I’m going to claim that a bathroom remodel is discretionary, and he shouldn’t impose that as a priority without discussion. And savings is… Well, there’s a great deal of uncertainty about what you’ll need, and people have wildly different comfort levels with different rates of savings. That’s probably also a discussion point, and not a unilateral decision.
Making rent next month is not a discussion point. They both know how much needs to be paid by when. The electric bill is less certain, but it’s easy enough to select a margin of safety around the uncertainty. Groceries have a discretionary aspect, but they can probably reach an agreement on that…
I’d bet my bottom dollar she would be real easy to get into couples therapy.
She’s not seeing his POV(his words).
She doesn’t like talking about finances, brings her energy down(his words).
She’s not gonna see a 3rd persons POV either.
It might bring her energy down.
She’s not gonna be talked outta this easily. It’s gonna take a disaster to make her see. I’m afraid.
But in her mind (evidently) her impulse purchases are more important than this nebulous retirement savings idea. And she’s (apparently) extremely resistant to altering this stance.
Now what?
Unrelated to the above …
Here’s a facet of the problem that I’ve not seen other posters comment on so far. Their ages.
Mr. A told us Mrs. A is 57. We can assume Mr. A is not far off that. Implying retirement for both is in the next 10-ish years max and might be a bunch fewer. Whether voluntarily or involuntarily due to law, corporate policy, infirmity, unexpected changes at work, etc.
The implication of that applied to personal finances in general is clear.
If they are behind on accumulating principal, they’re going to need to contribute a very large fraction of his wages over the few remaining years to catch up any material amount. If their investments aren’t performing well versus inflation (and whose are?) they may even be getting behinder by the month. How will real market returns and real interest rates work out over the next 10 years? Darn good question, but scary predictions by supposedly knowledgeable folks are not hard to find.
If this family income, and principal accumulation, and investment performance triple-whammy shortfall has been left to fester over the last almost 4 years since pre-COVID, the OP has left the situation until very late in the game.
Now is a very bad time for him to panic or for her to wander off the ranch. But it’s also an understandable time for both things to occur. He’s wigging out over his concerns, and she’s counter-wigging out in her avoidance of his concerns.
I know which side I empathize with. But as a matter of law, their interests in the combined nest egg and combined income are equal.
Having been in a year plus relationship with someone similar, I think it’s a bit more complicated. She sees it as an investment in her future career. You wouldn’t tell someone that getting an expensive engineering degree or even an expensive computer with a graphics program was a waste of money since it will more than pay for itself in the long run.
This is the same thing in her mind. If you completely turn off the spigot, it will be your fault that things didn’t work out.
Which I take to mean she’s expecting magic to deliver her a viable business. Or maybe she’s expecting no such thing, doesn’t give two shits whether it ever makes her a nickel, but keeps telling him that it’ll be a viable business as a way of placating him.
These situations where people have trouble being honest with themselves, and/or don’t even know their own mind, make it extremely difficult for their families to understand them, much less distant strangers like you and I.
You may well be right that when her business doesn’t happen it’ll be his fault. Even if tomorrow he wins a Powerball sufficient to fund 100% of her desires and he does so.
In any case, I think you and I agree that one can’t reason with magical thinking.
I don’t think it’s necessary to ‘reason’ her out of her thinking, just to expand her thinking to include Akaj’s feelings and needs. She’s being selfish, working less than she could work at something she is good at, spending significant money on things specifically for her benefit, and discounting Akaj’s concerns. Selfishness isn’t the death knell of a marriage, but it has to be dealt with.
Good point. But selfishness as a symptom has a number of distinct causes. And working the problem is very different depending on which cause is primary.
To wit:
Each of our choices are equally important in principle. But mine are right and yours are wrong in this case.
Each of our choices are equally important in principle. But you got yours the last 12,345 times and I never get mine. Right or wrong in this case, it’s past my turn so I get this one.
My choices matter and your choices don’t. To me. Defend your own interests as you will; just don’t affect me with them.
My choices matter and your choices don’t. Period.
One needs to negotiate quite differently against those four different counterarguments. Plus of course the many combinations of those basic “hues”.
Many employers also have Employee Assistance plans, which provides short-term counseling (usually 5 to 8 sessions) at no cost to the employee. If that’s a possibility, it would be a start.
I don’t get why people seem to be jumping the gun here. @Spice_Weasel has the right idea of putting everything in the terms she understands and using her framing of energy and such. It doesn’t sound like the OP has tried this yet.
So it seems early to be assuming they need to go to couple counselling, let alone some of the more drastic ideas proposed.
And you’d say the same if she had a gambling problem? I know of a couple where the all the money is controlled by the wife because the husband will gamble it away otherwise. She isn’t at all stingy with him but has her hands on the controls because he is sick.
The wife here may not be that bad but it is a question of degree.
People who sell glass baubles for $350 and lie to their customers to sell are criminals and they know it. The toughest, most vicious, underhanded, fraudulent small business people dress like hippies and have a warm loving persona they wear like a cheap suit. The toughest, most vicious, underhanded, fraudulent big business people run churches, but that’s another story.
Those running the religion/manifesting/MSM etc con commonly brainwash their marks to believe that anyone who counsels the mark against giving the con their money is part of the problem. And that gives me the creeps.
Some people, maybe most people, need to go through all the possible steps to give their irrational spouse chance after chance to prove that he/she isn’t irrational. I’ve wasted years and loads of money doing this myself, because accepting that you’re married to a lunatic is very difficult and painful. Maybe it must be done. Maybe not.
He agreed but so what if he hadn’t? Would it have been abusive of the wife to refuse to let him have open access to their joint finances till they lost their house (and that’s where they were heading, by the way)?
Is it abusive to physically stop your Mum giving her savings away to a crook on the internet who says he loves her?
The OP’s wife is in significant part being conned by criminals. It’s abusive to stop her?
There is a continuum and reasonable people will differ about where the OP’s situation lies but to automatically leap to the view that physically preventing someone from accessing joint funds, when they are giving that money away to crooks, is not justified.
You’re the first to hyperbolically mention abuse. As has been said repeatedly, if she doesn’t agree to it, he can’t prevent her from spending her own money.
You’re exactly right. The post to which I was replying likened it to “domestic violence”. So I toned it down.
The strict legal position does not alter the moral point I was discussing
As to your final sentence it has been repeatedly assumed that his earnings are her property.
But as I understand it only certain US States (a minority) have the principle of marital community property. I have a vague recollection that the OP is from Illinois which Google says is not a community property state. I’m not a US (or divorce) lawyer and I’m totally out of my depth. But until someone who knows about this stuff confirms that in the OP’s jurisdiction the OP’s earnings are joint property, I wouldn’t be too quick to assume.
I just checked Amazon. I found a nice set for about $7 and it includes a sheet “explaining” the meanings of the cards. I think I spent around $5 dollars for a nice set when I lived in Germany decades ago and that set came with instructions for playing card games, nothing to do with woo.