Is my spouse being stingy?

[Anonymous]

Your spouse is being financially controlling which is a power move. Whether you are presently working or not is irrelevant. You are a team, and you are currently contributing to the household by being fully responsible for childcare which is an important and significant contribution. You are entitled to a full understanding of your finances as well as an equal say in how the money is apportioned and spent or saved. Your marriage is a partnership, and one spouse does not dictate to the other.

[Anonymous]

Why should you have to grovel for money? So you work? Don’t tell me you’re one of those couples that has separate accounts!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife stays at home and has full access to all the money. All of my income (750k-1mil) goes into two separate joint accounts.
She doesn’t need to check in with me or ask to spend anything. I don’t even look at the accounts.

If I acted like your husband does, I would feel like a controlling ahole. And that is not the type of marriage I want.

+1

I feel bad for OP that they have this weird power dynamic going on. I am very pro making all accounts joint or at least accessible to both parties. It doesn’t matter if one parent is SAH.

We have $200k HHI and spend at least $5k month on household expenses outside of mortgage, retirement, etc. I manage most of the day to day and couldn’t do it on $3.5K!

[Anonymous]

Order stuff from his Amazon account.

[Anonymous]

I agree that he is controlling you. I would tell him that you are going to have to have to get a job because there is not enough money. He is going to have to figure out childcare and all of the things that you do as a SAHM because you won't have time to do them since you will be working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Order stuff from his Amazon account.

Bingo, they have clothing!

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand how women find themselves in this situation. Why did you quit your job op? Most women work with kids. Obviously your DH didn’t think it was critical for you to stay home, so I’m guessing the stay home idea was pushed by you.

I don’t understand how women can beg and plead to their dhs to stay home, and then be surprised that their dh doesn’t respect them or consider them an equal contributor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that he is controlling you. I would tell him that you are going to have to have to get a job because there is not enough money. He is going to have to figure out childcare and all of the things that you do as a SAHM because you won't have time to do them since you will be working.

The plan is, my spouse is going to quit his job next year and take a little time off to contemplate a career change, and get a new part time gig while figuring something out. I’m supportive. At that time I can start interviewing to re-enter the workforce, which will honestly be a bit tough for me with the large gap in employment and the fact that my field is pretty competitive with a lot of younger people in it who are willing to work for less. And I also have a lot of commitments- I’m serving terms on several boards and committees and run a non profit. So I’ll either have to quit all those or I’ll have to also do part time.

I’m kind of freaking out about how all the things will get done at that time and afraid that all the house and kid stuff will still fall on me since much of it has been 100 percent my responsibility since the beginning. And then I’ll be stuck doing way more than my share or just completely drowning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand how women find themselves in this situation. Why did you quit your job op? Most women work with kids. Obviously your DH didn’t think it was critical for you to stay home, so I’m guessing the stay home idea was pushed by you.

I don’t understand how women can beg and plead to their dhs to stay home, and then be surprised that their dh doesn’t respect them or consider them an equal contributor.

He pushed me to quit. I wasn’t able to do all the home stuff and I wasn’t making that much more than childcare was costing us. He wanted the flexibility so he could also devote more time to developing his career, which he has done well at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that he is controlling you. I would tell him that you are going to have to have to get a job because there is not enough money. He is going to have to figure out childcare and all of the things that you do as a SAHM because you won't have time to do them since you will be working.

The plan is, my spouse is going to quit his job next year and take a little time off to contemplate a career change, and get a new part time gig while figuring something out. I’m supportive. At that time I can start interviewing to re-enter the workforce, which will honestly be a bit tough for me with the large gap in employment and the fact that my field is pretty competitive with a lot of younger people in it who are willing to work for less. And I also have a lot of commitments- I’m serving terms on several boards and committees and run a non profit. So I’ll either have to quit all those or I’ll have to also do part time.

I’m kind of freaking out about how all the things will get done at that time and afraid that all the house and kid stuff will still fall on me since much of it has been 100 percent my responsibility since the beginning. And then I’ll be stuck doing way more than my share or just completely drowning.

This sounds banana-balls.
So, we're just over here quitting jobs before we have another one, while the other parent doesn't work, but will "start interviewing" after he's already quit, but he might have a new part time gig while figuring something out?

Girl, this has better be satire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife stays at home and has full access to all the money. All of my income (750k-1mil) goes into two separate joint accounts.
She doesn’t need to check in with me or ask to spend anything. I don’t even look at the accounts.

If I acted like your husband does, I would feel like a controlling ahole. And that is not the type of marriage I want.

+1

I feel bad for OP that they have this weird power dynamic going on. I am very pro making all accounts joint or at least accessible to both parties. It doesn’t matter if one parent is SAH.

We have $200k HHI and spend at least $5k month on household expenses outside of mortgage, retirement, etc. I manage most of the day to day and couldn’t do it on $3.5K!

If I had $4k a month, I wouldn’t keep overdrawing the account and have to keep asking for more money. If I had $4500-5k that would give us a bit more breathing room so I wouldn’t have to always pinch pennies to make things work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that he is controlling you. I would tell him that you are going to have to have to get a job because there is not enough money. He is going to have to figure out childcare and all of the things that you do as a SAHM because you won't have time to do them since you will be working.

The plan is, my spouse is going to quit his job next year and take a little time off to contemplate a career change, and get a new part time gig while figuring something out. I’m supportive. At that time I can start interviewing to re-enter the workforce, which will honestly be a bit tough for me with the large gap in employment and the fact that my field is pretty competitive with a lot of younger people in it who are willing to work for less. And I also have a lot of commitments- I’m serving terms on several boards and committees and run a non profit. So I’ll either have to quit all those or I’ll have to also do part time.

