Partner refusing to manage her finances - it's costing us and driving me nuts

[YetAnotherDude]

My partner is typically confident and assertive. However, she has what I can only describe as a total mental refusal against that requires even a little bit of admin, especially anything to do with managing our finances. This has me banging my head against the wall, and is costing us real money, not a few quids a year.

Do you please have any advice on how to convince my partner that she should really get her act together and change her attitude? There are 4 main issues:

1.  Money. If you have to spend 2 days to save £5 a year on a tariff, it’s not worth it. However, in most cases we are talking about hundreds if not thousands of pounds. We are not struggling but we are not millionaires – this is money we should really not be throwing down the toilet (examples below).
   

2.  It makes me feel like a controlling jerk. I hate it. I don’t mind at all playing a more active role in managing the household finances. I would simply want her to a) at least remember where our money is invested and how, and b) do herself the stuff I cannot do for her, like contacting her HR to get childcare vouchers. Instead, my partner does not know, does not care, does not want to know and does not remember after I tell her, anything about our household finances. I hate this because it reminds me of a couple of specific dysfunctional households, which I know directly, where the husband was a controlling jerk.
   

3.  I may be paranoid, but I am terrified it sets a terrible example for our daughter. Growing up in an environment where the father manages the mother’s money “because he knows best” (her words, not mine) can be, I’m afraid, very dangerous.
   

4. What if something happened to me? Would she then have the patience to spend a little bit of time to understand what is best for her and our daughter?

Some examples of the stuff I cannot do for her, and which has cost real money (or had the potential to):

1.  It took me <strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong> 3 months to get her to fill in and sign our life insurance policy. What if she had been hit by a bus before then? How would I have paid for our daughter’s childcare?
   

2.  When she changed job she had to apply to get childcare vouchers. I had to pester her for almost 9 months. In the end she only did it because I said: “I don’t care if you’ll hate me, I don’t care if you’ll divorce me, from now on I am going to pester you every single morning and every single afternoon till you sort this out”. I didn’t even calculate how much her delay cost us, but it was hundreds of pounds. And all she had to do was to get a <strong>*</strong><strong>*</strong>* form from HR! 9 months!
   

3.  She changed job and now has a more favourable pension scheme; I strongly recommended she move her previous pension into this one as the new one is much better. However, it took her so long that she can no longer do it, because it turns out she only had one year to transfer. I have no idea how much this is going to cost in terms of lower pension over the long run, but it’s likely to be substantial.
   

I get that she has a stressful job, I get that when she’s home the last thing she wants to do is admin, I get that delaying things by a few days won’t be much, but IMHO nothing can possibly justify throwing hundreds of pounds down the toilet because one can’t be bothered to ask HR for a stupid form. Unless you are a millionaire and your time is worth more, but we are not! I then get really, really, really furious when she questions other household expenses; eg we had a huge row because she said we don’t need superfast fibre broadband, and I said it is stupid to question whether we should be saving £5 a month on broadband when her laziness has cost us hundreds, if not thousands of pounds.

Any advice? I am really running out of options.

At least she is very catious with more visible expenses; what I mean is that she would buy a pair of jeans at Primark, not at Desigual, because she's stingy and because the cost of Desigual vs Primark is very evident and straightforward. The cost of things like not getting childcare vouchers, instead, is something her brain simply refuses to process and acknowledge!

In a way we are lucky because we have no debt (other than mortgage and car finance) and can both save every month, so this is not one of those relationships where one spends all their salary the moment they receive it; still, I see no justification for throwing money down the loo!

Have you talked to her about it all? What about couples therapy?

I don't know how anyone can make a spouse "change" (and I'm not sure if people ever really do) but the one time you did get action was threatening divorce.

In regards to your daughter it's a case of showing and explaining things to her at an appropriate age. So you are going to be the one who works out when she is old enough to have pocket money, whether she gets more for doing chores, explaining bank accounts, budgeting, etc.

You are probably unaware that lots of parents, regardless of set up, don't bother doing that with their children one reason why Martin Lewis campaigns for financial education.

Well it doesn't sound as if your DW is a spendthrift - so if you weren't around she would still be able to earn her good salary - so I don't think you need to worry overly on that score.

