“We’ll be okay. The roof is expensive, but my semi-secret separate savings account can cover it.”
(Spends an entire roofs worth of money on intangible purchases of little or no value, requiring me to drain semi-secret separate savings account to cover household necessities for the month and avoid overdrafts.)
(And yes, the roof still leaks.) :smack:
You’re not ungrateful but you’re not very understanding, either. I don’t know, if I did something like this (and I have done) and then someone else had to fix it, it would be very uncharitable of me to call them ungrateful.
See I used to do freelance work. I had a couple of really good semiregular gigs. The problem was that they would give me an assignment and a deadline and it would be something like 3000 words at $1/word and they would assign it three months out and I wouldn’t get paid until publication. So by the time the day of publication came, I had already spent the $3000. Usually three times. “Oh I can afford this because I’m getting that Cosmo check on the first of April.” I usually didn’t start spending the money until I had actually turned in the piece and it had been okayed by the editor, but sometimes I did. Woe was me if they decided not to run the piece and all I got was a kill fee. (This happened. Fortunately, rarely.)
I know, I am a horrible person. Or at the very least, not very good at projecting income and expenses.
So, anyway, I can totally see where your wife is coming from. But she really isn’t being very nice about it. Also: one-way tickets? Why? I ask because almost every time I’ve bought tickets, round-trip is the better deal, and it was sometimes even the better deal if I only wanted to go one way.
it can seem hopeless. it might be hopeless.
you might encourage rational behavior in some fashion. develop a procedure that you both follow (even though both might not need it) for large money spending. like have costs compared to resources, include more distant costs that might be possible if saved for (vacation, remodeling, auto, …). putting things on paper can slow things to make a good analysis. that have to both agree on the expenses for joint money.
kind of like the cool off period required in many purchase contracts to cancel the deal to counter impulse sales.
He’s the one who isn’t understanding? Seriously? Doing something like that once is very, very stupid but, I get it, shit happens. More than once? That’s objectively fucking moronic. Unless there is an emergency situation, a child should know not to spend money that they don’t have yet. Particularly in a situation when it’s known to be iffy.
Well said. For the most part, I find people to be ‘singularly’ stupid, and ‘jointly’ intelligent. As another poster mentioned, having an agreement with a partner gives a checks ‘n’ balances fail-safe. ( Though that too may fail on occasion)
Two people working at odds with each other is a train wreck waiting to happen.
(first hand experience in my failed marriage)
And no, you were not an ungrateful prick.
This is why dark smoky bar rooms we invented. Pull up a bar stool, hunch over the bar, eat some peanuts and drink enough beer that you end up yelling out, “…that fucking bitch…” and all the men at the bar grunt in agreement… then you can stumble home.
It works !!! 
You reacted the way I would have done. Ungrateful prick? No. Ungracious maybe.
However, I don’t think the fault lies entirely with your wife- the children should not be so accepting so eagerly.
Since you’re looking for opinions, moved to IMHO (from MPSIMS).
That kind of behavior is not an accident.
It is done with foreknowledge & intent.
If this has happened before as you say and she refuses to change, refuses to see a counselor, refuses to see where she did wrong, well you have no beef since you are still married to her.
Either put up with it or leave.
You have put up with it long enough to have a grown kid?
Why are you complaining now?
:::: shakes head & wanders away :::::::
Well first of all that sentence does not say what I meant it to say. Sorry about that.
Second of all the fact that I’ve done something similar, despite saying I will not–I think there is just something missing in my head. Seriously. It all seemed okay and perfectly reasonable at the time. Since this is not the first time for her, either, it indicates a problem he could possibly have been aware of. She’s got bad thinking on this subject and if she could change, she would.
In that case, I have no idea what you meant to say.
How the hell do you know that? Maybe if she actually has to face consequences for that immaturity, she’d find it in herself to change. Yeah, he knew. He begged her not to do it and she did anyway. It’s not at all difficult. Only spend money that you actually have. People’s capacity for self delusion and making excuses is amazing.
But since there probably is not literally an area in your skull that should be occupied by a vital brain section that you just don’t have, what do you think is actually going on? “Bad thinking” could have a physiological basis, but then a trip to the neurologist is in order, not the conclusion that you will immutably repeat the same bad decisions and it can’t be helped.
Where is the sign wife has even the slightest desire to quit acting this way? Is she admitting she has a problem? No, she is blaming others and being a jerk about her own mistakes, rather than apologizing for causing expense and distress to others.
Maybe these types of actions seem “okay and perfectly reasonable at the time” to you because you make no effort to resist deluding yourself, not just in the moment, but before and afterwards as well. If your actions and choices are not under your voluntary control and keep harming others, quit considering yourself capable of identifying good decisions and try to find someone responsible to help you. Give those negatively affected a say, so at least they aren’t stuck having to deal with the consequences of your bad choices.
Not a chance in Hell. She’ll keep right on. Then, when he refuses to save her from herself, she’ll run crying, “Oh, poor pitiful me!” to anybody who’ll sit still long enough to listen. Those people will get a nasty earful about how controlling and cruel he is for not letting her spend them into homelessness. She’ll be very careful to leave out the part where she’s being an unreasonable, manipulative asshole, though. She’ll never tell them that he’s just doing whatever he can to save the two of them from her stupid crap. In her mind, she will be the victim.
