My [27M] wife [32F] thinks I’m selfish because I used all of our combined stimulus check money to pay for her college debt. Was I out of line?

Hello Reddit,

I’m hoping people who are more experienced with this kind of thing can give me some insight.

I’ve been married to “Sharon” for three years, but prior to that we’d been dating for three years, when I met Sharon (I was a senior in college) and she was employed at a book store I frequented often. We have a one and a half year old daughter “Lily” together. I am an engineer and Sharon is a stay at home mom. Prior to Lily being born, Sharon had worked at the book store since she was 22.

Other than innocent short-term middle school and high school relationships, Sharon is the only true, long-term relationship I’ve ever been in, and, honestly, she’s also the only sexual partner I’ve ever had and I don’t regret that fact.

I’ve never pressed Sharon about her past boyfriends but from what I’ve gathered over the years, she’s had several long-term boyfriends in her life and much more sexual experience. Part of this is of course because she does happen to be five years older but also because I tend to be a shy introvert and she’s more of a social butterfly.

ANYway, I’ve always known during our dating that Sharon had once attended college with the goal of earning a degree in sociology, but dropped out in the middle of junior year to deal with the death of her father. Apparently her father had left her mother in a less than ideal financial situation, so Sharon had to get a job to help her mom with some bills. Eventually, Sharon’s mom was able to recover her financial footing, still being relatively young enough to work (she was only 59) and with the help of other relatives.

In the meantime, Sharon had lapsed into negative standing at her college and could not simply reapply to the college with any real hope of being accepted.

This, I knew. What I DIDN’T know until long after we were engaged was that Sharon had defaulted on a nearly six figure student loan. She eventually told me about it because I saw collection notices from the loan bank at our shared apartment. She told me she didn’t feel that she should have to pay for the loan if she didn’t have a degree to show for it. I tried to tell her that the bank wouldn’t care to see it that way, and would go after her forever to get their money, and they might have her wages garnished or her spouse’s wages garnished if she continued to ignore the bills.

She told me she understood, and also understood if I saw this as grounds for calling off our wedding. Well, I love Sharon so of course I need to help my fiancée/wife, and since I had a good job now (I was earning about 60k a year which for me is pretty good) we could budget so that we could get rid of the debt as soon as possible. I asked her if she understood what that meant—moderating our going out to eat, moderating luxury shopping, keeping a budget, etc.

In truth, the way we worked it out with her loan company, the monthly payment isn’t even THAT bad. My salary can cover it, and we still have more than adequate money for food, rent, and all the basics. We even have a few hundred dollars free and clear every month (after I put a decent amount in savings) that we can allocate just to luxuries.

Sharon and I both agreed that if we ever had extra sums of money available (ie, I earn a raise at work, I get a bonus, etc.), we will throw ALL of it at her debt so that we end it even faster.

Every month, Sharon and I write down a list of essentials (most of them are for Lily, like a jogger stroller, new clothes, etc.), and we number them according to their importance and priority. Inevitably, Sharon gets the wishes she puts on the list.

Usually, I don’t really write anything for myself because as long as I have food and am healhty, I’m fine if my wife and kid are happy.

Okay so now fast forward to the recent past.

We recently received our stimulus check from the government: a few hundred for me and the wife, and a few hundred for the baby.

The money appeared automatically in my checking account.

The way we have the budget set out is that I have one main account where my paycheck gets deposited.

I reroute a large portion to another account, where my wife and I both have access (this is the luxury account). Sharon has linked this account to her own, separate checking account to transfer money into at will. Although nominally I have equal access to the luxury account, in all practicality I just write this off as Sharon’s money and I don’t care how she spends it so long as she’s happy.

Out of my account, I pay all of the bills: the rent, the utilities, the cellphones, the WiFi, the streaming services, the doctor co-pays, the groceries, the big student loan payment, etc. Sharon sees all the bills. For groceries, usually we allocate a certain sum every week, and I just directly give that to Sharon in cash since she does the grocery shopping.

She is aware of how much I make every paycheck because the paper stub gets mailed to us after the direct deposit. She also knows that after all the bills are paid and the transfer to the luxury account, I end up with about $150 left in my account, which works out to about $5 a day. Sometimes I blow that $5 on lunch at the office, usually I make lunch at home and save the money. I have three nice suits (though rather more dress shirts) that I’ve nursed for four years now, rotated throughout the week. I’ll eventually save up for a fourth suit.

Well when I saw the stimulus payment, I immediately looked at the list: we bought our kid new shoes, new pants, a jumper swing, Sharon already got her yoga pants and some hair band thing that poofs up your hair.

I put all the money toward Sharon’s loan balance and didn’t think anymore about it.

A few days ago Sharon asks me about the stimulus payment because the IRS sent us a letter reminding us of the fact that we had been issued money for the three people in our family. I said yeah we got it, and I paid the student loan with it.

Sharon got mad (not yelling screaming mad but just silent moody mad) and said later that it was very selfish of me not to tell her about the money.

I didn’t know I was being selfish because all I did was devote any extra money in a non crisis situation to her student loan, like we agreed. I also reminded her that she was still getting all the money in our luxury account for basically her own use and I don’t touch any of it. I wasn’t trying to play martyr or try to act like a jerk, but I also gently reminded her that I never buy anything for myself and that the money the IRS paid to ME was also spent on her bill. I also reminded her that we are making our monthly savings goals and are on track, and that the sooner we get rid of that loan balance, the easier the financial picture will become.

Sharon says that the stimulus payment is a special situation and that she would have liked to spend the money to treat herself to something. I asked her if there was something she had in mind, because everything on her wish list had been purchased (even big ticket items, such as a peleton bike, we eventually got for her after a few months of steady saving). I also offered to just give her her share of the IRS payment, but told her she’d have to take it in installments because my own account didn’t have enough money in it to give her it all at once after I took care of all the bills.

She said never mind, that I’ve proven that I’m selfish an not willing to share.

From my parents, they give me different answers: my mom says I should have just taken all the money and given my wife her share, blown my share on a suit, and either put the baby’s share in the baby’s account (we already have a college fund for her), while my father says I did the right thing in trying to end the debt faster.

I asked Sharon’s mom and she says my dad is right.

Meanwhile Sharon usually wants it at least four times a week, but for an entire week we haven’t had sex at all.

Is this something where her anger will pass?

Did I make a mistake here?

I thought I was acting I in the best interest of my family.

Hoping to get your thoughts on the matter, guys.

Thanks!

tl;dr I spend all of the stimulus money to pay my wife’s college debt. She thinks that was selfish of me.

Submitted February 28, 2021 at 08:02PM by SidecarOfGroceries https://ift.tt/2Oefx1R