind, is this a hobby or does she see it as a legit business? Understanding how the IRS looks at this question is one framework on which to base a discussion:
I would treat the two differently, with milestones and targets applicable to a business but mostly spending limits applicable to a hobby.
All of which would be arrived at by compromise rather than mandate. I agree with those who think this has to be talked through, worked through, and agreed to. Unilateralism, IMHO, is inherently nuclear.
IMO @Ann_Hedonia nailed it. Even if this is self-initiated by @Akaj’s wife she’s essentially playing herself into the hands of a commercial conspiracy to sell stupid shit to deluded people. Whether the delusion comes from their random advertising blasted into the aether or comes from a local group of self-reinforcing wackos, one of whom conveniently sells the paraphernalia, doesn’t alter the outcome.
The problem with “spiritual” beliefs of all natures is adherents deeply believe that these are somehow not subject to worldly constraints. Or at least those constraints must give way to the spiritual realm. Whether that’s an old lady sending her SS check to a TV preacher while living on cat kibble or your wife buying crap to make herself feel better “energy”.
To answer the question in the OP’s title: No, you are not losing your sanity. She is losing hers. At least practically speaking, if not in the DSM sense of the word.
Being married to an addict is not a picnic. And alternatives should be carefully considered. Where your wife appears to be heading is no different than an addiction to gambling, alcohol, drugs, or shopping in general. And like with those other addictions, nothing will improve until the addict has decided from their own initiative to improve. You can’t even lead the horse to water. At most you can say “Water is over that way” & point. Then watch what they do, or more likely, don’t do with the info.
I do not envy you this situation. There are only bad paths forward. Some more bad and some less bad. But the one you wish existed, that she snaps out of it soon seems, IMO, to be so unlikely as to be impossible. So you should proceed as if it is impossible, and this will only get worse, much worse, before it gets even slightly better from however worse it gets.
I am sorry to share this opinion. But I have watched this movie a time or several with friends and co-workers. I’ve seen a range of responses. None of which were able to much help the addict, but are able to help the hapless spouse / victim. Once they can bring themselves to see the actual situation (bad) and actual trajectory (worse) and actual options (few).
What needs to happen first before either of you dip into discretionary spending on fun stuff ( hobbies, entertainment etc)is setting aside a budgeted amount for retirement savings.
Pay all the bills to run your household, pay yourselves via IRA. What’s left is for entertainment.