Working with a spouse who is fearful and avoidant about budgets!

[valerie22]

After years of survival and subsistence jobs, working hard to get out of debt, and finally getting a mortgage in a medium cost of living area, we're dealing with a new phase of budgeting in our marriage— and I'm wondering if some of you have worked out a clever way to handle the tension of different feelings about money in your marriage.

Our situation currently is that I make twice as much as my husband in a job that makes me pretty miserable. He's emotionally supportive of me making a change, but just... won't engage with the realities of how we wouldn't be able to cover our bills if I did that. His current job is good for him, and he's less flexible than I am with what he'll tolerate at work, so him changing jobs isn't really on the table.

I've been trying to figure out ways to help share the pressure I'm feeling, like asking us each to pay half of our shared expenses from our separate paychecks just to get him to process that we would need to make real changes for me to scale back, but I don't want to feel controlling or nickel-and-diming, and I would much rather find a way to feel like we're in this together.

Generally my husband is a very kind and considerate person, a hard worker, and frugal about most things, he just has an insane level of fear and avoidance about engaging with money at all. Has anyone worked through this yourself, or with a partner?

 

[starlightviolet199]

@valerie22 Have you checked out the book I Will Teach You to Be Rich? The author also has a podcast. It might be worth checking out. I've personally found that doing his Conscious Spending Plan (it's used in the podcast and can be downloaded for free) has helped me have a better relationship with my finances. It might be a good exercise for the two of you to see how everything looks now and how numbers would change if you took a different job.

 

[valerie22]

@starlightviolet199 Thanks for the rec! The issue here is that I do a lot of research, read books, strategize, and budget— but I can't get my partner to engage, and if I try to get him to read or engage with something he shuts down. I could make executive decisions on my own based on my knowledge and research, but that would mean dictating big lifestyle changes to him instead of problem solving together, which creates a bad dynamic in the relationship.

 

[kimgrogg]

@valerie22 It might be time for some couples counseling around this issue, specifically, if he completely refuses to engage with it.

 

[starlightviolet199]

@valerie22 I forgot in my first reply that the book author has a Netflix show that's like the podcast but faster paced. It could be something to watch together. A little more engaging than a podcast.

 

[mars88]

@valerie22 I have exact situation with my wife. I am a prudent studier of finance and was the one to initiate a budget 5-6 years ago. Funny part is my wife works in finance but wants me to take charge. How we separated things that work good for us is once we got house expenses with kids and bills agreed and then agreed upon a discretionary amount and split it even. This avoids a lot of arguments about where money is going and who’s it is

 

[abigailwealth_1]

@valerie22 I was in your position with an ex once, and I tried everything to improve the intense reaction and emotional flooding that happened when I tried to discuss finances. I tried getting a financial planner and working with an accountant, but he would just ask the same series of questions and repeat them as if they hadn't already given detailed explanations of the answer an hour before. I later learned that the tax people where just blocking off two sessions to just to deal with my ex.

When it looks like this, the problem is an emotional one and likely not actually about money. He might not know what he's actually being triggered by or freaking out about something else and saying it's about money helps him avoid a conversation he's more afraid of.

In my case, it was complicated, but when we fought about not having enough money, there would be a part of the cycle about how he was a victim, because I didn't make enough even though I used my awesome spreadsheet skills to show we were more than fine.

Then, one day I agreed to get a better job, and got a free ride to go back to school for it, and then suddenly it wasn't fair that I wasn't home all the time to take care of him. He'd start fights every time I was trying to study for tests.

What is happening with your husband is probably a completely different, but also big thing if he's reacting so hard.

Ask him what he thinks and feels about how lonely you feel with the finances. Don't actually talk about the finances, because this is actually about your feelings and your needs. Keep the conversation centered on how you feel alone, and what does he feel knowing you are experiencing this.

Bottom line is that if he can't or won't have all the conversations necessary to make an informed decision with you about you leaving your job, then you do not actually have his support.

Apply to positions with better pay for yourself, because your husband might have a serious problem you aren't aware of or don't understand. Don't put yourself in a situation where you might be dependent on a person that is unable to do an adult thing like talk about a budget.

 

[deannaa]

@valerie22 Hey there. I was the you in your situation and I just talked with my spouse about what helped her attitudes shift. She used to be incredibly anxious and avoidant about talking about money and now has no issues. Here were the things that helped her:

We scheduled a time to talk about our finances once a month and having a required time to talk about it made it became easier to discuss

We made a spreadsheet of all of our accounts. Her fear was she didn’t have an understanding of our finances and didn’t really know where to look or how to begin. Consolidating everything into one place made looking at it much less anxiety producing

It was mostly very overwhelming for her to think about it, so getting everything organized and taking specific time to update spreadsheet and talk helped a lot.

As a previous poster mentioned, her fear and anxiety was emotional and based a lot on financial issues growing up. She didn’t pursue therapy for these issues but it might help if your spouse can identify the root causes of the anxiety and work through them.

Best of luck, it is very possible for you guys to get to a place where he is comfortable taking about finances because we did it!

 

[him]

@valerie22 He may be a hard worker, but if he’s comfortable and lacks ambition to step up his earning capacity, I would not ever count on this happening. Low ambition also equates to poor team work. So you may have to take complete charge of finances if you need to change jobs. Speaking from experience.

 

[itsmeheathermarie]

@valerie22 So you currently don't pool your money together?

How has your budgeting been done in the past?

To me, an outsider, it seems possible this is could be more an emotional / control issue than a financial one. If "you" paid for X, Y, Z and now are asking frugal him to pay for part of it, then he could be torn between being loving / supportive of you while at the same time being fearful of how it will impact "his" budget and the conflict between the two emotions is creating a logjam.

(Have had similar issues with my spouse on things regarding time / kids instead of money - and this was basically the problem behind the refusal to communicate and they didn't even consciously realize it. Took quite a bit for us to figure it out, but once able to identify it, could communicate about it and then solve it.)