Since my husband and I have been married 8 yrs ago, we have always lived payday to payday and basically been broke, never able to save. Neither one of us knew how to manage money when we first started out, so we never learned to save etc. Since before we were married I handled the checkbook and budgeting, but he always knew what shape we were in. (I started when we were dating because he was always having bounced checks and late notices) Every once in a while i would show him where we were etc. I am one that learns from mistakes and was ready to be free from that stress, it was terrible. Last year God richly blessed us with a lot of money. We were able to pay off everything except our home, car and his motorcycle. We were able to have 3 months worth of income and planned to put it in a money market account. I set for HOURS planning a new budget so we could save and have extra money a month. Now the trouble really starts: I find out a couple of months later, he put the 3 months of income in the stock market. We were getting statements telling how much we had lost, etc. Then, w/o discussing anything with me, he goes and buys a truck that has a note, terrible gas milage, and high insurance. That totally blew out the budget of saving and extra money I had carefully planned and he knew I had carefully planned. We are now in the hole every payday again. Now my husband who at one point was my best friend and who I was in love with, is the object of my resentment. I just can't stand him for getting us back in this shape after God so mercifully got us out of it!!! Now here I am again: stressing over bills and money, being short every payday. I just don't know what to do! I have talked to him and showed him what he did to us. He was very contrite, said he was sorry for being selfish. and that was it. Now I am stuck. And right now I don't even feel love for him. I mean now everything he does just stabs the resentment deeper. ie: playing video games for hours, not helping me around the house, just any normal thing he does has now become major to me. I don't know what to do! I have tried to sell his motorcycle cuz he never rides it, but that would only free up $150/ month. If he sold the truck, we would only have my car and the motorcycle, the only way he would have to get to work would be the motorcycle, because the junker-paid-for-car he was using before, he bought from my aunt and she bought it back when he got the truck. I need my car to take my kids to school and part of my job is driving places. This and other things he has done lately has really come between us and I don't think he even realizes it.

Hi dontknowwhy

Have you read some of the MB principles from this site? It would seem that your H has undermined your relationship by not meeting some key emotional needs. So it is hardly surprising that you feel a loss of love for him.

But you must shoulder some of the responsibility for the present mess as you already knew your H was not wise with money and you allowed him to make further mistakes. Not all people are good with money.

So the question is; are you going to fight for your M or are you going to let this destroy it? Only you can decide.

If you decide to fight for your M, your boundary will have to be that you control the finances from now on. Tell him that you will POJA expenditures of more than X with him, that he will have X amount of spending for cash purposes each week and that everything else will need your signature.

And come up with a plan to solve the present mess which includes him selling or giving up something that he loves to make restitution to you. Don't worry that the amount saved is small, it is the gesture that matters.

Does that make sense?

Yes it makes sense and is kinda what I do now. I handle all the money and he gets an allowance. At first I got mad at this: "But you must shoulder some of the responsibility for the present mess as you already knew your H was not wise with money and you allowed him to make further mistakes." But the more I think about it, U R right. I could've stopped him with buying the truck, I guess. I just shouldn't have to because he is a grown man and has been right here with me through our lack of money our whole marriage. I guess I thought surely now he would make wise choices after all we've been through. With the truck, I didn't realize he was buying it until we were at the bank. Come to find out, He had done arranged with them the note and everything and was going to sign the papers, I thought he was just test driving it. I thought we were going to test drive it and come home to figure money and talk about it. It would have been very embarrassing to say in front of the loan people and the owner who rode with us to "test drive", hey you can't buy this, etc. But i should have instead of worrying about embarrassing him and myself. I admit it did cross my mind as I was sitting there in state of shock not believing what he was doing, when if finally dawned on me what he was doing. And he asked me, do you want to be on the loan, i was like no i don't think so. Ok, now I feel like an idiot for not stopping him. As for ENs, yes I have read some of the site and thought, that would be nice to do. He is not the type to do things like that. It would be onesided. B4 a couple of yrs ago when I have been really mad at him for something and was like I just feel like our marriage is over and I should leave, he said---If you want to leave, Bye. I was the one that started crying and said I don't want to leave I want to work on our marriage and make it work. Now I don't feel like I have the strength or desire to try not even for my children's sake. The sad thing is our 8th anniversary is April 1 and I don't even feel like celebrating it. And what really makes me sad, is for the most part our marriage has been better than any body elses we know. We were best friends, in love and compatible. I'm not sure what's happened. If it's me or him that's fell out of love. But to have lost what (I thought?) we had really is really sad to me.

The best solution I see is to start talking again. Like you did when you were dating. Ask him questions about himself. And really listen. Find out who he is these days. As you open up to him, he will open up more to him. Set up some 'dates' like picnics or walks, where you have to talk. Turn off the tv at least once a week and play board games or something.

