I have been searching for topics about financial problems and how people deal with them, and I can't find one. I always heard that Sex and Money were two major areas of the breakup of marriages, however I haven't found any information on MB about this. Am I missing something here, or is this topic not a focus of MB at all?<p>My experience is that finances do play a major role in my own dissatisfaction because of not being able to keep a budget. I feel like I can do it if the W would help, but have never figured out a way to deal with finances with her. It usually gets ugly if I bring it up. Are there any threads out there talking about this topic? Certainly I can't be the only one that thinks this is important in rebuilding a marriage.<p>Please help!

The policy of joint agreement should fill the bill. I have the strangest feeling you havent read "Love Busters" the book by Dr Harley. [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img] After you both have read the book and agreed to the comitment of Policy of joint agreement. Your financial discussions should smooth out. Oh and the "Ugly" parts, well they are LBs too and ,,,,,,, never mind just read the book. May God be with you both.

Thanks dsimmons,<p>You are right, I haven't read any of the books, just what I've found on the site. I ordered the books a couple days ago, however they haven't arrived. I wanted to get them at B&N but they didn't have any in stock. <p>I'm not sure if she will agree to it yet, she doesn't even know I'm looking into this. I guess I just need to be more patient.<p>Thanks again.

<p>[ May 07, 2002: Message edited by: Lulu ]</p>

I do think a POJA is in order here. as for me, I am GREAT at making a paper budget...not so good at putting in practice. That's where my h comes in. I give him the budget and checks that are ready to mail and he takes it from there. Left up to me, I'll hold some of the bills 'just in case'...that's why we have money in the bank right now and a $662 electric bill!<p>Can you sit down with w and brainstorm on how to set up a better process? Maybe *she* is better at the paper end of it with you doing the 'legwork'. Maybe she is better about making sure the payments get in the mail. Maybe you both take some of the bills and handle them. There are a million ways to work it out but you do need to make a mutual agreement.

Finances have been a struggle for me all throughout my married life. I say me because it never seemed to bother my husband. When I would discuss how I felt about our finances, he would agree with me (when he really wasn't agreeing) and then do his own thing. Nothing seemed to change until I found this website. I used to think the problem was something I would never see an end to. I just had to learn some new approach to our particular situation since what we were doing certainly wasn't working. <p>One thing that has helped us is that my husband now has his own business checking account. Before I would try to reconcile our family account along with his business expenses. Often times he wouldn't receive business reimbursements in time to pay his business credit cards. It was extremely frustrating for me as I was the one reconciling our finances--I was the one that most wanted to reconcile so the responsibility fell to me. Now that he has a separate account for his business and his own credit card for business, I am no longer dealing with what was really his responsibility all along. It has helped tremendously in reducing my stress and has helped him to be more responsible too. <p>Hope this helps.