We’ve been together for 10 years, married for 2. We have a loving relationship and things are usually great - we get along well, maintain a good balance between spending time together and with our own friends, and we trust each other. The thing that I’ve been struggling with is that from time to time, he’ll tell me that I “beg” for things when he gets frustrated or angry. It typically happens when we disagree about something minor that’s money related, for example I was encouraging him to give his younger sister a monetary gift before she goes on a trip bc he never gets her any gifts and he didn’t agree; it was definitely not a heated argument, just a lighthearted conversation that I thought was well-meaning on my part. I asked him “why do you give me stuff and not her”, to which he replied “because you beg for it”. This isn’t the first time he’s said something like this to me and it’s hurtful. Sometimes he goes as far as saying that I hold him back in life because I have nothing to contribute.
I feel disrespected and devalued whenever he says things like this and I feel like it’s unwarranted.
I want to be clear that I do not ask him to buy me things. He does not gift me with expensive clothing, jewelry, purses, etc and I don’t expect him to. In the last two years we’ve gone on three very nice trips that he’s paid for; I’ve offered to contribute to these trips/pay him back for a portion and he kindly refused each time. Over the years he has given me a few expensive gifts but it is by no means a regular thing (again, I don’t expect this and have never even implied it). I do mention planning trips once in a while but he is aware that I would contribute. We first met in college and things were always split fairly when it came to dates and vacations. Shortly before we were engaged, he bought his own home and received a significant pay raise. He makes about four times as much as me and I am a social worker so my job doesn’t really pay that well; I’ve since finished my degree and am able to start looking for a higher-paying job soon but I don’t think that simply me having a higher income should be the solution here.
In terms of finances, he pays for the mortgage and related expenses like bills. I pay for the groceries, car insurance & payments, and any household supplies/toiletries (like Walmart and Amazon orders). It isn’t an even split but I have offered to contribute more every month to household expenses and he’s told me in a supportive way that I don’t need to. We split the housework fairly for the most part, but sometimes he’ll have to do a bit more of the cooking or dishes because I work longer hours than he does and before recently graduating, was attending classes in the evenings on top of my full time job.
Before getting married, he was fully aware of my financial situation, including my student debt and lack of savings. He is financially stable so this isn’t coming from a place of stress over money. I guess what I want to know is how to get him to stop saying these things to me because it’s hurtful and detrimental to our relationship; he is fully aware of this because we’ve had long talks about it each time. What should I be doing differently in the meantime before I can contribute more financially? Is he just saying these things out of anger or does he really feel like I’m a setback in his life?
tl;dr husband tells me that I “beg” for things and that I’m holding him back because I contribute much less than him financially.
Submitted November 02, 2019 at 02:10PM by betterlatethannever- https://ift.tt/2N9yCiL
No comments:
Post a Comment