Marriage and the Power of Divorce

Cutlery

Cutlery

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Cad said:
The flip side of that is women don't buy gaming computers, set up 10 disk NAS installs to download TV shows, man cave, sports cars, BBQ's, dates, drinks at the club, etc...

I'm sure women do spend more on the items you mentioned, but I'm not sure how the aggregate works out. My wife could buy a lot of clothes/shoes/accessories with how much my 911 costs.
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No, they buy designer clothes, purses, and shoes that are all exorbitantly priced for what they are. Not to mention in my experience the entire Starbucks chain is 95% supported by women buying $9 cups of whip cream daily.

I dated a woman who could go to the mall and spend $4 to 5000 easily. And women go to the mall FAR more frequently than you or I buy cars or gaming computers.

You also probably purchased your Porsche because you had the money and wanted something nice, as opposed to being bored or depressed and needing some "retail therapy" like most women do.

Obviously we're dealing with generalities, and there are outliers both ways. There are men that don't know how to handle their money and there are women like your wife that are responsible.

But in general, women are complete horseshit with money.
 
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Cad

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Cutlery said:
Obviously we're dealing with generalities, and there are outliers both ways. There are men that don't know how to handle their money and there are women like your wife that are responsible.
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It'll sound trite but why not just date the ones that are responsible with money if that's an important factor to you then?
 
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Cutlery

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Cad said:
It'll sound trite but why not just date the ones that are responsible with money if that's an important factor to you then?
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Lessons learned many years too late!

Also, it's pretty easy to hide that shit early on in a relationship. I mean, I suppose I could pull a Tolan and wait until they post their credit score.
 
Deathwing

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Cutlery said:
In most of the country.

I had to reign in my wife with an ultimatum. We had tried joint accts, separate accts, everything. Nothing worked. She simply does not consider how much money she/we make vs how much she spends. Everything is a necessity to her. It took many, many years of hammering home the difference between needs and wants.

After she almost got her car repo'd I told her I'm not living like that anymore, so she can either forgo complete and total control of the finances to me or I will walk. I took all of her credit and debit cards and I give her cash every week. She spends it? Tough shit, you don't get more.

She's pretty good with cash, but she gives exactly zero thought to anything attached to a card. She just doesn't connect the fact that swipe is connected to real life money. So I removed to disconnect.

She makes over double what I do, and I have to take it all and give her an allowance or we will never pay off the house.
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That kind of behavior would be a deal breaker, past, present, or future. It's a serious warning sign that someone just doesn't give a shit enough to improve some very bad behavior. I mean, good for you if you found the exception to the rule and she's on good behavior when money isn't involved.
 
Noodleface

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My wife spends way more than me. I barely ever buy anything but everyday ups is dropping something from Amazon off
 
Deathwing

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Noodleface said:
My wife spends way more than me. I barely ever buy anything but everyday ups is dropping something from Amazon off
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Same here, but that can look worse than it really is. First, Amazon is fucking horrible at packaging things together even if you explicitly tell them to. 5 items for a total of $50 from 4 different vendors? You're getting 4 packages likely. Looks bad, when I order that much stuff off the internet, it sure as hell isn't coming out to $50.

My suggestion is to keep a budget and have her classify the stuff she orders. For my wife, almost everything ended up being things she'd buy locally if they weren't available online. Makeup, gifts, clothing, things she's going to buy anyway. Just looks bad showing up as a delivery.
 
Cutlery

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Deathwing said:
That kind of behavior would be a deal breaker, past, present, or future. It's a serious warning sign that someone just doesn't give a shit enough to improve some very bad behavior. I mean, good for you if you found the exception to the rule and she's on good behavior when money isn't involved.
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You're not wrong, and I won't disagree with you. But, money isn't everything. We'll make more.

It's always a more complicated issue when you're in it. It's easy to look at everyone's life from the outside and see what the correct answer is. It is unfortunately far less easy to do when you're in the middle of it. I could explain the situation in more detail, but it doesn't bother me anymore, the solution is in place, and it's all in the past, so there's not much point.

There is definitely a line in the sand for the future though, we're not going back that way. This is the way we live until I choose to not live that way, or I'm out.
 
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Noodleface

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Deathwing said:
Same here, but that can look worse than it really is. First, Amazon is fucking horrible at packaging things together even if you explicitly tell them to. 5 items for a total of $50 from 4 different vendors? You're getting 4 packages likely. Looks bad, when I order that much stuff off the internet, it sure as hell isn't coming out to $50.

My suggestion is to keep a budget and have her classify the stuff she orders. For my wife, almost everything ended up being things she'd buy locally if they weren't available online. Makeup, gifts, clothing, things she's going to buy anyway. Just looks bad showing up as a delivery.
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It's always "for the boys" but I don't think she realizes how fast it adds up
 
Cad

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Noodleface said:
It's always "for the boys" but I don't think she realizes how fast it adds up
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My wife's one is "for the house". It's usually not expensive stuff but she'll buy a faucet or rugs or something, which usually aren't too expensive. But then if I want something for a gaming rig (I have 2 rigs set up since we have 3 game players in the house now) she'll poo-poo it. If I bring up previous expenses it's "for the house" and I'll go, nobody wanted that except you so it's for you. I'll let you speculate how that goes over.. :)
 
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Noodleface

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Cad said:
My wife's one is "for the house". It's usually not expensive stuff but she'll buy a faucet or rugs or something, which usually aren't too expensive. But then if I want something for a gaming rig (I have 2 rigs set up since we have 3 game players in the house now) she'll poo-poo it. If I bring up previous expenses it's "for the house" and I'll go, nobody wanted that except you so it's for you. I'll let you speculate how that goes over.. :)
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Yeah for awhile she didn't want me to build a gaming PC because it was too expensive. I had to gently tell her that I make all the money and barely spend any of it.
 
