AIBU to tell him to buy his own food

Even further, if a NT doesn't want to or refuses to engage in the 'discussion' with me, that feels like they don't care or don't like me enough to bother.

When someone actually has the energy to argue with me, that is positive and affirming - they are engaging and treating me and the argument as worthwhile.

I think many NT people see disagreement or being told you are wrong, as rude- a sign that you don’t like or respect someone.

I think a lot of ND people see it as StandingDesk describes- an opening position, where they assume that they are correct and other people need to make a case otherwise if they want their way to be considered.

That leaves NT people needing to stand firm, cool and calm in a situation which feels like an attack.
Personally we made great progress as a couple when I stopped ‘looking him in the eye and challenging him’, and started instead ‘disagreeing then getting on with my day while not doing things his way’.

I used to turn myself inside out trying to accommodate, make partnership happen. Now I just do my own thing, often much to his surprise. He needs to make an effort to address things he is uncomfortable with now, rather than the onus always being on me to resolve or compromise.

There can be deeply rooted misunderstandings too. DH thought ‘sorry’ was what you said when you’d deliberately done something wrong- ‘been naughty’.
It took a while to show him that you say it when someone is hurt or disadvantaged by something, regardless of the intention or even the fault.
He’ll even say it occasionally now 🥳

Just to add, never forget he wants to be in a relationship. Otherwise he wouldn't be there.
He may be crap at the art of compromise, and crap at the art of opening conversations, but he wants to relate to you, to engage, to be part of something together.

An excellent explanation. This would be my autistic DH's perspective too.

Just a reminder that marriage or formal civil partnership voids all pre-existing wills. Op has it sorted but people don't always realise they need to re-do their wills

@Woodfiresareamazing2 described it perfectly: in his mind there is only his way or the wrong way.

I am self-diagnosed autistic (on the waiting list). Way back in my early twenties my then-partner accused me of always wanting everything my own way.
I said of course I don't, it is not about 'my' way, I just want everything done the right way, the best way.
He said "but you always just assume that the right way is your way".
That hit me like a bolt of lightning between the eyebrows.

My mind immediately thought "yes, everyone thinks their way is the right way."
I assumed I was correct and everyone else was wrong, and everyone else makes the same assumption. I even saw that there could be value in talking about other people's ideas, just in case they had thought of something that I had not considered.
But unless they argued and proved me wrong by pointing out the error in my logic, I was still right.

It took me a few more decades to realise that most people just don't want to bother to have that argument. They don't feel the same need to optimise every single thing in life to 'the right way'. That other people just don't care about optimisation, or don't even have the intelligence to realise there is such a thing, but they do take great exception to the feeling of me being bossy, controlling, or wanting to 'have my own way'.

You see how alien autistic thought is? It partly comes from having different core values and seeing the world differently.

When he 'just tells you how it is', treat that not as him being controlling, but as merely his conversational style: the opening line of a discussion, whereby you 'just tell him how it is' in return, and you argue it out in great detail, then finally agree.

If you don't have the stamina or energy for it, you will just need to assert your boundaries and hold firm, which may mean closing the joint account. If you are not 'in it together' with him ('it' being everything from a joint account, shared kitchen cupboards, and a willingness to keep on engaging in relating and discussing), you may find you end up living like housemates.

He sounds awful OP. I couldn’t live with someone who treated me like that, lectured me on what food I buy, lectured me over £30, when you’re financially comfortable. Life is too short to waste with someone like that.

I've had to go back to this, because you are contradicting yourself a little bit, earlier on you said he had no problem with using the joint account, but he wants to put the money back in equally out of your own accounts when you do so it doesn't run it down, it can then be used for holidays or doing something in the house.

He wants to build it up, you want to run it down.. that is the only issue here, it's nothing to do with him policing what you spend at all, as he seems to have no problem sharing the costs of joint spends out of your own accounts.

I actual think his option of building it up is more sensible in theory, but it could seem petty to have to 'make it right' for every transaction, I would find that faffy, so why not suggest to put x amount of money each in to the joint account in advance, on top of what you pay now, say £100 each per month, purely for shared costs, like family presents, household bits when you are out and about, etc etc.. then put the receipts in a box somewhere for him.. he will probably really enjoy reconciling it against what money you have put in there at the start of the month, it won't run it down, and some months it may even build it up which he would be ecstatic about.

You get to spend however you like (within reason, it's still joint money) and it doesn't affect the balance on the account, because that money is there for a reason, same as the food shop money.

Honestly OP there is a compromise, but you need to stop seeing each other as wrong, and see each other as different. If he can't get on board with a solution that suits you both, just knock it on the head and go back to your old system of him paying you.

Well she is using her own money….

If you read @BugOnARugDrinkingTeaFromAMug posts, she says she tops the account up from her own account if she goes over the food budget.

@BugOnARugDrinkingTeaFromAMug has an issue that he thinks he can dictate how she spends her own money, from her own account.

He is her husband/life partner not her financial manager.

My problem is that we haven't agreed what to use the account for, or a minimum level, or even what we think should or shouldn't be spent from it.

But that is a fundamental communication problem, which speaks of a bigger problem in the marriage to be honest, why would you not have talked about it when you opened it? How has it got to the point where you are both so convinced you are right that it has turned into a big argument?

Either way, I can see the negatives of a partner spending on it whenever they want, it means you constantly have to keep track of it, make sure it is topped up and there is enough in there to run the household.. also, half of that money is his and he would have no way of knowing what it has been spent on, he'll just see an amount go out, unless you are telling him every single time you impulse buy something.. I'd be peeved if my DH just bought whatever he liked whenever he liked with half my money out of the joint account, especially gifts for other people, a lot of people with separate finances use a JA for household/family expenses only, and I can't see the negative in that.

