[itsmemattchung]

Issues can be categorized into three buckets: my challenges, her challenges, shared challenges. We're working through many of these with our couple's therapist but here's the gist:

  1. When wife would spend beyond our defined budget, I would get angry (stemming from fear) and let that boil inside without ever communicating it verbally

  2. When wife and I decided for her to quit her job to parent our first daughter full time, initially was elated and then I felt a financial pressure I've never experienced before

  3. Wife had a domestically violent partner before and interprets budgeting as controlling behavior

Full disclosure: lots of vulnerability factors for the both of us. I grew up poor and although I have money now, there's lots of emotions tied to finances.

[avgDev]

1. You have to communicate otherwise the other party doesn't know. However, this would be a huge deal for me.

2. I felt this pressure when we were deciding if my wife would stay home or if we would do daycare. I told her I don't want a pressure of single income. In the end daycare has been great for our kid. The feeling of pressure is completely normal. Single income to support a family clearly is more riskier than two incomes.

3. Your wife needs therapy. Budgeting is not controlling, it is basic personal finance. She can contribute to the budgeting discussion.

4. You also may need therapy. I too grew up poor and know the feeling. I know people who took that feeling, budgeted and became millionaires but one does need a healthy balance of spending and saving.

[jncfhnb]

I don’t understand how you can write (1) and not perceive it as an easily solved communication problem with your own wife

[em-bee]

because of point 3. for example my wife didn't like me doing detailed accounting of all of our expenses do i had to stop that. she hasn't spent to much money so that issue didn't come up but i can imagine it being a problem to tell your partner they spend to much if the partner is sensitive about that.

[jncfhnb]

That’s not an excuse to let things boil up without talking about it. If you fundamentally cannot communicate with someone you should not get married

[em-bee]

that is not fair. it is easy to say, but sometimes very hard to do. things like these are not always predictable, and especially money handling often doesn't even come up as an issue until after you are married for some time.

[jncfhnb]

But this is not only predictable but acknowledged. It’s not ideal to fail to communicate and not realize it. It’s not ok to identify as someone who just doesn’t communicate and bottles up their emotions until they’re problematic.

It might not be easy. But to do otherwise is a recipe for failure. And we’d be dumb to not acknowledge that. You shouldn’t marry someone you’re not comfortable talking to About difficult things. That’s like the whole point of having a trusted partner.

[em-bee]

You shouldn’t marry someone you’re not comfortable talking to About difficult things.

you keep saying that, but generally you can't know how your partner reacts until the issue actually comes up and especially with finances it rarely comes up before you start living together which often doesn't happen until you get married.

it is impossible to vet your partner on every aspect. when you get married you start to build trust, and you find out your partners sensitive points and learn to avoid them. that's not even an issue of trust, but a question of how you communicate to keep a healthy relationship. in my case i simply stopped the detailed accounting and everything was fine. in the case here the person had difficulty dealing with that. we don't know why, or how they could resolve that, but telling them that they should have predicted that and not married this person is really unreasonable.

[sooheon]

Lots of things about human emotion are dumb but understandable, especially re: money.

[sidewndr46]

You do realize that setting a budget is by definition controlling behavior? You are controlling the expenditure of the household. I'm not suggesting you are wrong for that, but it is controlling behavior. So your wife observed controlling behavior and then equated it to something in her past.

[helpfulmandrill]

It isn't controlling behaviour if you both have equal input into designing the budget, and both agree to and support the idea of having a budget in the first place.

[em-bee]

it can be intended to be not controlling, but perceived as such. i used to do accounting to track and understand my own behavior. and when i tried that after getting married on all our expenses, the point was not to control her but to understand our expenses and allow for self control or restraint if necessary (realizing that you spend $100 on coffee each month can help you change your behavior). but it made my wife uncomfortable.

[sidewndr46]

If you read the post, it's clear that is not what happened here. OP set the budget. Wife did not follow it.

[itsmemattchung]

There’s a I’me assumptions that were made here. To clarify, we set the budget together.

[sidewndr46]

Based on the account you provided, your wife only agreed to it as a matter of conversation. Not as a matter of practice.