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Loveisyou, as the head and "husband" in the family, it's time for you to be tough. Make your rules and make him adhere. Don't let him buy his lotto tickets. It's as simple as that. Start saying "No".
You can start by putting all your salary on "family" savings. And run the house with his salary. Maybe then he will realize how much money he spends and will start being responsible.
That sounds good in theory, but I think it would land them in divorce court pretty quickly. Divorce isn't exactly cheap, either.
my husband makes less money than ... I started notice that when he would get paid would always spend most of his pay check on eating out.. when it came down to paying bill he would act as if he didn't know what happen to his money ... quickly I realized that this had to stop .. I told him to start direct depositing the money straight to my chking acc that way I wouls have track of his spending plus he wouls be able to put money toward the bill he recieve a $25 a week that goes straight to his acc and the rest towards bills .. true that seems like its not that much to live off but if he doesn't want to get s second job i refuse to allow him to spend all his money on b.s
We met in college and I expected that he would work hard at building a career. We both attended a prestigious college and his family all have successful professional careers. I've asked him about staying at home to care for our child but he's said he is not interested in doing that. I do love him, but I just want him too add more to our family financially. He often talks about all these things he wants to buy and i'm like we will never get those things if he doesn't try and make more money.
Also I've always believed both money and love are required to make a marriage work. It takes more than just love. At one point he had nearly $20,000 in debt of which we I helped to pay off. I actually didn't even know about this debt until a few months before our wedding. Right out of college we made the same amount of money, but five years later my salary has gone up and his has stayed the same, mostly due to a lot of job hopping.
Thank you for all the advice.
I agree with you that both money and love are required to make things work. Unfortunately, it looks like you put too much emphasis on his potential and not enough on his actual behavior/amtition (or lack thereof)....and now you're living with the result.
I'm not too optimistic that he's going to change. It could be worse. At least he works, and your combined 90K income, while not great for your area, isn't poverty, either.
The thing that worries me more than his salary is how he handles money...20K in debt that he didn't tell you about until a few months before the wedding (RED FLAG!), and him shelling out all that money on lottery tickets. If he were at least good at handling money, that would make up for some of his lack of ambition/direction. What he's spending on lotto tickets could be your retirement money!
$25 a week in an IRA or 401K averaging an 8% rate of return would get you over $162,000 in 30 years!!! $50 a week would get you over $325,000 in 30 years. (Somehow, these calculations never win over people who are bad with money, but I like to do them anyway).
Actually, I would say, it is wrong for you to expect him to earn more money. It seems like you aren't willing to divorce him but you can't do anything to change him. If you keep having expectations that can't be met then you'll never be happy.
If you want to be happy, then just love him for who he is. It's pointless to have high expectations unless you can do something about it.
This isn't a money issue. To be honest he got married to young and wasn't ready to be a family man. A good percent of guys are not ready to marry after college, because they still need time to find out who they are and want they want out life. Now he is stuck in a corner with a wife and a kid. The reason he is flaky and jumping from job to job is because he is trapped with the family thing.
They have done studies that the part of the male brain that decides what they want in life doesn't develop until they are 25.
Sounds to me like he was always like this, and now you've moved the goal posts on him and resent him for not being able to reach them. If you wanted to be a stay at home mom in a high cost of living area your best bet would have been to seek our and marry an established and reasonably well off guy. You married a wanderer lacking that ambitious drive to make money...I'm sure he has other positive qualities you're neglecting to mention here as you focus on his inability to transform into some one he probably never was. I have to assume so since you married him in the first place.
Take heart though, no adaption is probably necessary. He can be a stay at home parent and you can continue with your strong suit in the relationship, which is the monetary contribution of having a higher earning career. Maybe he could adapt and become a more ambitious individual with a higher income...but that would take a lot of time still. It would be more logical for you to leverage your strengths in this area than for him to develop them.
I need some marital advice. I’ve been married to my husband for over two years and we’ve been together for a little over 7 years. He is 28 and makes about 30k a year. We live in metro DC which is a very expensive area to live in. We have one child also. He has flipped, flopped a lot with his career and had a total of 4 jobs since we graduated from college. I make over double what he makes and it really bothers me. I hate to be that way but it just does. He chose a degree in which its almost mandatory to get a Ph.D to really make any money in it. He is still all over the place with what he is going to do with his life. I’ve encouraged him to go to graduate school and to look for a better paying job, neither of which he takes seriously. He also frequently comments that he is going to win the lottery so he’s not really worried about anything. He spends probably $25-50 a week on playing the lottery and scratch off games, it’s really annoying cause winning the lottery is not a great life plan in my opinion. It just seems to me that he has no plan in life as far as career goes.
Also, recently two of our mutual friends just quit their jobs to be stay at home moms. I asked my husband about this and he said its unlikely because he is still figuring his career and life out and I bring home the most money. I’m starting to become resentful towards him over this. I never thought I wanted to be a stay at home mom, but now that I have a small child I just want to be with her all the time. Is it wrong for me to expect a man at his age to have more of a settled career plan and to make more money?
Well, it should be about 'US'. So it seems like you both are almost making $100K a year.
Have you considered relocating to a low cost of living area?
$25-50 a week on Lottery? Lol. You can put that money into a Roth IRA and let it grow tax free into retirement.
What was your purpose of having a child if you can't afford it?
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