My mother was the same way. I love her but I’ve spent my whole life suffering the consequences of her financial ridiculousness.
When I finally started putting my foot down, in middle school, people all over started treating me like garbage. I was a “tyrant”, a spoiled brat who thought she knew how to run the show at home. My mother was badmouthing me to teachers, friend’s parents, and total strangers. They had no idea that I was forced to be the grown-up at my house. What she never told anybody was that she would spend until the bank account was empty and then come begging money from me. She started that when I was 9. Birthday and Christmas money was never safe, sometimes snatched right out of the card. That or she would “borrow” it from me while I was somewhere else. “Mom, where’s my money?” “Oh, I was just borrowing it. You know I’ll pay it back.” Bullshit.
If it had been for things we needed I could have understood, but she would buy for the sake of buying. She had so many clothes she broke the rod in her walk in closet. She had clothes in dad’s closet, my sister’s, and mine. Half the stuff still had the tags on it. She bought towels 20 years ago that have STILL never been used. She would buy things for me with money we needed and if I didn’t want it, or reminded her that there were past due bills, I was an “ungrateful bitch”.
Dad’s spending was just as bad but he was sneaky about it. He never went around bragging about his purchases and it was very rare that he came to me for money. He stole money from work and from other people, including mom. Not that that excuses her behavior. Both of my parents were immature and irresponsible. It’s just that one was more in my face about it than the other.
Just last week she finally admitted that she has a spending problem. After all these years of fighting me, talking shit about me and to me, she says that she’s going to try to change. I’m 37 now. If your wife has been doing this her whole life don’t think she’ll suddenly see reason and start acting rationally because you said so. In your case I think you need to draw a line in the sand. Counseling or you’re gone. Then you need to stick to it. No matter how much she whines and threatens and curses you. You have an advantage over me. You’re not a child so people might believe you when you try to tell them the truth and you can leave if you want. Unless you enjoy playing the hero and this post was really stealth bragging about how competent you are. In that case, you two have fun. 
That comes across as a bit harsh, although I understand you are trying to assist.
It was exactly what needed to be said, actually. I had a live-in girl friend who would pull the same shit and that is the main reason why I didn’t marry her. I couldn’t tie myself to that without dying an early death due to stress. This is disrespect at an insane level.
Let me take a wild guess, the OPs wife and Sodalite’s Mom have time management problems as well and don’t give a rat’s ass about making people wait. This is a serious character flaw that has a bad effect on everyone else in the person’s world.
I don’t want to make this any worse for you, but when I read this…
I immediately thought it was a from Social Security. The Social Security Notice will merely tell you how much money you should have received for retirement based on your work history. If you have already gotten the retirement money out (rolled it over, etc), that is all the money you are getting - the notice doesn’t say you get any more.
So I really hope it was something that checked out and the company is actually sending the money and it wasn’t just a notice that you may be entitled to money that she already received…
Ahh, it’s his fault. Got it.
Why didn’t she just take the money out of her savings account while she was waiting for the check to come in? If she’s gifting money to her kids and buying new cars without having enough money to cover a thousand dollar airline ticket (or car repair bill, or new heater, etc), then that’s a whole new level of financial irresponsibility.
Let’s assume all her money was in illiquid investments. Why didn’t she use a credit card to book the entire RT flight, which would have undoubtedly been cheaper than buying two OW tickets? That would have bought her some time to get the money in. If it’s because she started charging things back in October, and has now maxed out her limit, then that’s a whole new level of financial irresponsibility because now she’s paying interest.
FYI, most airlines won’t accept cash unless you physically drive to a ticket counter. Even if this was her preferred method, the airline most certainly wouldn’t have accepted a third party check, and even had the check come in Monday or Tuesday’s mail, and been deposited that day, the bank most likely wouldn’t have released the funds for several days.
Other questions:
Why did you have to pay change fees? The OW ticket was for next week, right? So why not just (you) purchase another OW ticket for sometime after that and saved yourself change fees and penalties?
Did you read the letter carefully and/or has she called the company to ask where her disbursement is? Many companies only disburse retirement cash-outs on a quarterly basis.
I cannot fathom someone surprising me with a gift, then screwing it up so that I ended up spending several hundred bucks, and then acting like I was ungrateful for the “gift.” It wasn’t a gift; it was a headache.
OP, you’ve got my support here. Your wife is WAY out of line.
I was once talking with a couple who were friends of my wife and I. They were talking about a similar disagreement and the wife was trying to get our support for why she handled money like she did. After not taking the hint from subtle and polite responses, I finally said “Look, if I were in your husband’s shoes, I’d have already called an attorney to find out what my options are.”
And I’m not saying we don’t sometimes have disagreements about how to handle money… just that we eventually come to a compromise, set up a plan and follow it. I’d actually be more forgiving on the subject of adultery than the subject of money.
It’s probably safe to assume that she doesn’t have a savings account, doesn’t have any investments and that the credit cards are all maxed out. Any money in gets immediately spent and, in this specific case, spent before it exists.
Like there’s a chance in hell this lady has a dime to her name? She’s spending money she does not have. The moment she gets the slightest hint any money could be coming her way, it’s spent many times over. If she has credit cards, obviously they are maxed out. Some people compulsively rid themselves and anyone whose pockets they can pick of every cent they are given access to.