Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
He insists on splitting bills, despite his raise, wife’s pay cut OPINION TELL ME ABOUT IT
DEAR CAROLYN: When my husband and I first met in 2015, we both had jobs we loved and made approximately the same, about $100,000 annually each. As part of our relationship understanding, we deliberately kept our finances separate and got one joint credit card that we use for mutual expenses and pay evenly.
Over the years, we both made progress in our careers and at the beginning of 2020 we were both making around $150,000 annually. Then covid hit. I lost the job I loved and have been forced to take a significant pay cut to $60,000. Meanwhile, with a few lucky breaks, he’s now making well over $300,000.
I’m happy for him, but he still insists we split all the bills evenly. Frankly, I can’t afford it. I don’t want to deny him the perks of making that kind of income, but I can’t split $200 dinners out every other night or lavish vacations. I’ve been trying to keep up but have now been dipping into my savings and 401(k) to do so. When I try to bring the topic up, I get a lecture about how he used to make $60k (when he was 24 and lived with his parents) and made it work and that I need to be better at budgeting.
I don’t know what to do. We have a happy, loving marriage otherwise, but I can’t financially kill myself either.
— S. DEAR READER: He’s a terrible person.
Can I just come out and say that? To quote every kid in every car ever, are we there yet?
I want to respect the “happy, loving marriage otherwise,” I really do, and honor your 2015 judgment in choosing him as your spouse. I’d like to think he’s just having a terrible moment.
But your career got kneecapped in a global economic spasm, and Hubbums decided the proper expression of sympathy was … continued luxury-spending and a bill for half? And a lecture that glorified his 24-year-old dependent self?
Unless you’re misrepresenting him somehow, that’s a first-ballot Hall of Shame-r.
Just to be clear — separate accounts are not the problem. There are many respectful ways to share a life.
Sharing liabilities but not assets is the problem. Smug condescension is the problem. Capricious disregard for your suffering is the problem. And that joint credit card is a problem you want out of carefully and ASAP.
It’s also not all on him. When you first logged on to your 401(k) to appease a spouse who had apparently incurred brain/empathy damage from sniffing his own superiority, there has to have been a little bell going off somewhere in your head. One you ignored.
So that’s where you start: By heeding the alarm of his cruel condescension and your capitulation to it, and standing up for yourself. Telling him where he can stuff his lecture.
Your husband’s lecturing does work, actually, as a kind of blueprint for you. You can start to right yourself emotionally by getting “better at budgeting,” and decline all dinners and vacations you can’t afford. He can keep his perks. You can’t.
Reserve your money for counseling, if your new job doesn’t offer an Employee Assistance Program — and for a good attorney. Both can provide support where your spouse has declined to despite his multiple, ongoing, obvious and (for him) readily affordable opportunities to behave as a life partner would.
I’m sorry yours is a dud. And don’t lay another hand on your 401(k), unless it’s to get yourself free.