Divorcing wife over her spending

[Anonymous]

OP, you have also lost all perspective. Your salary is enormous by American standards.

If you were living in flyover country, like me, your house would probably be cheaper and you'd be less stressed.

Your wife's expenses feel very "keeping up with the Joneses" for your income bracket. That doesn't make it a good decision to spend money that way. But it doesn't sound odd to me, based on what I've seen from the richer people I know.

If you get a divorce, your wife will probably continue to spend child support on things that you think are ridiculous. Best case for her, she somehow trades up to a guy who can afford more. How will you feel then, having given up your family because of money?

I think you need to evaluate your childcare arrangements holistically and try to reduce some fluff. With your nerves, I hope you are in a district with good public schools.

Maybe you can convince your wife to save if she's able to put it in a 529 college fund.

Keep an eye out for youth sports costs. Martial arts are actually pretty cheap compared to many sports. At the high school level, track is the best bargain.

If you're willing to divorce over this, I don't think it's too sexist or too harsh for you to set up a monthly budget transfer that covers the entirety of what you want her to spend from your salary on running the household.

My husband and I have our names on joint accounts but financially rarely cross paths. We've agreed on how to split payment responsibilities for various bills and that's how it's worked for 3 decades. I handle groceries, utilities, insurance, etc. He handles mortgage and phone, etc. His bills are stable. Mine fluctuate. That works with our styles and income flow patterns.

If you haven't tried an emptying account that goes to zero, I'd say you haven't exhausted all possibilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much is your income? Hers versus yours? How much does spend a month? How much was your home and her new car?

Our income is in the mid 600’s. I make close to $500 and her the rest.

Our monthly cost are close to $22k for just the basics. She spends 2-3k a month on whatever she wants.

House was $2.3m. Car was $30k.

You live in a two million dollar house and are complaining?

Yes. The mortgage and taxes are $13k per month. Factor in bills, groceries, preschool, activities, and hygiene, it’s about $22k per month.

We spend nearly $300k with our basics and her monthly spending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just move to a smaller house. Also why does she have to work at that level of household money? If she wants to help her kids why doesn't she stay home for a time? They are twins. 10 years will go by and she can go back to work. Meanwhile you will have more say on the expenses. She will have to use the time she has with the kids. She can watch or read whatever training she wants for the kids while they are at preschool and then be with the kids in the afternoon. Being more around other moms may also soften her a bit. Give her a debit card to use each month with a set amount on it till she reins in her spending.

I hope you don't want your kids growing up in a divorced household. That doesn't seem to serve anyone.

She doesn’t want to move to a smaller home. We would take a huge loss on it since we just moved in last year.

She doesn’t want to stay home. Not all women want to stay home.

[Anonymous]

Atleast it’s not like my fiance who spend a ton, already in debt, make little money, and crazy about cosmetic stuff.

[Anonymous]

My DH also makes $600k. We live in a $1M house (that we paid $600k for) and live on $12k/month. Your wife is crazy and so is the fact that you haven’t put your foot down yet.

[Anonymous]

PP. I made more than my husband. So I paid all the daycare during the spendy daycare years.

Maybe you need her to cover her personal expenses and all kid care expenses out of her salary. I gather this would make things go negative now. But how about after the kids get into kindergarten?

And then you cover house and groceries and car stuff?

[Anonymous]

Kind of sounds like she feels guilty for not being there for her kids and is trying to make up for it by constantly reaching for “the best” of everything? If she had enough time to really be doing her research on early childhood, she would see that unscheduled free play is one of the most important things that young children can have. And the tutoring does sound ridiculous, but tbh if she was staying home with them, she’d be introducing colors and letters in the course of the day while reading to them etc. and whatnot at this age is really not meaningful other than to harness their freedom and not let them learn about the world around them and take them away from social-emotional learning w peers, at the playground, etc. At any rate they’re probably doing that in preschool anyway. Perhaps you can convince her to scale down for your kids’ benefit, not because of the money.
But tbh, I don’t actually think this spending is soooo crazy. Especially if you make in the 600s and live in a less expensive area than DC.
You guys just have very different values and need to sort that out. Personally I’m in the “you get what you pay for” camp w things like daycare and prefer to send my children to places that are desirable places to work bc their employees are fairly compensated. We make in the 400s in the DC area and have done out-of-pocket speech therapy, swimming, music, pre-gymnastics, soccer, and preschool, but never more than three at one time. Everyone in our playgroup, of various incomes,

[Anonymous]

^sorry, was free writing before editing and accidentally submitted

[Anonymous]

Just go to couples counseling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just move to a smaller house. Also why does she have to work at that level of household money? If she wants to help her kids why doesn't she stay home for a time? They are twins. 10 years will go by and she can go back to work. Meanwhile you will have more say on the expenses. She will have to use the time she has with the kids. She can watch or read whatever training she wants for the kids while they are at preschool and then be with the kids in the afternoon. Being more around other moms may also soften her a bit. Give her a debit card to use each month with a set amount on it till she reins in her spending.

I hope you don't want your kids growing up in a divorced household. That doesn't seem to serve anyone.

I really like the debit card idea. Just be very humble and matter of fact when you propose it.

[Anonymous]

OP, your wife has some pressures and some anxiety. She sees other parents spending. She sees influencers spending and she believes that she must spend otherwise kids are doomed. Do therapy together. Agree on what goes to 401ks, savings, investments, 529s each month. If you are able to put $$ away, it should lessen your stress about her overspending.

[Anonymous]

A PP again.