It also sounds as if you positively enjoy managing the families finances - presumably by chopping and changing investments and energy providers and so forth. DH enjoys doing this, whereas before I met him I managed perfectly well by keeping all my utilities in the same place, sticking money in my pension and a boring old savings account and ensuring that I didn't go overdrawn. I really am not that interested in hearing the minutae of the investments and so on, because to me its unnecessary - true we would probably pay a little more and maybe earn a slightly lower rate of interest if he didn't do this stuff, but we wouldn't be on the breadline.
I get that the not filling in of forms is very annoying - and the life insurance and child care thing would annoy me too, but hardly signs that she is financially negligent.

My ex-husband was like this! Things not returned to shops in time, MOTs not done, important forms for saving etc not done, deadlines for important money decisions missed, cars not repaired. It cost us money but it wasn't important to him. Its draining! And then you are called a nag for reminding them or controlling if you try and take charge.

I feel your pain.

So money admin is not her thing. Why don't you divide household admin tasks between you so that you sort out the money stuff and she sorts out other stuff.

Being calm and reasoned will get more results than ranting about it. Its not as if she's gambling family money on the gee gees or going or moaning that she needs a new season Chanel handbag.

Oh dear your DP sounds a lot like me. I think my mental capacity for admin gets used up at work so at home I’m less than brilliant. Fortunately my DH is naturally organised and quite happy to sit researching the best deals for energy suppliers or whatever, and yes he has had to nag me to send forms, change my phone to a cheaper provider etc. which of course is annoying for him.

I do have some qualms about him taking more responsibility than me on family finances but at the end of the day, I’m happy to relinquish that aspect of mental load, as I’m way more on top of other things eg what housework needs doing, appointments for DD etc and have to nag him to do his chores.

So think about the division of domestic labour across your whole household. Is your DP doing her fair share? Does she have to ask you to do other tasks? Have you had a conversation with her about it and listened to her side too instead of just ranting that she’s crap at admin?

If you’re worried about role models, I think your wife having a career will give your daughter something to aspire to more than her ability to send in the car tax on time

She's not going to change, you know that don't you?

If saving an extra thousand pounds a year is something you need to do in order to live with yourself, then you'll have to accept that you've chosen a partner who you've got to nag, a lot, to get her to help you do that.

I'd ask her if you can control the finances and investments, so that you can feel calmer about it. Do as much as you can yourself. The rest, well, if threatening divorce is what gets you what you need, then that's what you'll have to do.

Again, you chose her as a partner. This is what she is like. Folk don't typically change unless they really want to. All you can do is adjust your behaviour and expectations and learn to accept her as she is.

Or you can get divorced. Up to you really.

Have you asked her what might help her with this?

For example, how does she remind herself of things she has to do at work? Could "get a form from HR" (or whatever) be included in whatever system she has?

I have never threatened divorce. In the heat of the moment, I said something like: “I don’t care how much you’ll hate me, I don’t care if this makes you want to divorce me, but I’m going to pester you twice a day every day till you sort this out”. Which worked. What I meant was that I knew I was making myself an unbearable pain, but she had left me no other option.

The relationship itself is not in question – we have our ups and downs like every couple but I’d like to think we are in a happy relationship overall.

Our arrangement is already that I do as much as possible to sort out the family’s finances; however, like I said, there are some things I cannot do on her behalf. I can, and do, my homework on how much I think we should each be putting into our respective pensions, but I cannot call her HR on her behalf, get the required paperwork and sign it on her behalf.

I don’t “enjoy” doing admin or switching utility supplier. I find it a tedious, soul-destroying activity. It’s about the value of our time. Would I spend two weekends going through every single shop in our area to see if I can find a pair of shoes at a cheaper price? No, that would be an utter waste of time, and, even if I managed to save some money, it wouldn’t have been worth it.
But would I dedicate a couple of hours every year to see if we can save £2-300 off our car insurance? Yes, I think that’s worth it. Would I spend about half an hour to set up childcare vouchers and save about £600 in taxes per year? Yes, that’s worth it. Etc.

I appreciate her behaviour is far from unique, I appreciate that there is little to no financial education and awareness in most families etc etc – but this doesn’t provide much comfort: she has thrown money down the drain for no reason and there is no changing that.

