Am i right to be mad?

[Dirtygirty35]

Long story, will try to keep it short and dry not to drip feed (apologies if i do, im so mad)

So, this time last year, i realised OH had got himself in a pickle with debt. He was stupid by not telling me the extent of his debt and i had a part to blame as i never questioned where the money was coming from.

Anyway, right there and then, i took control, sorted his debt out, consolidated it all, lower repayments etc and i insisted we budgeted and saved.
So thats what we did. Amy spare cash we got, it went into savings. We have had a few treats along the way (mainly taking DS places like chessington, legoland etc)
But in this year, we have save the best park of 11k.

So, today is payday, and i always move the money about, money into the bills account spends account and savings when I seen his spends account had a substantial amount of money in there (a couple of 1000)
I am aware of where the money came from, i wasnt aware we would get it so quickly, nor of the amount but we hadnt discussed what to do with it.

So, i see this money, and move it along with the other money into the savings account. OH works nights so figured i would wait for him to wake and ask him about it then.

He calls me (im at work) and asked where the money is, what have i done with it and for me to put it straight back into his account. Granted, technically its his money.
His tone was off and he was insinuating that id know about the money from when it was put in his bank (yesterday) and i hadnt told him.
In truth, he knew it was there the whole time, never told me as he 'wanted to sit on it until he decided what to do with it' even though he knew id see it today as its payday!

Im narked for the following reasons:

1. He never told me straight way about the money, has made it clear its his money and clearly had considered to discuss with me on what to do with it. I came into money i months ago (not as much as this) and i put it into savings, didnt even consider anything different.
2. Im his wife, and he treated me like i had stole and spent the money. Kept telling me to give it back, that it wasnt mine
3. We are saving to buy a house, his priorities are not the same as mine clearly
4. He wants to put it in shares, id rather not, but then i dont know enough about shares to know if its a good idea or not
5. He said he is sick of asking me for money. We both have an allowance for monthly spends on whatever, but clothes, car stuff etc comes out the savings. But a year ago, we agreed that we would do this as he couldnt be trusted due to the debt and the ridiculous amount of money a month he was spending on ebay on crappy gadgets (about £60 per month) now, he is throwing it in my face that i (and he) have worked hard in saving this money and sorting our lives out financially) we no longer have to worry about money.

He has made a valid point though in the fact that all our savings are in my account, under my name, so if anything was to happen to me, he wouldnt have access to it. I have 2 accounts, one is an ISA help to buy so that can only be in my name but the other is a standard savings account so i agreed that we will get his name put on next week.
He is and has done in the past, that im going to run off with the money, which is pretty upsetting for me, as i would never do that.

Sorry if ive waffled...
Am i right to be slightly cheesed off?

Yes you need to have a chat. He was fine with you taking charge of finances before and if he's suddenly changed his mind then he shouldn't have got angry at you for basically doing what you've been doing all this time (if I am following this correctly).

As an aside, I think buying shares is risky. You can earn money on them, but you can also lose money. As your husband has previously got into debt before, and as he didn't mention the shares plan until just recently, then personally I'd be a bit wary over the whole thing. But if it's his personal money, and he's still paying what he should be towards your usual expenses and the savings for the house, then I guess that's up to him.

Thank Pooh...
Of course he would be entitled to half, we intend to put that in writing should we ever split and sell.

Blueharry - yeah you have followed correctly. If it was his personal money then i wouldnt have a say. But i cant see this as just his. He cashed in a small pension. We need to be in a secure house, rather than renting before he retires, this is why its so important we buy a house.

All of my intentions are to better us. Nothing was done maliciously, to belittle or control. Although i can see that it may come across as controlling.

Money can symbolise lots of things in a relationship; for you it’s (understandably) security and safety. Your DH ‘gets into trouble’ with money and conceals the fact from you. Sounds like he’s using money to rebel, pushing you into a need to control because what he’s doing feels reckless. Different attitudes to money don’t always become obvious in a relationship until there is an obvious problem, such as debt. You seem to have got into quite a parental way of being with your DH, and he’s pushing back by not telling you about the 2k. Money actually seems to be how you are communicating given you say it’s only weekends that you can talk properly. I think you need to find time to really get to the bottom of this issue and what you both feel about money as well as trying to agree what you do with it. Some relationship therapy (even a few sessions) might be helpful. It feels significant, too, that the problem with money seems to have arisen after you had a child together, so possibly this issue is also tapping into how you both see yourselves as parents and providers.

Thanks crafty.

I agree with some of what you say. Your right in the fact we need to have a chat about how we feel about the money and to see if we are on the same page.

But some of what you say, im not sure my situation is that complex.
He got in a mess before we had DS. It took us a long time to get DS, lots of IVF and miscarriages but just before we got pregnant, he assured me most of his credit cards had been paid off. They hadnt....
So when DS came along, our lifestyle should have changed financially and it didnt. Im somewhat to blame as i never asked where the money had come from. (Im not talking nice holidays etc, just meals out, clothes etc). It went on like that for 3.5 years before i found out the truth.

I dont think he was hiding the money either. It doesnt quite make sense but he knows i have access to his accounts (this was agreed by us both last year in order for me to manage the money) and when we spoke initially about the money, he assumed i had known about it since the day before and hadnt said anything about me moving it. I had literally found out about it about an hour before we spoke. He knew i would be going into the account at some point as it was payday today.

You are responsible for both of you getting into debt in the first place. It’s not a “somewhat” issue. You both carried on spending.

The problem in the first place was that as a couple you did not financially plan for a huge event. That’s two lots of mistakes. Nobody should ever not be in control of their finances, male or female. Just shifting that mistake around means it will never be learnt.

