Husband / FInancial advice

Lillypanda

Can anyone help please.....this is the problem. Myself and my husband have been having major problems. We are on waiting list for counselling and in the meantime we are trying to get along. One of the things we fall out about is money. My husband wants to move to Australia within a year which I don't mind. To give you a picture of our family life we only have a 2 year old daughter. He works fulltime and I work partime. While I am at work my daughter goes to Nursery....but this is the problem. He said he wants to manage our money on his own but doesn't want to budget for my driving lessons. In the past we have fallen out enormously when I practise with him....and it's sort of like a grenade waiting to blow up because I don't drive the way he wants me to.. I told him that I have no problem with him looking after our finances but that my driving lessons cannot be excluded from the budget. I really want to be able to pass my test as right now I have now independence what so ever.....and even then going to Australia without it will prolong me getting me licence.

Some would problem question why we want to go to Australia and are busy waiting for counselling....well we have some problems and don't want to transfer them half way round the world. I would appreciate any advice on how we could reach a compromise about it........I don't want to be forced to toss it aside when it will be just a few months before I take my test....basically I'm almost there but he sees it as a waste of time but even so it's impossible to go with him......we end up screaming at each other.

Thanks, again.

wigginsmum

If my husband said he wanted to handle the finances without any input from me, there'd be the row to end all rows. If you're part of a team and see your incomings and outgoings as joint, then there's no way your driving lessons should be excluded. I'd insist on being fully involved with the budgeting.

I don't know you or your husband, obviously, but be very careful that he hasn't decided to turn it all to his favour, put all the money in his name, then do a disappearing act. I'm sorry I'm so cynical and I hope I'm doing him a disservice, but in your situation I'd put aside all ideas of emigrating until you've sorted out if there's a marriage to save. My cousin's husband used her to get to Australia, then promptly dumped her when they got there.

ALI1973

I agree that one of you handling the joint finances is a mistake. DH and I started to have major probs after I had our first daughter and we had agreed I would not return to work. He had sole control over our money and this left me feeling bad, especially having to ask for money for basic things. After DD2 was born things got much worse, I had severe depression, and it took me a long time to acknowledge my illness and get help. We semi resolved the money situation by him paying me an allowance each month when DD2 was about 8 mths old. However, without going into detail, 2004 was an horrendous year for me culminating in a discovery just before Xmas which completely changed our relationship. It was at this point I insisted that our finances became joint and from that perspective things improved.

Indisclosure in a marriage does not work, it breeds contempt and suspicion, which if neither has anything to hide is not necessary. Its very important that your relationship is conducted on an equal plane. I also think it is important for you to feel you can be independant.
I dont have a solution, only that I feel you are quite right to insist that you have a say in what your family income is spent on.

I wish you all the best with your counselling and I hope that all works out well for you both.

Love Ali

Spendless

ALI1973 wrote:

Indisclosure in a marriage does not work, it breeds contempt and suspicion, which if neither has anything to hide is not necessary. Its very important that your relationship is conducted on an equal plane. I also think it is important for you to feel you can be independant.
I dont have a solution, only that I feel you are quite right to insist that you have a say in what your family income is spent on.


Love Ali

I agree with this.
Re-the driving lessons, talking as someone who has been passed my driving test for 18 years but is terrified of driving abroad, on the opposite side of the road, would you be better off learning in the country you are actually going to live in?
I personally wouldn't want to learn and then just as I was gaining confidence have to start afresh driving in another country but maybe that's just me.

Lillibet_2

I see no problem with one of you handling the money as long as the budget is jointly agreed & transparent. But in your circumstances I would be very weary of where it is going in case he is squirrling himself away an emergency fund. Joint savings for the emmigration etc should be in joint accounts which you should be able to check the balances on...and I'd make them accessable on both signatures only just to be doubly sure.

Is there a reason he may want to stop you from having some independence? Does he not trust your instructor? Does he think he can do a better job at teaching you? (which by the sounds of it, like most relatives with their nearest & dearest, he can't). I think I'd simply say that until the budget is jointly agreed you won't be pooling your part-time salary into it...and if bills go unpaid & there's nothing for him to eat when he comes home & he still won't talk about it then this suggests the counselling may be a bit of a stable door situation.