At HHI of $200-ish K...

2 daycare bills...there is no prestige daycare where I live...I remember these bills together were about the cost of renting a 1 BR apt.

We did toddler music at home at low cost using DVDs of music educators and our own set of instruments.

Kids went to nice summer day camps all summer long at elementary school age...$300-400 ea. per week. Zoo, robotics, entrepreneurship, etc.

One kid did two years of martial arts.

Both went through swim lessons from early toddler to highest lesson level before swim team at the local Y.

We took the kids skiing and snowboarding and each had some ski school and formal lessons. Hundreds of dollars each season.

Each started music lessons in 6th grade which is very late. $25/half hour min per kid, weekly. I wanted them to love music, not force it. My first music lesson with an instrument was at 4 years old. Husband also started early. They were fine for high school orchestra...but would never be recruited to college to round out an ensemble. One does a local youth orchestra on top of school orchestra ($400 a year). We also sent them each to music sleepaway camp 1-2 times each...about $1,200 for ten days each enrollment.

For several years in middle school/high school, spent about $650/mo. on franchise math tutoring for both, during the school year. Needed to solidify their math skill sets post-pandemic and keep their grades up.

We avoided sports...no time for youth soccer without trashing our workweek and weekends. No other team sports would have been a good fit. Saved a lot that way and the kids didn't care. But it was a bit counterculture.

Sent each kid to a special language or study abroad camp 1x during high school. $6K for the language camp, maybe $8K for the study abroad camp, including airfare.

High school ECs were pretty inexpensive. From what I see, sports and anything that travels outside the metro are the things that raise costs.

Our townhouse is relatively inexpensive. I gather in the outskirts of Bethesda, it might be a $700K property, based on age and size. This frees up money for these luxuries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry OP. This is a hard one.

Does your wife work and contribute meaningfully to HH income? What is she spending excessively on? (clothes, house, vacations, etc?)

Before leaping to divorce and breaking up your kids' home, what have you done to rein this in?

She does work but I make the bulk of our income.

We have 3.5 year old twins. We both want what’s best for their future but my wife goes overboard.

Excessive spending

- Most expensive daycare
- Most expensive preschool
- An expensive I caved and bought
- A new car
- expensive activities for the kids
- A tutor for the kids ( no joke)
- wasting hundreds each shopping trip
- always purchases random crap she sees online

This is just the tip of the iceberg. She didn’t use to be this way. Motherhood has made her very competitive.

This post is a huge red flag for me…about you.

Because it shouldn’t be relevant whether the preschool is the “most expensive” or the activity is “expensive.” The only question is if it fits in your budget. If it doesn’t, it’s too expensive even if it’s the cheapest preschool and the activity is the cheapest activity.

I don’t think any couple can be happy if you’re trying to agree on what’s “expensive” or “reasonable” or whatever. People are going to make different calls within a budget. It’s being within the budget that you have to agree on, and you have to agree on the long term plan that is the foundation for the budget.

You are the absolute worst kind of woman. Man-hater. OP already said they are living above their means. What more do you need? Disgusting. I bet you don't have a job and spend your husband's money like there's no tomorrow. What a POS.

Why wouldn’t you want your kids in the best preschool and activities. We live in a crummy house so we can do that. Op overspent on the house and is blaming her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A PP again.

At HHI of $200-ish K...

2 daycare bills...there is no prestige daycare where I live...I remember these bills together were about the cost of renting a 1 BR apt.

We did toddler music at home at low cost using DVDs of music educators and our own set of instruments.

Kids went to nice summer day camps all summer long at elementary school age...$300-400 ea. per week. Zoo, robotics, entrepreneurship, etc.

One kid did two years of martial arts.

Both went through swim lessons from early toddler to highest lesson level before swim team at the local Y.

We took the kids skiing and snowboarding and each had some ski school and formal lessons. Hundreds of dollars each season.

Each started music lessons in 6th grade which is very late. $25/half hour min per kid, weekly. I wanted them to love music, not force it. My first music lesson with an instrument was at 4 years old. Husband also started early. They were fine for high school orchestra...but would never be recruited to college to round out an ensemble. One does a local youth orchestra on top of school orchestra ($400 a year). We also sent them each to music sleepaway camp 1-2 times each...about $1,200 for ten days each enrollment.

For several years in middle school/high school, spent about $650/mo. on franchise math tutoring for both, during the school year. Needed to solidify their math skill sets post-pandemic and keep their grades up.

We avoided sports...no time for youth soccer without trashing our workweek and weekends. No other team sports would have been a good fit. Saved a lot that way and the kids didn't care. But it was a bit counterculture.

Sent each kid to a special language or study abroad camp 1x during high school. $6K for the language camp, maybe $8K for the study abroad camp, including airfare.

High school ECs were pretty inexpensive. From what I see, sports and anything that travels outside the metro are the things that raise costs.

Our townhouse is relatively inexpensive. I gather in the outskirts of Bethesda, it might be a $700K property, based on age and size. This frees up money for these luxuries.

We make less than you. Music lessons are $60. Orchestra is $1k, sports $2k, tutoring another $1k per child. And, maybe $3k for camos. One is $1500 for 4 days. Why not? What else do I have to spend money on.

[Anonymous]

Your poor kids.
They are over scheduled, and likely will struggle to grow with confidence and build independence. Plus they carry the burden of their mother’s anxiety and expectations.

For your kids’ sake, try to help your wife get help for herself. And cut back that spending. Your kids can figure out how to play with pots and pans and empty boxes and crayons.