Cad

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Noodleface said:
Yeah for awhile she didn't want me to build a gaming PC because it was too expensive. I had to gently tell her that I make all the money and barely spend any of it.
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I've never had to push that hard about the things I buy, we save/invest an absurd amount so she gives me some leeway. It's more just idle asian woman nagging than it is a serious attempt to stop me from buying things.
 
Haast

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So a few years ago I told y'all how my long term girlfriend broke up with me out of the blue. Been dating for five years and had no intention of breaking up with her. She goes to some conference and bangs an Australian dude, which I didn't particularly care about as we had an arrangement about such things specifically, and tells me she's in love with him and breaks up with me. It's been like two years or something since then?

Anyway, she called me last night and tried to tell me that she really didn't love that guy, which was obvious from the start and she just made it up to get away from me for some reason. Now she feels really bad about it and it was guilting her up or something. I'm not one to hold a grudge or care at this point and I tell her that. Then I get this long crying spiel about how I was right and it would be hard to find someone who was willing to do as much for her as I did and be reliable and supportive. As I got her through university, got her out of debt, let her drive my car for a year and then got her a car later, got her a really good job and a bunch of other shit. So she misses me a lot and thinks about me all the time and is not happy with her life now. She realizes she was happier with me.

God. Seems she lives in Seattle now with some Mexican elementary schoolteacher and his two sons. No idea how that happened and I didn't ask. But I told her she should probably get her shit together and refrain from calling me like this again.
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There is some quiet pleasure to be had knowing your ex made bad life choices and has to live with them. But closing the door on communication was a good call.
 
Deathwing

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Fun money's the way to go. Anything that isn't regular income goes into fun money for that person(birthday gift, bonus, etc) or split evenly(unforeseen tax refund). Person wants to spend that money, you can't say shit.

My wife wants to go to a Tori Amos concert in Ohio with her friend. It's coming out of her fun money, she didn't need to haggle at all.

Best part is that you no longer need to scrape the barrel for creative gifts for her birthday, christmas, anniversary, mother's day, etc. Now that she has a limited amount of fun money, she wants that Dollars
 
Tarrant

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Cad said:
The flip side of that is women don't buy gaming computers, set up 10 disk NAS installs to download TV shows, man cave, sports cars, BBQ's, dates, drinks at the club, etc...

I'm sure women do spend more on the items you mentioned, but I'm not sure how the aggregate works out. My wife could buy a lot of clothes/shoes/accessories with how much my 911 costs.
Click to expand...

These are pretty bad examples.

TV shows? we both benifit

man cave? She has the whole rest of the house

sports cars? don't own them

BBQ's? I mean...shes eating too, right?

Dates? Uhhhh...am I just taking myself out here?

Drinks at a club? again, am I drinking solo? Im confused.

Meanwhile everything Cut said is entirely true.
 
Mrs. Gravy

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I didn't spend much on myself for 27 flipping years. I only bought clothes if they were on an unbelievable sale/clearance or from discount or thrift stores (I still do that mostly). I went to get my hair done either at beauty coIlege...when I kept it shorter, or would go once a year., and G did not like makeup so I spent very little in that way. We had bills to pay and retirement for which to save.
TBH, I have spent much more in the past 18 months as I ever did when G was alive. I am fairly certain he shared that info. here as it was much to chagrin.
Someone had to make sure we remained afloat.
Incidentally, all 3 of my sisters spend way less than their husbands.
Harumph. ;)
 
lurkingdirk

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Mrs. Gravy said:
I didn't spend much on myself for 27 flipping years. I only bought clothes if they were on an unbelievable sale/clearance or from discount or thrift stores (I still do that mostly). I went to get my hair done either at beauty coIlege...when I kept it shorter, or would go once a year., and G did not like makeup so I spent very little in that way. We had bills to pay and retirement for which to save.
TBH, I have spent much more in the past 18 months as I ever did when G was alive. I am fairly certain he shared that info. here as it was much to chagrin.
Someone had to make sure we remained afloat.
Incidentally, all 3 of my sisters spend way less than their husbands.
Harumph. ;)
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My wife is very much like this. We both are. I think we spend about the same, but when there are major purchases, like appliances or such things, I'm the one pulling the trigger. But for school uniforms and such things, she's pulling the trigger. But for ourselves? We both hate spending money. I'd rather get something for the family instead of spending on myself.
Now, we have had the argument that I spend money on tools for myself. I argue back that I wouldn't get the tool unless it was to build something to benefit the family. That doesn't always work, but it's true.

Being self-indulgent with money when you're in a relationship that should be equal is detrimental behaviour.
 
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Cutlery

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Mrs. Gravy said:
Incidentally, all 3 of my sisters spend way less than their husbands.
Harumph. ;)
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Doesn't surprise me at all, as it's something you would learn from your parents behavior.

My dad was the only one working until we kids were in high school, my mom never worked a day. My mom handled the finances, and they paid off their house in 18 years, with no real particular hardship along the way. No matter how little amount of money my mom said we had until next paycheck, we always made it just fine from our perspective. We never missed a meal and always had things we needed.

By contrast, my wife's mother keeps buying houses in shitty neighborhoods she doesn't live in "to flip" and doing nothing on them except paying taxes for many years and then selling them for less than she bought them for (but more than she owes) and my wife's father lost his home in Arizona because he didn't bother paying his property taxes.

I know why she is the way she is, just like I know why I am the way I am.
 
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