Is there something wrong with me confronting my husband about the amount of money he spends on his hobby?
Over the past year my husband has become consumed with a particular hobby. It takes up a lot of his time and also a lot of money. He is always checking internet forums and emailing others in this field of interest. He makes lots of internet purchases for this hobby. I was curious about how much money he was spending, so I went through all of his credit card invoices for 2009 and got a total of nearly $5000. This is the minimum amount he spends, because it doesn't take into account his cash purchases (and I'm suspicious that the actual amount could be up to $7000). This issue came up in conversation today, because he asked me if I was glad he didn't buy this particular thing ($425 thing). At this point I had not told him of my calculations. I said something like. Well does it matter what I think? I guess the question is "What is your budget?"....something like that. I asked him how much he thought was ok to spend. Well it turned out to be a big argument. I do my best to keep my mouth shut about his spending...you see we have this big divide. He pays the mortgage, car payment and utility bills. I pay for the groceries, insurance, household items and necessities and toys for our daughter. Due to a family situation on his side which intermittently involved funding money to his dad on terms I didn't agree with...I've been pretty ok with having mostly separate accounts. (we have one main savings account together). I don't mind paying for things that are OURS, but I don't agree with how he has handled large sums of money (even if I didn't earn it myself). Anyways, it seems he can "rationalize" spending for whatever he wants...so I feel safer to have at least some money set aside that he can't just get to easily without me knowing. It's not meant to only be for me, but I just want to know what happens to the money in that account. So yes, today I gave my husband the list of purchases that I had added up to nearly a total of $5000. First I asked him how much he thought was ok to spend. How much did he think he spent last year. He couldn't or wouldn't be specific, so I gave him the list of his purchases with the total. Right there in black and white. The result: I'm the wife he wishes he never had because I confront him with truth. I really don't get on his case, but when I ask a simple question, he won't answer it. I do my best to ask questions and listen to what he says about it. He does his best to avoid my questions and blame my attitude for the reason he doesn't tell me about his spending. The irony: he puts blame on me for not having all of our money together with equal access. He deflects the problem and places blame on me. I honestly don't know how to deal with this. I would like to think that we could be equal financial partners, but this is so difficult because he hides things from me even if he is faithful about paying the bills. He also acts like he doesn't have anything to hide. Honestly I don't think he knew how much he was spending on this obsession that's the reason for the conversation...not to punish him...but to get real!Let's quit fooling ourselves and "rationalizing"....So this is just one more thing in the pile of mess that is adding to the destruction of our marriage. Was it wrong for me to add up his spending and confront him about it? How can I put my financial trust in him by making this one account a joint account when he does this kind of spending on solely his own self and of no benefit to anyone else? My marriage seems to be headed down the tubes on other fronts as well. I just don't know how to get a handle on it. We went to a marriage counselor...I think it is a waste for both of us to go though, because it seemed he couldn't take responsibility for anything. I realize the only person you can change is yourself. So I think I'll go to counseling on my own. Any advice for me out there. My husband's reality is not accurate...and this is really eating me away.
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