I need advice. How do couples discuss money without fighting? Every time I try to discuss finances with my wife it ends up being a fight or just "not the right time".
We've been married for about 8 months now. We have yet to combine our finances. I would prefer having a joint checking account, but we can't seem to get together on it. I would at least like to be able to download information from her accounts into MS Money for tracking and budgeting purposes. She got upset when I mentioned it.
I make about twice as much as she does, but pay almost all the household bills except for her car, her and her kids cell phone bill, and some of the groceries. When we bought our house, I made all the down payment and other purchase payments. I paid for her laptop. I paid for a couple of her children's soccer camps. I'm just feeling used and not like a couple looking towards the future. I have other obligations including child support payments and a child in college to help out.
She mentioned wanting to take the kids to Disney/Universal Studios this spring. Her idea was for her, her two children, and I to go. Apparently taking my 15 year old daughter with us never crossed her mind; of course that's a whole other issue. I just questioned if we could look at the money before planning an expensive trip and she got mad.
Money Fights
October 20th, 2007 at 02:22 am
October 20th, 2007 at 05:08 pm 1192900082
Have you and your wife ever discussed what your financial goals are? Before sitting down and looking at money, its usually better to decide what each person values, otherwise there can be a lot of accusatory "why did you spend money on that!!!" kind of stuff.
If she really doesn't like the idea of combining finances, one option is to keep things separate but hand her some of the bills so she is carrying her share of the load as well.