The emmigrating is another thread IMHO, but quite a lot of things need to be resolved before you put your marrige under further preassure, for the sake of your daughter if nothing else.

HTH & good luck;)

AussieLass

Spendless wrote:

I agree with this.
Re-the driving lessons, talking as someone who has been passed my driving test for 18 years but is terrified of driving abroad, on the opposite side of the road, would you be better off learning in the country you are actually going to live in?
I personally wouldn't want to learn and then just as I was gaining confidence have to start afresh driving in another country but maybe that's just me.

We drive the exact same side as you. I think you are referring to USA and not Oz. Hth

Spendless

AussieLass wrote:

We drive the exact same side as you. I think you are referring to USA and not Oz. Hth

I didn't know that. I'm used to most countries driving on the opposite side to here. That changes things then, yes I'd also want to learn to drive before moving abroad.

jockettuk

im moving in with my oh in july, we have talked long and hard abt how we going to do our finances and we have decided that there will be a joint acct but that we will also keep our own accts. The joint acct will be for bills and we will set up direct debits monthly and that at the end of each month when we get paid we will sit down check our statements etc as a couple and plan what we want to do the rest of the month. We are individuals but we also a couple so if one wants something and its possible we will discuss and sort it out.

The fact you have posted this on here makes me think you already have doubts how he is handling your finances so i would mabey say no to him doing it on his own and take out your driving lessons from your wages before they go into the house.

jenniferpa

This is going to sound blunt in the extreme, but up-rooting yourself to go and live the other side of the world with someone with whom you are obviously having difficulties strikes me as the height of folly. I recognise your desire to sort out the issues in your relationship before emigrating but I wonder if you realise that counselling is a process, not a quick fix. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but it doesn't look as if you have really researched this (move and counselling) adequately.

Why does he want to look after the finances on his own? Why does he want to move to Australia? Why won't he let you take driving lessons? It all sounds like what he wants is the driving force, with you just given the option to agree or argue.

Having said all that, driving can be a relationship killer in even the most balanced relationships. I can still remember my father pulling me out of the car when he was teaching my mother to drive and setting off to walk home. I was about 5, this was 45 years ago, my father has been dead for 40 years and my mother still hasn't really forgiven him. She didn't get her licence until after he had died.

Jennifer

margaretclare

Hi

I agree with all that has been said. Managing the family finances is, as has been said, a team effort, and both have to agree. Even if you keep separate accounts, even if (as we do) you have separate incomes coming in, you need to agree about major expenditure. There is no way I would move to the other side of the world with a man with whom I was in an uncertain relationship.

I can completely agree about driving. It's your independence, especially in countries where there are great distances - the USA, Canada, and obviously, Australia. I see a lot of women who left all the driving to the husband, or he insisted on doing it all, then something happens to him - maybe a sudden illness or worse - and they're absolutely stuck. It happened not so long ago to my husband's cousin and wife. He's been a London taxi-driver these many years but also has a car which only he drives, they live in Wembley, you would think that in London the transport is no problem, after all it's a major city, for heaven's sake! But he was suddenly admitted to Northwick Park Hospital, his GP took his keys off him and called an ambulance, with the result that his wife was stuck! They had a car full of shopping with frozen stuff melting, no way of getting it home! And she had to call on their son to ferry her to and from visiting, son lives in Hertfordshire, big inconvenience all round.

I'm just getting back to driving after nearly a year unable to do the clutch (left leg too short). Now I'm all sorted, I went for 2 refresher sessions with the AA Driving School and also attended a theoretical course called 'Better Driving' taught by Police driving instructors. And wowee, I've had my eyes well and truly opened, even after 35 years' driving experience. No way would I agree to be 'taught' by anyone close to me. I hate to say it, but I've met husbands who had this hidden agenda about their wife's driving - it was a way of exercising their power and denying her any independence.

Aunty Margaret

twink

i agree about learning to drive, it gives you independence, it was horrible when my husband was ill, there was the car sitting at the door, but i had to depend on lifts or take the bus then a long walk to the hospital, i can now drive and its the best thing i ever did