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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was raised upper middle class and my husband's family struggled to put food on the table.  However, they're first generation immigrants and are actually quite cultured, etc.  But they struggled for the first twenty years or so of his life.

For us, the biggest divide has been the fact that his family had very traditional gender roles, which is probably more typical in working class families.  In his family, the women raise the children and the men go to the club after work with their friends to get away from the shrieking and the crumbs.  It was a struggle at first to get my husband to see that they were his kids too, not just my problem.

He also does most of the grocery shopping but was raised to buy just enough food.  When they went shopping on payday, their cupboards were bare!  As a working mom, I like to have lots of extra granola bars and toilet paper and stuff, and it sounds stupid but it used to really annoy me to have to dash out to the store on a weeknight because we were out of stupid stuff.  But now I have converted him to the wonders of Sam's Club.

Over the years we have fought about:  whether SAT tutoring is really necessary;  whether we should get the kids a math tutor or just make them study harder;  whether paying for summer camp is a waste of money.

Also, he thinks restaurants are a waste of money which can be hard on a Friday night when you're exhausted from working all week.

It never occurred to me that any of these things would be issues since we had similar educations and met at work.  We also disagree about how much to give to charity.[/quote]

I dated someone for a bit and we had these same issues. He had post-graduate degrees but was raised poor and he felt I was snooty for liking to go to a restaurant. He would buy single rolls of toilet paper!!! He paid his rent at the very last minute every month because that felt safer to him than paying it early or on the first of the month. It was definitely eye-opening for me how different backgrounds handle things. Ultimately we broke up because I need more financial stability -- not a rich guy but someone who pays bills on time and doesnt always wait until the very last minute to do anything and end up spending money foolishly because his options are limited from not planning for it or handling it earlier as that was his normal. It all stressed me out and I knew it would get worse once we had kids. He also resented me for having my finances and life in order and would not take my advice. [/quote]

He kind of sounds like my Bangladeshi husband. The club thing doesn't make sense though. Where is he from? [/quote]

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