At savingadvice, a PF blogger I enjoy reading shared his recent personal troubles about finance.  His wife had been hiding credit card debt from him and finally shared it with him after 18 months.  This was obviously devestating, especially in light of the birth of their new twins. 

The debt wasn’t huge about $6k, but it was the lack of communication and breach of trust which had hurt the blogger.  The fact his wife had tried to hide it from him, made him upset.  The money was paid back in a few days because they had an emergency fund.  What had happened was the blogger had thought his wife was paying the credit cards off in full but she wasn’t.  And she felt unable to tell the blogger because he was so financially responsible.

This struck a chord with me.  And I guess I should talk about my own financial relationship and explaining the saying “keeping the peace”.  My DH and I are pretty compatible over many areas and have rarely disagreed financially.  However we’re not 100% compatible, life is never easy.  Like life, marriage is a compromise between two people working together, not a dictatorship.  There is no right “one” way, just an agreement between two people.

Anyway, much like the blogger, and I’m guessing everyone reading this I’m the controlling one in the relationship.  I’m the person who cares more about the finances or else I wouldn’t be writing about it and you wouldn’t be reading this.  That’s not to say my DH doesn’t care, he does, but not to the level I do.

About 1 year ago DH and I had a discussion where he explained he was feeling trapped and burden by our budget.  That he felt too tightly reined in on spending.  That I/our budget had him feeling like a child.  He had to “ask” to spend money and we didn’t have any free money.  This system we were using, had been in place since we meet. It had been necessary when every penny was essential to not overspending and we had little fat in our budget.

But while our incomes had changed our budgets and habits hadn’t.  He felt that I was being too controlling, which is something that I think naturally happens to someone who runs a “budget”.  I definitely have obessive compulsive behaviors and finances is one area where it can show. 

While I had never said no about any spending, it was the fact my DH had to ask to spend money that bothered him.  In truth he could probably spend more under that budget than he does now and I wouldn’t have cared.  But it was in the way it was set up that wasn’t working.

Anyway, my DH and I agreed that we would start taking our own monthly allowances of $40/month cash.  That way there would be no paper trail.  That way I wouldn’t be able to ask a question about it and he could choose to tell me or not.  So to keep the peace I had to ease up a bit.

Another example is I think it’s stupid for us to have a home phone when we both have cell phones.  But my DH prefers to have a landline.  He thinks it’s necessary in case of emergency, or when he wants better reception than a cell phone, etc.  It’s probably $40/month but I do it to “keep the peace”. 

I guess that’s how it works in marriage and in life.  You make compromises to keep moving forward.   You don’t get everything you want, but you get some.  And you make the other person or people happy as well.

Remember not all personal finance decisions are smart.  But it’s probably smarter to stay married than get divorced for being too stubborn.