It's interesting to read your troubles since I have some of that as well. My wife quit her job because she was unhappy there and wanted to go pursue training in something else. I wanted to be the supportive husband, looked at the numbers and said, "Ok, we can do it."
This happened with the understanding that she would pursue her dream to be a physical fitness trainer and help people and eventually get another job in that arena. Personally I didn't see it as a lucrative career choice, but I wanted to support her dream so I went with it. Well, she went with it and studied and slowly got various certifications. However, it never "took off" in the manner that I assumed it should. She was happy that the bills were paid and she worked a few hours each day and I slowly built up resentment.
The real kick for me was during an argument over money one day and I brought up her slow path to her dream and bringing in money. When I voiced, "What if I choose to retire after the military (USAF) and just go back to school. What do we do then?!" She looked at me like I just said something in latin and grew an alien tail. She basically said that I can't quit working and no one else would consider doing that. Obviously right after she said it, she "heard" her own words and back pedeled with the usual "Well, I'll get a job if I have to" and such, but I could tell that in her mind, I was there to pay the bills and she never considered the fact that it isn't "my job" as the man, but "our job" as the couple.
There is still issues in our home since she is still pursueing her dream, but has realized it's not going to pay our bills. She still hasn't gotten as far as I would like, but we will address it slowly. She is looking for a desk job and still has 101 reasons why she hasn't found it, but in her mind she is "looking hard". In my mind she isn't, but I have to also be open to the possibility that my own fears (grew up poor...) are downplaying her efforts while at the same time, since the bills are being paid, she doesn't have incentive to really work on a new job. Her excuses of "I don't want to have to drive far" or "I can't work doing this or that" or whatever would not matter if she was single and starving, but as I said, bills are paid so the same incentive isn't there yet. I'm being patient and supportive and setting deadlines where I'll turn up the fire, but for now, our peace is worth the lack of income.
One way to get him to see where the money is going and where it needs to start coming in is to include him more in the money. That helped us since my wife started to see why I was stressing. Start including him in the money plans. Don't put as a "You need to start seeing this!", but as a "We have bills to pay and I would like your help in sorting this out." so it's less confrontational. Set it up as a certain night each week (or two weeks or whatever...) and bring all the bills in one pile and a stack of money (not literally, just a pad of paper with the numbers... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ) and say, "Well, here is what we have. So, how should we take care of it?" Don't forget to put in there money for future plans, emergencies, etc... as well since they are as much your "bills" as the gas, electric, and cable are. After all if the car explodes or children need braces, you need to have plans for that as well.
When it becomes a simple "We have X amount coming in and X amount going out" then it is less about you telling him "You can't have X because we can't afford it!". Being told "You cannot do that!" may be part of the issue. Since he is seeing your statement as more of an attack on him and his desires than simply as a cut and dried numbers game and choices as "Is that a good choice based on our limited funds and what are we willing to give up to have that?" When my wife started to see that we had a limited budget of X amount she started to see that anything unwise literally took money out of the choices for food and gas and such.
An important thing is not to try for the end result yet either. For example, when I looked at the bills, I said, "I want to have X amount in savings because we need it!" What I eventually said was, "I want to put away X amount in savings each paycheck so that by X months we will have X amount total."
Oh! Another thing I did that helped immensely was by having two bank accounts. Now, she is on both and has access to both so she doesn't feel like it's a statement of distrust or something. One is our "Bills" account and one is our "everything else" account. I have all our bills automatically paid out of the bills account so we never see them. I then have as much of my pay go to that account so it's X amount in and X amount out without my ever seeing or touching it.
We then have the remainder of our money go to our "everything else" account. That is where we pay for variable bills like gas and food and entertainment. That way if we are broke on Week 3 of the month, our electricity and gas and cable are still getting paid. We simply know that the gas tank better last another couple days and we get that "nicety" next pay day...
It's tough to say, "We are broke!" when you have an entire paycheck in the bank. While you see it as "money toward bills", he see's it as just plain money in the bank therefore what's the problem. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