The only thing I can think of is that I can maybe try to be more explicit in quantifying the cost of her inaction. Maybe I should have tried to tell her from the very beginning that the tax savings on childcare vouchers are ca. £50-60 a month (I don’t remember exactly), and I should have tried to bring her attention to all the alternative uses of that money: £ 50 x 9 months can mean a weekend break, can mean an overpayment on our mortgage, extra savings for a rainy day, etc. It’s clear the issue is not with costs which are very visible (eg Desigual vs Primark) but with costs which may be clear to me but less evident to her, so I should maybe make them as evident as possible.

She is BU and immature, it’s like men who are deliberately “incompetent” about domestic work. No wonder you’re pissed off.

You shouldn’t have to carry the “mental load” of it all either, or spell out the costs of her poor decisions. The pension one seems a biggie.

Get a secretary/PA/admin office to do it.

Everyone has something they are shit at. Doesn't make them lesser people.

You just have to work around it and find a solution.

Sounds much more though than your frustration at your DW's inability to keep up with the admin.

Don't let this small if important hump in the road of marriage(?)/parenting decide to throw it all up. Your daughter's wellbeing is nr. 1 here.

Sounds like my DH! I put him in charge of admin once - mortgage, credit cards and bills did not get paid for months...I had to take charge again. Told him recently to take over some bills, where we have online accounts. Even then, he could never remember the logins until they were about to cut the gas off....

I can't say it's dangerous, because DC are all grown up. DS is very careful with money. I can't say it's lack of financial education either, because that's his profession!

It's more about personality, and that tends to be fixed! The only person's behaviour you can change is your own!

You shouldn’t have to carry the “mental load” of it all either

In a fantasy world no.

But we LP have to carry EVERY fucking load!

HTH

but she had left me no other option.

You do have other options. You could stop caring as much about the ~£1k she wastes through procrastination. Plenty of people let that sort of thing go. I suspect this sends shivers down your spine - but - you do have a choice.

You chose this woman, can she not have a fault, can you simply not stand it? Or have you thought about accepting this defect in her administrative skills and focusing on the lovely parts of her - ignoring this thing that seems to be a minor blemish on a lovely relationship?

You say she doesn't spend much on clothes and so on - surely her lack of spendiness more than makes up for a few hundred wasted due to admin stupidity? Must she be absolutely perfect in her finances...? Your standards are high, especially when the context includes her being a low spender in terms of personal expenses...

Again - she's unlikely to change. It's you who needs to change, either accept you have to nag her or accept she's a bit money wasting, or you'll need to leave her.

Just one question, how much of the rest of the household load are you carrying? Cleaning? Washing? Childcare? Cooking? Food shopping? Birthdays? Children shopping/school or nursery stuff etc? Think about it carefully and make sure that her refusal to be involved in organising the finances is not just because she is doing more than her share of everything else and this is the one thing she knows you will do if she leaves it.
If you are totally sure that is not the case then yes, YANBU.

And really her pension choices are up to her. Sometimes it’s better not to put everything in one basket.

My husband sorts the money stuff, I do other stuff (though i’d always do pension, childcare vouchers etc - and I think that’s remiss of her) But we’ve agreed that. It sounds silly but we have a particular thing that we both hate packing for going away, but on balance, I decided that my DH does loads of other stuff and I hate it slightly less, so it’s my thing now. I suppose i’m saying that I think we all negotiate against the bigger picture.

I have deeper questions really. Are there ways she ‘holds together’ in your lives where you get to relx a little more? Is it that you hate this money stuff too, and it makes you unhappy to be responsible/you long for roles to be reversed? Is there a shared standard of how to manage your finances that you both signed up to, or are you asking her to sign up to a particular standard of organisation that you chose?

I wonder if you need counselling for this one - a few sessions might really help.

PBP?

Why don'Don you just ask her to let you sort it and she can just sign stuff...

Sometime woman really don't mind letting their partner do stuff.

Everyone has something they are shit at. Doesn't make them lesser people.

Well 'lesser person' would probably be too strong but when you're not bothering doing an extremely easy non-laborious task that has to be done by you, that would pay for your kid's Christmas presents and then some, and that failing to do is upsetting your spouse, I think you have to know on some level you're being a bit of a twat.