I think the penny pinching is a separate issue, I wouldn't want to live with someone like that to be fair, but the joint account is joint.. you arguing that he's 'stopping you spending your money' is daft, because it isn't YOUR money to spend, you are both jointly responsible for feeding it, so you should both jointly be responsible for spending it, which is what he seems to be wanting. You seem to be the one forcing the issue, you want him to spend his money on things he doesn't want to spend it on (only the best quality food, gifts for family) and you are using the JA to force him to do it instead of talking about it like a married couple should.

If you want to spend freely on whatever you want, whenever you want (above and beyond the basics), why not use your own money? It sounds like he has no problem paying half once he knows what it is, so why can't you do it that way? If all you care about is the principle of it, and 'winning' then your marriage is doomed anyway to be honest.

How are things todays @BugOnARugDrinkingTeaFromAMug? Any progress with DH listening to your opinion?

I wouldn’t be having any kind of relationship with him …

This! He clearly think he's the only intelligent sensible adult in the room and everyone else including his wife is an idiot who needs to be controlled in order to save them from themselves. He is the superior human 🙄

his attitude is appalling and I wouldn't be having any kind of joint account with him

You should be living in a partnership not a dictatorship.

Like you said above, he is tellling you how and when to spend your own money. Even though you don’t do the same to him, but accept his 20 caged hen egg diet. Where is his understanding of your needs?

I think you need to just do some unilateral deciding of your own. Just a very blunt "no, I am not going to let you tell me what to do with my own money", very firmly, every time.

He's not going to change his ways; you just need to make it clear he does not get to dictate to you. Get it established early that he isn't the boss of you and he isn't going to be, or he'll be carrying on like this forever.

This isn't just about money or him being ND; it's about you having married a sexist who thinks he's obviously the superior and the boss of a woman. They do knock it off sometimes, eventually, if they have to, but you really do have to slap it down early, consistently, and hard.

Just reading the thread. Have read OPs comments but not all the reply’s sorry

how can you be only doing £150 a week on groceries on £6k a month. Something else has to be going on with his finances

there was another thread similar, does he charge you extra for toilet roll at ‘your time of the month’ cos you use more?

But isn't this the problem, you are both doing it!

so this year I thought rather than buying separate gifts, as we live together now gifts should just be joint.

You thought, but you hadn't mentioned it, so you just assumed he would be okay it, and there in lies the problem, you've assumed that money in the joint account is yours to spend as you see fit as it is half yours, but he doesn't think his half should be used like that so he has reacted badly.. you're both as bad as each other but in different ways, neither are right or wrong ironically.

But he isn't saying you can't buy those gifts together.. that is the bit I can't get my head around, you insisting you have no authority, when he's not telling you not to spend at all, he seems fine with what you spent, but he's just telling you he wants things like that to come out of your personal accounts equally rather than running down the JA, or topping the JA back up straight away if it has been used, which should be kept at a certain level for shopping, bills and essentials.. I genuinely can't see why that is such an issue for you?

It's exactly the same way we use ours and neither of us are penny pinching, or spendaholics and we both agree to keep it at a certain level or we both top up equally. To me a joint account isn't for either one of you to spend whatever you like with, that is the whole point of a joint account.. it's a joint decision on everything you buy, if you want to go rogue, you use your own account and discuss it later.

I won't say 'naive', I'll just say 'hopeful' lol.

It's not just the lack of money that can cause stress, I think that the disagreements about what it's spent on (even if you can easily afford it) isn't given enough 'credit' for ending marriages.

My estranged H and I didn't separate due to money issues (other than the massive amounts he spent on alcohol, but that's another story). But we always did have differing philosophies on spending. I'd put myself more on your DH's side of the fence and DH on yours and we always had joint finances. During our early 'lean years' he saw sense in my 'miserly' ways and curbed his spending. In our later 'years of plenty' I learnt to pretty much grit my teeth at some of the things he bought because financially those things didn't make a dent in our finances or our savings. I wasn't always successful, but at least I tried lol. To be fair he always checked with me (I 'kept the books') to be sure the money for what he wanted wasn't 'needed elsewhere' and he encouraged me to 'indulge myself' too, so at least he was an equal opportunity spender. I guess the thing is that, like your DH, seeing those bank balances go up and up gave (and gives) me more satisfaction than a designer bag on my arm or a tomahawk steak on my plate. I just learnt to keep my satisfaction to myself and to let him find his satisfaction in his own way.

But you don't have joint finances, you have 'mine', 'yours', and 'a little bit ours'. If he can't learn to be happy with 'his' and keep his nose out of 'yours' (not an easy lesson) then I think at some point you won't want to deal with it anymore.

@BugOnARugDrinkingTeaFromAMug I don’t know either why some posters are saying that a joint account isn’t for buying gifts for family, etc. It is in my marriage. It’s for everything. We have a joint account and a credit card. We don’t have individual accounts. If it’s not coming out of the joint account then it’s coming out of the credit card, which is paid from the joint account. We’ve been married since we were still at uni so anything other than a joint account would be weird for us. This has been our set up for years. Obviously for each couple they should discuss and decide together what the financial set up will be. I suggest that you withdraw your share of the money in the joint account so you don’t feel like he’s holding it hostage. He’ll freak out but maybe he needs to. Tell him that he’s such a tight-arse with money and you’re not handing him your financial independence and spending power. I’m petty. I’d probably buy him his slimy fish and cook it separately to my higher quality fish. I wouldn’t be paying for him to have nicer food when he’ll only pay for less tasty food.

I would be disgusted with him for buying eggs from caged hens.

I can understand (though be infuriated about) the other stuff. Caged hens though, that means they aren’t salmonella safe as well as being from cruel conditions. That’s the minimum level, for me.