I’m kind of freaking out about how all the things will get done at that time and afraid that all the house and kid stuff will still fall on me since much of it has been 100 percent my responsibility since the beginning. And then I’ll be stuck doing way more than my share or just completely drowning.

This sounds banana-balls.
So, we're just over here quitting jobs before we have another one, while the other parent doesn't work, but will "start interviewing" after he's already quit, but he might have a new part time gig while figuring something out?

Girl, this has better be satire.

My spouse’s job has zero flexibility meaning there is zero time to even look for another job. So has to quit to look. Also just wants time off.

Like I said, my spouse has plenty of liquid assets and savings so we have enough to live on for 1-1.5years even if neither of us worked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that he is controlling you. I would tell him that you are going to have to have to get a job because there is not enough money. He is going to have to figure out childcare and all of the things that you do as a SAHM because you won't have time to do them since you will be working.

The plan is, my spouse is going to quit his job next year and take a little time off to contemplate a career change, and get a new part time gig while figuring something out. I’m supportive. At that time I can start interviewing to re-enter the workforce, which will honestly be a bit tough for me with the large gap in employment and the fact that my field is pretty competitive with a lot of younger people in it who are willing to work for less. And I also have a lot of commitments- I’m serving terms on several boards and committees and run a non profit. So I’ll either have to quit all those or I’ll have to also do part time.

I’m kind of freaking out about how all the things will get done at that time and afraid that all the house and kid stuff will still fall on me since much of it has been 100 percent my responsibility since the beginning. And then I’ll be stuck doing way more than my share or just completely drowning.

This sounds banana-balls.
So, we're just over here quitting jobs before we have another one, while the other parent doesn't work, but will "start interviewing" after he's already quit, but he might have a new part time gig while figuring something out?

Girl, this has better be satire.

+1. If this is legit, you are both terrible decision makers. And you are going to end up back at work and doing 100% of the home stuff. This guy is using financial control over you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that he is controlling you. I would tell him that you are going to have to have to get a job because there is not enough money. He is going to have to figure out childcare and all of the things that you do as a SAHM because you won't have time to do them since you will be working.

The plan is, my spouse is going to quit his job next year and take a little time off to contemplate a career change, and get a new part time gig while figuring something out. I’m supportive. At that time I can start interviewing to re-enter the workforce, which will honestly be a bit tough for me with the large gap in employment and the fact that my field is pretty competitive with a lot of younger people in it who are willing to work for less. And I also have a lot of commitments- I’m serving terms on several boards and committees and run a non profit. So I’ll either have to quit all those or I’ll have to also do part time.

I’m kind of freaking out about how all the things will get done at that time and afraid that all the house and kid stuff will still fall on me since much of it has been 100 percent my responsibility since the beginning. And then I’ll be stuck doing way more than my share or just completely drowning.

This sounds banana-balls.
So, we're just over here quitting jobs before we have another one, while the other parent doesn't work, but will "start interviewing" after he's already quit, but he might have a new part time gig while figuring something out?

Girl, this has better be satire.

My spouse’s job has zero flexibility meaning there is zero time to even look for another job. So has to quit to look. Also just wants time off.

Like I said, my spouse has plenty of liquid assets and savings so we have enough to live on for 1-1.5years even if neither of us worked.

Lady you’re a moron. Why aren’t you job hunting now?

And sahms whose husbands make only $250k aren’t doing important board and nonprofit-forming work. That’s just the garbage you’re doing to fill your day. You quit that stuff and get a job, since you obviously need the money. And do it now.

And don’t write back here in a year when your dh quits that you couldn’t find a good job and now there’s no money and your dh is really withholding cash from you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that he is controlling you. I would tell him that you are going to have to have to get a job because there is not enough money. He is going to have to figure out childcare and all of the things that you do as a SAHM because you won't have time to do them since you will be working.

The plan is, my spouse is going to quit his job next year and take a little time off to contemplate a career change, and get a new part time gig while figuring something out. I’m supportive. At that time I can start interviewing to re-enter the workforce, which will honestly be a bit tough for me with the large gap in employment and the fact that my field is pretty competitive with a lot of younger people in it who are willing to work for less. And I also have a lot of commitments- I’m serving terms on several boards and committees and run a non profit. So I’ll either have to quit all those or I’ll have to also do part time.

I’m kind of freaking out about how all the things will get done at that time and afraid that all the house and kid stuff will still fall on me since much of it has been 100 percent my responsibility since the beginning. And then I’ll be stuck doing way more than my share or just completely drowning.

This sounds banana-balls.
So, we're just over here quitting jobs before we have another one, while the other parent doesn't work, but will "start interviewing" after he's already quit, but he might have a new part time gig while figuring something out?

Girl, this has better be satire.

+1. If this is legit, you are both terrible decision makers. And you are going to end up back at work and doing 100% of the home stuff. This guy is using financial control over you.

It’s not a terrible decision. Correction from my above estimate, we potentially have enough to live on for almost 3 yrs. There are other not-as-liquid assets we could tap into. Without touching anything close to pension, retirement, or college funds.

Spouse has an in demand job and will very easily find part time work that we can live on comfortably enough. We have no mortgage payments or school loan payments anymore, so we have the flexibility to do something like this.

The hardest part for us, I think will be the shifting of roles and responsibilities. And yeah part of it is that I miss earning money.