Question:
How can I have kind feelings for my husband when he will not change, what I feel, is a negative behavior and a poor example to our children? I want to work on my attitude and be happy and loving despite his actions. He has a good income and enjoys spending money. He doesn’t want to save for our future so we have nothing for retirement. He says he will just keep working. We are still renting after 29 years of marriage because he hasn’t had the discipline to save for a house. He pays our taxes and those of his business but he is 2-3 years behind in filing because he doesn’t like to deal with it. I have begged him to let me help with the taxes but he won’t let me because they are messed up and too complicated and I think he is embarrassed.
I don’t want a big house. I just want us to be financially stable and not have to move every few years because of rent issues. I want us to be responsible with our money and talking about it over the years has changed his spending habits. When we got married, I liked to shop and spend money but I have changed and now I am frugal. I try to be understanding and I don’t get mad at him anymore to his face, but it’s difficult at times to control my negative thoughts towards him. I work on trying to be grateful for what I have and I focus on trying to be a better person and not have resentment towards my husband. Since I can’t change him, I want to change myself.
Answer:
I agree you can’t change your husband, but you can keep working to have him hear and understand what this has been like for you over the years. Focusing on being more kind isn’t going to fix the healthy need you have to know your husband cares about how you feel. Your resentment and unkind feelings aren’t surfacing because he’s financially irresponsible. They’re springing from the longing you have to know he sees and cares about your fears and pain.
Instead of challenging him on his financial decisions or even offering to help him fix things so you can feel better, ask him if he’s willing to hear what this has been like for you to live with so much uncertainty. I’m guessing you’ve tried to do this already with your begging and pleading over the years, but I encourage you to stay with it and not go silent. Just because he doesn’t know what to do with your fears doesn’t mean you should stop sharing them.
You can also shift the conversation from encouraging him to be more financially responsible to trying to better understand where he’s coming from with his financial decisions. The fact that he’s been stuck in this pattern of financial chaos for all of these years makes sense to him at some level. The more you can both understand where he’s coming from with his financial choices, the better you can respond to each other. You may hear things that help you better understand his perspective and struggle, which soften your experience with him. You may also better learn how to share with him why this is so scary for you. He needs to hear this from you and allow it to influence him.
President Spencer W. Kimball, when speaking about mistakes, taught that, “Jesus saw sin as wrong but also was able to see sin as springing from deep and unmet needs on the part of the sinner. This permitted him to condemn the sin without condemning the individual. We can show forth our love for others even when we are called upon to correct them. We need to be able to look deeply enough into the lives of others to see the basic causes for their failures and shortcomings.”[i]
Your husband’s behavior may not be on the level of a grievous sin, but the teaching is still the same. Your responsibility is to continue looking deeply enough into the life of your husband to understand why this is so powerful for him.
When couples are stuck in patterns like this, it’s usually a good time to work with a marriage counselor who can not only help him hear you in a way that touches his heart, but also help you hear why he struggles so much to respond to your fears. There are reasons he struggles to hear what you’re trying to say to him. I also suspect he’s trying to say something to you that’s difficult for you to hear.
Let him know you aren’t going to badger him to do things your way anymore, but you only want to know that he really hears and understands what this is like for you so you can have the experience of being seen and understood. He also needs the same experience with you. As you both work to open this up with each other, it will be more likely to create some flexibility and responsiveness to each other’s needs.
Geoff will answer a new family and relationship question every Friday. You can email your question to him at ge***@lo************.com
About the Author
Geoff Steurer is a licensed marriage and family therapist in St. George, UT. He is the owner of Alliant Counseling and Education (www.alliantcounseling.com) and the founding director of LifeStar of St. George, an outpatient treatment program for couples and individuals impacted by pornography and sexual addiction (<a href="https://www.
<hr class=’system-pagebreak’ />lifestarstgeorge.com/”>www.lifestarstgeorge.com). He is the co-author of “Love You, Hate the Porn: Healing a Relationship Damaged by Virtual Infidelity”, available at Deseret Book, and the audio series “Strengthening Recovery Through Strengthening Marriage”, available at www.marriage-recovery.com. He also writes a weekly relationship column for the St. George News (www.stgnews.com). He holds a bachelors degree from BYU in communications studies and a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from Auburn University. He served a full-time mission to the Dominican Republic and currently serves on the high council of the St. George, Utah young single adult second stake. He is married to Jody Young Steurer and they are the parents of four children.
You can connect with him at:
Website: www.lovingmarriage.com
Twitter: @geoffsteurer
Facebook: www.facebook.com/GeoffSteurerMFT
[i] Spencer W. Kimball, “Jesus, the Perfect Leader”
vickieJune 9, 2014
wow...when I saw the title of this I was amazed..I felt like the lone wolf all my life. I have been married almost 45yrs to someone who has a problem with managing money. I will be 63 this year and after raising 5 kids and struggling so very much with money because my husbands inability to manage it or to even listen to me speak about it. this did create such a rift in our marriage that I almost left him. Instead I went into a major depression episode for the first time at 26yrs old. In the begining I didnt say anything to him but when I went through that depression it caused me to realize what was happening and I better start. so I did and nothing worked..we went around and around in circles and he kept up his behavior and I got sick many times because of it. the stress from it as women especially see things as SECURITY. and that is why this person or this woman feels that way its our security. I didnt believe in working and wanted to raise my kids so I lived very tight with money. I was taught though by my parents how to manage money. and my husband was taught nothing and is why he has such a problem. we fought and fought and fought over it and my kids heard it and because of hearing us fight over it they realized h ow important it was to manage money and not let it get the best of you. so one good thing came out of this and that was that money doesnt grow on trees and what it feels like to not have it as we didnt and I was always struggling only because of how my husband believed. so really to me the parents make the big difference in how children manage or handle money. my mother was a spender and my father a real tight wad...well, over the years he taught her and she became just like him. she didnt work and that was in the olden days and so women depended on the men for money so she listened to him. its different for women when the woman is the manager and the man is the spend thrift...it is soo hard but I know that God put us together for a reason and to this day though my husband will not let me talk to him about money because he sees me as a nag and he thinks Im looking down on him and dont respect him. its an ego thing for him...and that is soo hard...over the years we have always paid our tithing and I think God has blessed us for it and him and he does believe in saving ..my only fault is Im not willing to take risks as he is like investing and I have stopped him from doing it because we had no money and he would do it with no money. so he blames me for stopping him from becoming rich...I never wanted to be rich I just wanted to have a little house as well but we have owned several homes once he retired from the military. I love my husband very much and know that God knows all things and we are a work in progress and so we have to stick together until we shine like Gold..I have been to therapy with my husband and he fell asleep..my dr said forget it..you have to make a decision..stay or go..I stayed...Im glad I did..my kids have learned a lesson besides the money issue...one doesnt run just because things get hard...you stick it out and work on it..never give up...God is watching us..He knows what is happening..
Mary LJune 9, 2014
I have dealt with this problem also. After 45 years of frustration, which greatly affected our relationship, our son intervened with a solution. We got separate bank accounts. I handled all the family expenses with the money that went into my account and was able to build up savings also. My husband handled his own personal expenses with the money that went into his account. Surprisingly, he became much more alert and aware of his money situation, and I felt less anxious about his financial decisions, because they did not affect me.