Thank you, I may try that and stop thinking of me and what I want and thinking more of him. But that will be hard cuz I feel like i've done that my whole marriage all ready. Maybe I really haven't tho. IDK. I guess we just don't connect anymore. I find that when we are around each other with other people, I don't even like who he is now, he gets on my nerves. When we are alone, we talk about things, but there is always in me that underlying resentment now. We seem to be on 2 different roads. He is always saying we need to be on the same page (when I bring stuff up) and I say baby we aren't even at the same library.

I was in the exact same place in October. Hated my husband, convinced he does nothing, I deserve better. Thought it was stupid to stop LoveBusting him and to start meeting his Emotional Needs, when I was the one who needed it. But I did. And I learned to have some compassion for him again by doing it. And he responded a little better to me for me doing it. Which leads to the open communication. Make sure you read all the stuff here; very powerful stuff, and it works.

As you read more on this site and the books written by Dr Harley, you will realise that your feelings are completely normal and natural. Your H has not met a key emotional need of yours; financial security for many years and this latest disaster has dashed your hopes that this has changed.

But you knew it would not change and that you were setting up for another failure.

So you draw your boundary to make yourself safe from now on while you work on your marriage. Working on your marriage will allow your love banks to refill and will change your feelings towards your H. It will not change your H, that is not what is going to happen but it will change the dynamic that causes you to feel so despairing right now.

So you should do an emotional needs questionnaire for yourself. Decide what are your most important needs (not the unmet ones, the actually most important ones) so that you can see why you married your H. Then think about financial security and decide if it is a top need. If it is not, then think about what needs he is meeting. You may be surprised to find how many he is actually meeting already.

Then think about what his emotional needs are, try to guess them and give him the questionnaire. See if you got them right. Make it a game. Encourage him to guess yours - see how you are engaging him here?

Now you will be in a position to meet his needs, he will be better informed on yours and you and he can work on recovery. And don't forget, as catperson has said, to start communicating and having fun - 15 hours a week.

"But you knew it would not change and that you were setting up for another failure." How did you know that? are you pshycic? lol I had every hope it would change and the opportunity was there on a silver platter, I had changed, thinking he had too, but you are right, deep down I knew. I didn't realize that until you said it tho. wow. I told him this morning how this was affecting me and that i resent him still and it's gotten worse etc. This evening he told me he would get the money out of the stock market and pay off his motorcycle and truck. (dont' know if he actually will or not) He said he would take this as a hard lesson learned, hopefully he will. But i am going to keep our money etc under lock and key from now on. He also said what would it take for me to fall back in love with him...

Thank you for letting me know i'm not alone. I feel so guilty for not really loving him anymore. I know other women have it a lot worse and would do anything for a man like him. I am really going to start reading and doing the things on here like you said. He told me this evening what would it take for me to fall in love with him again, and that we need to start over dating and stuff. Also, he wants to rent a cabin on the lake for next weekend w/o kids. Of course my first thought was well we can't afford it cuz of you, but I didn't say that, lol. Maybe there is hope we will make it. I sure have been feeling hopeless.

I've been in the same feeling at times regarding finances. Something I discovered a few months ago (due to preparing for my deployment) that helps us is to have two bank accounts.

I have our money deposited into Bank account #1. I then set up all our "bills" to be autopaid out of this account. Due to the way the military is (and recent moves, plus this deployment), the exact amount of may pay fluctuates a bit each paycheck. Once I got the amount figured out for bills (X dollars each 2 weeks), I then had a small amount autopaid to our savings.

Here is where the second bank account comes in. I then have an autopayment for the remainder (after bills/savings) go to the other bank. That is our budget and nothing more. Since we don't "see" anything beyond that, it's easy to work with it.

I think the problem some people (your H, My W...) have is they can't see both the bills and the finances. When I look at my paycheck, I don't see X dollars, I see "X minus estimated bills". However others just see X dollars. It's hard for them to hear, "We are broke" when they look at the bank account and see "X" dollars there. Even if they "know" that bills are coming out, it doesn't really hit home.

So, money is a bit tight for us, but we are making strong payments to our credit cards, have all our bills paid and still have some left over for food, gas, entertainment. If we end up broke before the next payday we may have to carpool or look for those left-overs, but we will know that the bills and house payment are covered and our savings is getting a little boost. It is making a world of difference for us because it takes it out of our hands completely. Can't spend what you don't see....

Hope that helps...

I've never heard that before, it sounds like a good idea. That way all bills and savings are sure to be paid, hmmm, might try doing that.

Hope it helps! Let me know if it does.

It is a life saver to us since it took all the stress of "What bills do we pay" or "Did we already pay this?" confusion from our shoulders. Now we have them come out automatically, I don't have to even think about it.