Anonymous wrote:Both of you are extremely conservative. I have no idea why you bickering over lousy investments. Whoever is buying crypto, is the one to make decisions. Well, in your case 'ETFs and individual stocks'.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some context, we’ve been married 10 years this year and have made good financial progress together. I am 39 and he is 41. I make more money currently, but haven’t always, and we plan for me to retire from my high stress job in 10 years while he’s happy to keeping working his rewarding low stress job for the next 30 years. By the time I retire, we’ll be able to maintain our lifestyle with his income (through a combination of his income going up moderately plus things like kids’ college being paid for) so we won’t have to touch either of our retirements until he retires at 70 unless we want to take some really special trips in our 60’s or pay for a wedding, etc. etc. We are both in 100% agreement with the above and about our financial goals and priorities generally.

Given the above, you would think that we’d never have a money argument! But we have had intense arguments over things like which investment vehicle to use to save for kids college or which investments to choose (even though neither of us are huge risk takers - think scenarios like person A wants all ETFs and person B wants a combination of ETFs and individual dividend stocks).

We do each give each other freedom about individual retirement accounts, but non-retirement investments (brokerage, real estate, kids’ college, etc.) we end up spending a lot of time disagreeing about approach, even though honestly it ends up being splitting hairs; both of our approaches would get us close to where we mutually agree we want to go.

DH commented tonight that he wishes I’d just let him make the decisions and back off, and this feels insane to me as a person who enjoys investing and thinking about optimizing the future and tax planning etc, but on the other hand, maybe it would bring peace to my marriage.

Given that I trust my husband and think he is incredibly smart, and everything would be transparent, and he’d keep me informed (in fact he’d enjoy telling me why he is doing x,y,z - he’d just want me to nod along), should I grant his wish and back off?

-signed, tired of stupid bickering

How come women always say the same thing - "my job is so stressful and it's killing me and DH job is low stress and love his job" kinda thing?

Anonymous wrote:I am hesitant to have a woman lose visibility on such things, knowing that half of marriages end in divorce.

How about you stop trying to convince him to follow your guidance but do have a rule that before important decisions he should share his reasoning and hear your reaction.

This should work (reduce fights) if he believes in your savvy as much you believe in his (ie, he will listen sincerely enough to be open to reconsidering his initial direction). And you have to commit to stating your reasoning once and letting him make the final decision. Maybe try this for a year and see how it goes

I like you still having a window into where the money is going and how it is doing. (Trust but verify…)

Anonymous wrote:I would like to think you could find a happy medium. My husband is very risk averse but he understands diversification. I have a 401K, and he "let" me change it to target year retirement target from whatever totally risk averse selection he had made when I let him solely be in charge. And, he reasoned that if I only changed mine, he still had his on a super low risk / no gain way - so we were still diversified.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find when there are issues where you both have good judgement, it makes sense for one of you to take the lead and the other to back off a bit. It is a partnership. There are enough other issues to worry about.

That said, I would only relax if he can really be trusted on this stuff.

+1. And if you have a high stress job, won’t you be relieved to have this off your plate?

Yes, I’m open to it, it’s just hard for a type A like me to give up control, and I just want to gage if it is normal and reasonable to do so. Thank you for your reply.

He does sometimes do things in a different way than I would, which can freak me out, but after 10 years I have enough evidence to see that his decisions are very sound.

Reading between the lines here, you’re clearly a controlling PITA who thinks you’re superior to your husband because you make more money than him, and while you say you trust him you really don’t. You’re never going to let go, ever, so stop pretending. Just keep fighting with your husband about money and continue to make him feel inadequate. That’s the game you’re playing.

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you are both savvy when it comes to investing or at least savvy enough. A few questions:

Do you trust him?
Will he update you and answer your questions?
Is he a prudent investor?
Is he a long term investor and not a trader?

If the answers are all yes, relax and let him do his thing.

Anonymous wrote:I would like to think you could find a happy medium. My husband is very risk averse but he understands diversification. I have a 401K, and he "let" me change it to target year retirement target from whatever totally risk averse selection he had made when I let him solely be in charge. And, he reasoned that if I only changed mine, he still had his on a super low risk / no gain way - so we were still diversified.

Reading between the lines here, you’re clearly a controlling PITA who thinks you’re superior to your husband because you make more money than him, and while you say you trust him you really don’t. You’re never going to let go, ever, so stop pretending. Just keep fighting with your husband about money and continue to make him feel inadequate. That’s the game you’re playing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find when there are issues where you both have good judgement, it makes sense for one of you to take the lead and the other to back off a bit. It is a partnership. There are enough other issues to worry about.

That said, I would only relax if he can really be trusted on this stuff.

+1. And if you have a high stress job, won’t you be relieved to have this off your plate?

Yes, I’m open to it, it’s just hard for a type A like me to give up control, and I just want to gage if it is normal and reasonable to do so. Thank you for your reply.

He does sometimes do things in a different way than I would, which can freak me out, but after 10 years I have enough evidence to see that his decisions are very sound.

Reading between the lines here, you’re clearly a controlling PITA who thinks you’re superior to your husband because you make more money than him, and while you say you trust him you really don’t. You’re never going to let go, ever, so stop pretending. Just keep fighting with your husband about money and continue to make him feel inadequate. That’s the game you’re playing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find when there are issues where you both have good judgement, it makes sense for one of you to take the lead and the other to back off a bit. It is a partnership. There are enough other issues to worry about.

That said, I would only relax if he can really be trusted on this stuff.

+1. And if you have a high stress job, won’t you be relieved to have this off your plate?

Yes, I’m open to it, it’s just hard for a type A like me to give up control, and I just want to gage if it is normal and reasonable to do so. Thank you for your reply.

He does sometimes do things in a different way than I would, which can freak me out, but after 10 years I have enough evidence to see that his decisions are very sound.

Anonymous wrote:OP no one knows your marriage but you, so difficult to advise. But a few uncomfortable things jumped out at me from your post:

You’re a hard worker, you enjoy investing, you make more money than your DH. Your arguments may be “splitting hairs” but you’re still having them, and you don’t sound like a dummy, so your points probably have merit. You’re being given two choices: keep arguing or back off entirely. Why not a third option, where you continue to work together, or learn to communicate about financial planning in a way that isn’t a fight? If you had no interest in finance, it would make sense to trust and bow out. But you do have interest in the topic, and you’re a high earner.

A plan to retire early, stop earning money, and trust to be “taken care of” by a spouse who wants me to “back off” of being involved in all financial discussions while I’m still young feels…not safe (to me). YMMV. But your post makes me wary.