I used to be married to someone like your H. For 24 years, I was in the same darn loop, paying off his debts accrued due to his belief that if he ‘needs’ something he’s just going to buy it and think later how to pay it. On the flip side, I ended up sneaking clothes into the house because he would blow up every time I had a new T-shirt.
You are the sensible one and you take you partnership seriously.
Every situation is different, but I would never ever want to go through that again.

I beg to differ Lemon...

Yes i had a part to play to in the debt, whether it was knowingly or not. However, last year was bloody tough. It tested our marriage and we had to completely change out lifestyle. I have 100% learnt from it. Unfortunately, some take longer than others and perhaps my husband is taking longer at learning than me.
We are all human... and majority of the nation are in debt.
It makes me mad, we are all human, yet we have turned our situation around and made life better for ourselves. 1 little blip in a whole year... and im the bad guy again!

Thanks Buddha - i think its been too easy for him/us in the past to have that thought process but we couldnt/carry on like that. At some point, it needed to change. We clearly are not there yet, but we are working towards it.

Whether there are lessons to be learnt or not, who puts you in charge of meeting out the lessons and deciding on who shoulders the blame.

Honestly I could not live with some one who held the attitude you do to your husband. It’s child parent and its not healthy.

I think you are missing something Lemons...
From what, 10 paragraphs, you seem to be able to come to the conclusion that you couldnt be married to someone like me?
If i didnt have the attitude i have, we would be in a worse place than we are. Husband has worked hard in earning extra money for us to save and ive worked hard in protecting that....

My husband was perfectly happy with the situation as far as i was aware up until yesterday, so unless im a mind reader? What may not work for you and yours, doesnt mean its wrong!
Clearly, me and hubby need a chat (which we will tonight) and review if we are still happy with how things are. If we both are, then it will continue, if not, we will look to change.
Im not quite sure what more you are suggesting we do

It sounds to me that there is a bit of understandable overreaction on both your parts and you need to talk about it calmly.

You have perhaps been a bit overzealous in trying to keep control (and I don’t mean that in a bad way) of family finances; he has pushed back against the level of control you are exerting. Both of those are understandable In the circumstances. You both feel you’ve worked hard to get where you are: you want to become safer and safer, and he would like a breather.

My exDH was like BuddhaAtSea’s. He spent all his own money and mine. He didn’t begrudge me buying things for me though - he used to encourage me to “treat myself” with money neither of us had because he had spent it all. When I left I was terrified I would not be able to manage financially. It turned out I was MUCH richer without him. He’s a good father and a good friend, but no way would I want to go there again. It’s coloured the way I am with money with my now DH, who is probably more frugal than I am.

I do wonder whether some of the people judging you have either never been in the position of having to dig themselves out of debt, or perhaps are the profligate ones themselves, with anxious partners.

Thing is op, every single posts comes across that you strongly feel you're right and entitled, and he's wrong, irrelevant of what you write. He's not a child.

I don't know how much the debt was but you've managed to both pay it off and save 11 k. So in the face of what your both earning it likely wasn't that high. Sixty quid a month is not huge on eBay unless proper skint, but you write it like it's thousands.

It seems you've taken your role as in charge of the money a bit far, from sorting it out to it's all yours and you decide.

You should have asked him about thr money, had a conversation. You're not entitled to make the decision on every penny. You're not his mother.

I think you could have hit the nail wise up.
Perhaps he does want a breather.... i did think this. And to be honest, i can see why, its hard work and he has worked so hard doing OT so that have money to save.

Ive never been in this situation and im totally winging it as what is the right thing to do. I thought, up until this point, with the agreement of my hubby, that the right choices were made.
I mean, what was meant to do? Clearly the way we were both managing money wasn't working.

Have a calm discussion about money going forward but you can't keep treating him like a kid. If he fucks up again then you should consider whether you want to stay married

I gave you my opinion OP, I couldn’t live with any of this. I find your attitude and responses really quite unsettling. I am uncomfortable with people who dish out blame, try to control things and claim virtue in anger.

And I don’t think you and your husband are a great example of adult behaviour. The conferring and adopting of childlike roles is not adulthood.

I feel that since the extra money was from his pension, it is a bad idea to use it in a savings account. It should be invested for his retirement. You are better off rolling over retirement pensions into other pension programs than cashing it out.

YABU to just help yourself to extra money you see in his account. You should have discussed it with him and since it’s is his pension money not insist on it being spent on saving for a house or other goals.

Ok lemons.....

I couldn’t live like this. He’s not a child and it’s his salary and pension money. How very dare he spend £60 a month of his own salary on what he likes no wonder he is so cross. It’s all about your wants and maybe he believes he should have a say rather than all the blame for spending you both did.

If a woman posted her husband moved her salary on payday to their own account and the savings were in sole name he would be hauled over the coals for it.

If you're married, he would quickly have access to your money if you died. It's only if you're not married there would be an issue.

Why hasn't he used it to pay off his previous debt? I'm presuming when you say you consolidated the debt that you got a loan or 0% credit card.

Tbh I'd be annoyed in his shoes if you didn't at least drop me a text to tell me you'd transferred the cash.

But in your shoes I'd be really annoyed that a) he'd got the money and not said anything
b) he hadn't used it to pay off the debt
c) he considered it his money to do with as he pleases
d) hadn't put it in the savings account

You've, as a family, gone without to pay off his previous debt, what gives him the right to that money. Because if his actions you've all (not just him) has to sacrifice things

I think you're being given a hard time over something you both agreed to.
He ran up debts that you helped him out of.
He should've talked to you instead of being an ungrateful shit.