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Valerie,

Feel free to vent, Honey! I understand your frustration, on some
level at least. DH and I actually argued the reverse- I want to stay
home unless we’re literally starving, as I feel income is his
responsibility, he was convinced I would run out of things to do
anyway. Many discussions and tears later, he agreed to give it a go,
as he really didn’t want to force me to do something I didn’t want
to anyway. Now he is oh-so-convinced. I save us big bucks. 😉

More recently, I was coming across all these ideas on helping us get
out of debt, and sending them his way, and he was closed to all of
them, and not appreciating my input. It bears mentioning that the
debt is all his, from before we married. So, after a long, difficult
and highly uncomfortable discussion, it came out that he is guilty
and ashamed over the debt he brought into the marriage and how hard
it makes life (we live on half his salary and the other half goes to
debt- without the debt, we would be living on twice as much money!),
and he wants to handle it himself- basically right the wrong. He
also didn’t like me bringing it up, period, because he already feels
guilty and doesn’t need or want the reminder.

That put us in a rough spot. I wanted to respect how he felt about
money issues, but I didn’t like the idea that I should ‘sit down and
shut up’- not that he put it that way, but it’s how I felt about the
idea of having no say in money matters. We finally agreed that I
would feel better using my ideas on the part of the budget that’s
already my territory- food money, my allowance (he gets one too-
don’t get the wrong idea), and any money I earn doing mystery
shopping and market research studies.

All that to say, I know that horrible feeling of being ‘controlled’
by what your husband wants. May I suggest a real talk-it-out? I
really hate those, but the results are almost always good if I stick
it out. The biggest thing I’ve learned is to be totally honest and
vulnerable about where my bad feelings are coming from- not just
saying in the above example, “I don’t like not having a say”, but
saying, “I don’t like not having a say because it feels like that
whole, ‘You’re a woman so you’re ideas don’t count’ thing, and like
we’re not a team, and it’s very important to me to feel like a
team.” Maybe you’ve already tried this, but I thought I would put
the idea out there.

My other cent (of my two cents) is to try a perspective shift. I
wish DH would spend more time with me, and yours goes so far as to
complain about you potentially being away too much! That is really
sweet, I think. 🙂

HTH, and no offense meant (hopefully none taken!)
Lindsey

— In Budget101_@yahoogroups.com, “Valerie”
wrote: I said something to my husband about getting a part time job
and that they only do evenings and weekends and he was livid. He
doesn’t want to be alone all the time. I’m tired of being controlled
by what he wants. Sorry, needed to vent.

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