I can't believe the folks who are defending the wife. I've been married 24 years. My husband lets me handle all the bills and he gets a weekly stipend. He is horrible with money and he knows it. I would never order a home renovation without his input that is beyond selfish and rude. It doesn't matter who is paying.

If op was a woman and her husband had done what ops wife did people on here would have a fit.

OP, it really depends on your view. I don't generally consult my husband. I let him know what's going on and he may have an opinion but generally I make all the decisions with the house. He'd love to be relegated to our unfinished basement. I am trying to refinish it for him, but he'd be very content with his computer down there (I had him move it up so he'd get more use given we have young kids who cannot be upstairs alone). My husband is thrilled when I don't consult him and he's more than happy to pay for it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a bit skeptical of OP's account, because there zero gray area in his account, and he's far too certain of the outrageousness of his wife's behavior for me to believe he's really lookng for a discussion of the fairness of what she did. So, OP, what are you really looking to get out of this thread?

OP here.

I am not looking for specific advice (e.g. use the guest bedroom as an office) I could easily figure that out myself. If you read my original post here is my question:

"If the roles were reversed I would have asked her if it would be ok for me to use the space as my personal office. I would not assume that she should stay in the basement. I also wouldn't assume that she should be the one to move into the basement if I want my own personal room.

Am I looking at this incorrectly? "

To me her behavior seems outrageous (although not really out of character for her). Hiring the contractors with consulting me was bad enough. Assuming I would stay in the basement worse still. Telling me there was nothing wrong with what she was doing because she paid for it(especially since I pay for the mortgage), left me almost speechless.

To me her behavior is outrageous. So much so I started to wonder if maybe I was missing something. Hence my original post.

But again, there's no gray area here, nowhere do you present some kind of sense of why you think you're missing something or why you've been tolerating this, none of the self-doubt that tends to come with someone just realizing their partner has been gaslighting them, etc. It feels like you've put out this ridiculously exaggerated version of what happened so you could go back to your wife and tell her even the internet thinks she's crazy to "win" some argument.

NP here. Yes, the wife was inconsiderate. The way I look at it, you wouldn't treat a roommate staying in your house that way to just move their crap to another room and say now you have to stay in the basement. You wouldn't even treat someone staying for free in your house that way ...you may not ask permission but you would have at least had a heads up/discussion. You definitely shouldn't throw "well I paid for it" in someone's face after you behave outrageously. It doesn't give you the right to be rude to someone. So no, you aren't crazy. I can't imagine treating my spouse that way.

That said the question always becomes, so how do you deal with someone in a way that you stand up for yourself but don't antagonize the situation and make you look like the drama queen when someone is being unreasonable. People are pointing out the guest room because that was the obvious choice that was available without putting you out but was less in your face than moving your desk to the same room where presumably it will be hard to actually get work done while you are in a standoff. I don't know if you have kids (hoping not) but you can easily take the stand in the marriage and say no kids (if you planned to) until the control issues/communication is worked out. You can work individually with a counselor on how to manage your wife's controlling tendencies. At some point you may have to be willing to walk away if you can't live like this the next 20 years. You should be taking a stand with the marriage itself, not by placing the desk next to hers. Hopefukky if DW realizes how serious it is she will want to work on the issues too.

Good luck.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a bit skeptical of OP's account, because there zero gray area in his account, and he's far too certain of the outrageousness of his wife's behavior for me to believe he's really lookng for a discussion of the fairness of what she did. So, OP, what are you really looking to get out of this thread?

OP here.

I am not looking for specific advice (e.g. use the guest bedroom as an office) I could easily figure that out myself. If you read my original post here is my question:

"If the roles were reversed I would have asked her if it would be ok for me to use the space as my personal office. I would not assume that she should stay in the basement. I also wouldn't assume that she should be the one to move into the basement if I want my own personal room.

Am I looking at this incorrectly? "

To me her behavior seems outrageous (although not really out of character for her). Hiring the contractors with consulting me was bad enough. Assuming I would stay in the basement worse still. Telling me there was nothing wrong with what she was doing because she paid for it(especially since I pay for the mortgage), left me almost speechless.

To me her behavior is outrageous. So much so I started to wonder if maybe I was missing something. Hence my original post.

Yes, OP, it is outrageous for a spouse to say, "But I paid for it," when referring to a renovation in the home you both share as a married couple. Get to counseling now. Her issue is that attitude and comment. Your issue is that you sat by and let this all happen and are now complaining about all this. Again, get to counseling. You need a professional, not some words of advice from an anonymous forum.

OP, you seem like kind of a baby. Your wife fixed up one of your two spare rooms and paid for a renovation to use it as an office. Instead of just moving your shit to the other spare room, you're trying to horn in on her space by illogically cramming a second desk in there. That's dumb. Just fix up the other room. You sound selfish and helpless.

