So i’m a saver and more frugal than my wife and even though we earn roughly the same money gross she earns a bit more after taxes and debt servicing as I have couple of home improvement loans i’m paying off each month.
She also just borrowed £80k from her parents to do up a 2nd property we bought…
She wants to go on another holiday this year (which her mum/dad would be annoyed at given the loan). A weekend in Ibiza and I can’t afford it as I have a couple more things I need to do to the house. And I spent £300 this weekend on a night out with drinks and dinner…
This year we have been to, South Africa, Seychelles, Dubai, Brazil, Argentina, Paris (for her birthday) and Bruges. Now she wants to do Ibiza for our 1yr anniversary, because a nice dinner and drinks isn’t special enough, we have to fly out to Ibiza, go raving, expensive dinner etc etc…
I don’t mind spending money, but when i’m dipping into savings which I’m supposed to be using to do up the house. That is when I get annoyed.
Anyway we’ve had a massive row, when she called me tight fisted and a bunch of swear words. Telling me I dont care about her and that I dont spend my money. She then agreed to pay for flights and accomodation…but I literally have no money left to spend on dinners and drinks which will add up easily given how much things cost out there…
You are saying that you already went for 6 vacations on 3 continents this year… and that that’s still not enough? Where does your wife obtain the impression that her expectations are realistic? Does she have rich Russian heiress or other friends who just party all year? I am not saying that I am qualified to prescribe action on other peoples’ personal affairs, but perhaps your wife should talk to a neutral third party who can comment on this level of spending.
If it were me and I had to talk to my wife about this issue, I would sit her down, and be very nice - “You know I love you very much and want to have a long future with you. I want to have XXX financial goals, to provide a better future for us together. So here is what I would like to put aside… etc.” I think chicks like that kind of talk. But presumably you already did this…
Dude, I honestly feel for you, I’ve seen this sort of wives ruin countless relationships. My baby’s momma stays at home and has very low earning power, but she’s also low maintenance (I noticed her borrowing my socks when she ran out while pregnant to save money) and now that we’re on our feet again I’m very thankful for that.
My brother is an accountant and has a wife with crazy expectations and the strain is visible, at the same time a friend of mine in NYC has a wife who wants to quit law for photography (hobby) after two years of practice with a full load of law school debt because it doesn’t fulfill her (WTF?).
I did something like this when she first suggest we go away again. I already told her that it’s not financially feasible for me and we can go somewhere else. In fact we had already booked to go away on a £400 per night weekend trip in the country side for 2 nights (we get 1 night free) with a spa and dinner etc. It would have been great, but expensive.
She then booked to go out with my mate and his gf on the weekend to a bar called ‘nightjar’ and i blew £300 on dinner and drinks for the table. And I need £650 for some rendering and paint work on my house. And she has organised a big BBQ party where we spent £600 on champs for all our friends… Granted she has spent a lot of money too! But dude…I can’t afford to keep up and match her… i need to save a bit for some other essentials…
We discussed it. But she’s gone a bit nuts for my liking. Last time we went away she said ‘no more trips’ but we’ve been to Paris, Bruges and now Ibiza since then.
She wont tell her mum/dad that we’re going away coz they’ll be plssed as they’ve just lent her their £80k pension pot to do up our 2nd property.
Yep you both need to be on the same page financially speaking (it sounds like you both do well) or relationships can go south in a hurry. Money issues are a big cause of divorce and when you have a free spending wife or husband and a conservative saver this can create problems. It is all about balance though in my opinion and savers can be good for spenders and spenders can be good for savers. It sounds like things are out of balance at the moment and that is how I would frame it in discussions with her.
Nothing better than spending ~$500 at an authentic speakeasy in a country that never had prohibition.
You may have to indefinitely postpone discretionary home CAPEX and let the place get shitty for awhile. Does she not want the remodelling done?
This separate wallet thing does not seem to be working for you guys. Possibly you could tell her that if she wants separate accounts, then she can have separate accounts but then she does not get to dictate your spending. It’s in or out, this is how the Euro got f*cked.
And she keeps calling me lazy… Dude do you know how much I DIY I do in the house!!! SOO much!! I’m constantly doing things. Her housework is all done by the cleaner she pays £20 per week, but there is no way I can get a cleaner to do all the DIY as it would cost a fortune.
Last weekend i got up early, went to the tip, chopped down bushes and trees, cleaned the car, jet washed the front of the house, painted the gate, did the lawn mowing, weeding, sweeping, did a bbq. She went to get her nails done for 2.5hrs… and then comes back and calls me lazy, or I have no regard for what she does in the house.
Her work is sitting on her phone ordering things… she orders lots of things… she spent £600 on a side board cupboard thing which i lovely but I mean…come on! It’s not that hard to order a side board… She also spent about 5hrs looking for a bikini online for holiday whilst I was doing DIY and dying from a hangover from hell.
It’s my house, and she keeps cussing it for being so trampy. It was a tramps house until she got in there to sort things out… she keeps saying how horrible it is. So i took out a loan to do it all up. And i’m still making improvements…
You have the easiest fix. Suck it up and take the trip let her spend away. Leak the details of the trip to her parents including bills, etc and explain that you’re in distress, but she is hurting the marriage and she can’t know you told them.
Alternately, just flat out tell her parents now that she’s being selfish by taking their money and it doesn’t feel right, align the forces.
Nothing like having your parents pull in a loan and scold you for acting like a child to check things down a few notches.
You can also refuse to pay for or make improvements then. You’re killing me here because you have so many levers to pull and you’re not using any of them. She’s walking all over you and it’s starting to look like more and more your own doing.
Like Ohai said…six vacations on three continents? $100k-ish (USD) on a “second house”? With money borrowed from her parents? Pay a housekeeper $25 (USD) per week? Two things come to mind:
If all this is true, then your wife has a real problem and may have to have a “moment of clarity”. There may be nothing you can do. And you need to pay your housekeeper more. But I’m going to bet that all this stuff
Argh, I don’t normally agree with anything BlackSwan says, but this is so sweet!
My wife’s parents always take my side. So if anything like this ever happened over here, I’d call her mom, and not hide it either, and her mom would rip her to pieces. The fact is women have to receive a beat-down sometimes, or they run crazy. Parents are a great source of beat-downs!
…but this is depressing to read, this person is way out of control.
She wasnt like this before you were married? Did you get married for pregnancy or any other “forced to” reason? B, just get a divorce…this chick is cray.