Reply to We can’t afford it but she wants it. What do I say?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You have to show her the actual numbers.  You have to be prepared with your own financial bottom line on retirement, emergency savings, and college savings.

People like your wife are "fuzzy thinkers" about money. You cannot let their fuzziness, denial, and wishful thinking ruin your own finances.

Sorry to say you'll just have to be very assertive and put your foot down.

If she insists, you may have no other option than to separate finances, if you don't already.  That is, you get your own bank account, and your paycheck goes there.  You contribute 50% of the joint expenses, and then what you have decided into retirement, emergency savings, and college fund.  If she thinks she can pay for private school entirely out of her own money, then she can do that.  But I assume she cannot.

I know this sounds harsh, but you can't let her ruin your and your children's economic futures.  [/quote]
It’s doesn’t sound harsh, it sounds clueless. What are you 80? Put the little woman in her place…
Follow this advice, Op, and it won’t end well. [/quote]

PP here. I am actually in this scenario with the genders reversed, so.  It is actually MORE crucial for women to operate this way if there are intractable disagreements about money.

Regardless of gender, I'm not sure what you think a financial partner is supposed to do when the other party wants to spend money the partnership does not have or that creates financial risk.  The "separate finances" approach is not fairy tale, but (short of divorce) it's the best way to manage a financially irresponsible partner.  [/quote]
They need to put their heads together and find something that's agreeable.  Only send for high school and keep them in public for the middle school.  Look for a cheaper alternative.  Cut out vacations.  
Marriages don't work out to just say - nope - we'll do separate finances and that's that. There is some middle ground that you need to find. [/quote]

Ideally that’s how it works. But if one spouse is financially irresponsible or exploitative, the other spouse has to protect themselves. OP’s wife is trying to pressure him into pretty seriously prejudicing his finances in an irrational way. [/quote]
OPs wife could say he doesn’t care about their education. We’re not there yet - there is still time to come to a mutual agreement. [/quote]

And she would be exaggerating. Whereas he is not exaggerating. This isn’t a “both sides” disagreement. [/quote]

PP was responding to a comment implying that OP’s wife is exploitative. I agree with PP - it’s not exploitative to want to stretch to pay for private; that would be the same as saying OP doesn’t care about his kids’ education.

They take care of these kids together, and one partner doesn’t get to make all the financial or educational decisions. I do see OP’s side more on this but I think he should first try to mentally set aside his financial concerns and listen to why his wife really wants their kids in private, and then together they can be creative to see how they can take care of those concerns without blowing up their finances. They can get creative. In our family I did that and I wound up homeschooling for two years and I still do weekend enrichment. OP has more options than just flat-out saying no and getting into credit card debt. [/quote]

I don’t know if OP’s wife is exploitative, but it can certainly happen.

I don’t disagree that if OP can, he should get to common ground and listen.

But, my concern when I hear stories like this is that the spouse is just not thinking clearly at all. It is truly not rational to say you’re going to spend down your emergency and college funds and not save for retirement. OP seems befuddled by this and not sure what to do. In this type of scenario I think it is VERY important for the sane spouse to have very clear bottom lines and understand that the other spouse’s views are objectively unacceptable.

If you’ve never been in the scenario of having to deal with a spouse, partner, boss, parent who is not attached to reality … you are lucky. When the person on the other side of the relationship is not reasonable, you cannot rely on the things that you would do with a normal person. They don’t respond to that. Because they are not normal. [/quote]

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