Anonymous wrote:I am a bit skeptical of OP's account, because there zero gray area in his account, and he's far too certain of the outrageousness of his wife's behavior for me to believe he's really lookng for a discussion of the fairness of what she did. So, OP, what are you really looking to get out of this thread?

OP here.

I am not looking for specific advice (e.g. use the guest bedroom as an office) I could easily figure that out myself. If you read my original post here is my question:

"If the roles were reversed I would have asked her if it would be ok for me to use the space as my personal office. I would not assume that she should stay in the basement. I also wouldn't assume that she should be the one to move into the basement if I want my own personal room.

Am I looking at this incorrectly? "

To me her behavior seems outrageous (although not really out of character for her). Hiring the contractors with consulting me was bad enough. Assuming I would stay in the basement worse still. Telling me there was nothing wrong with what she was doing because she paid for it(especially since I pay for the mortgage), left me almost speechless.

To me her behavior is outrageous. So much so I started to wonder if maybe I was missing something. Hence my original post.

Anonymous wrote:I am a bit skeptical of OP's account, because there zero gray area in his account, and he's far too certain of the outrageousness of his wife's behavior for me to believe he's really lookng for a discussion of the fairness of what she did. So, OP, what are you really looking to get out of this thread?

One should always be skeptical of an OP's account. They will always be one-sided, painting themselves in the best light, and their spouse as uncooperative and inflexible. I get the same vibe from the weekend away thread. People don't want advice. They simply want to "win" by having a bunch of strangers side with them.

I always think it'd be funny to get The other spouse's version of everything posted on this board. I'm guessing we'd get a lot of different stories.

I am a bit skeptical of OP's account, because there zero gray area in his account, and he's far too certain of the outrageousness of his wife's behavior for me to believe he's really lookng for a discussion of the fairness of what she did. So, OP, what are you really looking to get out of this thread?

Anonymous wrote:No, you aren't looking at it incorrectly, although the emphasis should be on the "Clearly we have other issues" part. That's 98% here.

To me, a reasonable compromise would be two offices, one of them with a murphy bed to use when you have guests (if there is space). I would hate sharing an office with my husband as I use it full time, but I also would never relegate my spouse to the basement. There are alternatives here, the problem is your marriage issues, which you know.

+1

Anonymous wrote:I agree that counseling is desperately needed. Usually when a marriage starts everything is combined instead of separate so that trust can be built and you won't always think in terms of mine and hers. I found a great article online that describes the danger of keeping things separated, maybe it will help a little http://www.focusonthefamily.com/marriage/money-and-finances/money-management-in-marriage/his-hers-or-ours Hope you get things worked out soon.

RJays7

But this doesn't always have to be the case. When we married, we had both a lot of established accounts, registered accounts for bill paying, etc. We kept all of our accounts as is, but we added each other's name to the accounts. In 13 years, I think I've looked in my wife's accounts maybe once and vice versa, but we both have our names on each others accounts. We also check every quarter how much we each have in savings, checking, etc and we jointly make decisions about what to do. A few years ago, we shifted a large amount from my account to her account because the interest rate at her credit union was significantly higher. She has an automatic transfer of a certain amount from her account to mine every month to help pay the bills since I do all the bills.

There is no reason that you need to combine everything in order to have trust. You have to have transparency and access so that each can always look or move money if needed, but you don't need to change the way you bank in order to create trust. Concealing and locking things away prevent the trust from building, but not maintaining separate financing.

Wow your wife sure wears the pants in the family...and then some.

It was totally inconsiderate and selfish of her to ASSUME that she would get her own office while you would be relegated to the basement. What does she think you are? A squatter....??!

If she is going to be stubborn and not budge that she deserves the whole office for herself, then I would just ASSUME that she would be okay with you using the guest room as your office.

I work from home all the time. DH works from home a few nights a month. I got annoyed when he moved my stuff around in the office, so we set up a desk in our guest room.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that counseling is desperately needed. Usually when a marriage starts everything is combined instead of separate so that trust can be built and you won't always think in terms of mine and hers. I found a great article online that describes the danger of keeping things separated, maybe it will help a little http://www.focusonthefamily.com/marriage/money-and-finances/money-management-in-marriage/his-hers-or-ours Hope you get things worked out soon.

RJays7

That article is wayyy off the rails.

It was a weird article, probably because of the God angle and that crap about relinquishing 95% of our rights to our partner.

But I agree in the larger sense about the financial stuff. To each his own but I can't imagine a marriage where each spouse maintains their own separate money and they share expenses like roommates. That seems bizarre to me for a married couple.