Spouse in the House by Cynthia Ruchti

Author:Cynthia Ruchti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kregel Publications
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Money Talks, but It’s Not Telling My Spouse What It’s Telling Me

Cynthia

He’s worked hard for decades. Now it’s time to play, he says. “Let’s go boat shopping!”

You’ve worked hard for decades. Now it’s time to downsize, tighten those belts, and learn to be content with less. “Let’s put the house on the market and sell one vehicle.”

Home-based entrepreneurs who are both marriage and business partners might differ wildly in their attitudes about profit and loss, investing in inventory, or spending the kids’ college funds to build the company.

Maybe one spouse made an unwise expenditure or two, and now you’re both paying the consequences. And the non-spender won’t let the spender forget it.

How does a couple—any couple, but especially spouses living long hours in the same house—deal with financial regret or polar opposite opinions about money? Times of forced confinement such as retirement, both spouses working from home, layoffs, and short-term or long-term illness often escalate the potential for financial disagreements. Couples begin to notice each other’s money quirks—or downright weirdness—up close and personal. Finances might be especially tight because of the business or lack of it, or the economy, or because one partner is more skilled at shopping online and the newly at-home spouse is hawkeyed when packages arrive on the doorstep.

Ordinary life already gives a billion reasons for a couple to disagree about money matters. Spending issues can affect our perspective until that SITH—spouse in the house—morphs into something more like the Star Wars villain version rather than our partner. The simple fact is that the spouse in your house has a high probability of thinking differently than you do about pinching pennies or throwing them in wishing wells.

It’s not that I wasn’t forewarned my mate and I were wired and raised differently regarding money matters. (And they do matter.) I found it charming that Wonderhubby was so careful with money and that he thought as young marrieds we could each survive on ten dollars for an allowance for two weeks, which was less than a sixth grader made at the time.

No, I didn’t find it charming. Not charming at all.

I did appreciate that he was careful. I did not appreciate that he expected me to outdo him in the frugal department.

I was raised in a household that was not rich, or even well-off actually, but one marked by generosity to a fault. I considered (still do) generosity one way of expressing the extravagant love of God. Wonderhubby now agrees, but as we’ve worked to compromise and respect each other’s opinions, I’ve converted to valuing his thoughtfulness and wisdom with finances. Most of the time. Except when he says, “We need to talk.” Becky will share more on that in a moment.

One thing we’ve learned is that if money becomes anything other than provision we are grateful for and steward well, it has unnecessarily become a point of contention. Good bomb sniffers will recognize the odor of explosive attitudes regarding financial concerns.

When is money something other than provision?

When it becomes an idol—either the saving of it or the spending of it.

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