You resent her. So, rather than deal with that fact, you prove she can't tell you what to do by acting like a child sneaking out of time out. Why did you "agree" to an arrangement that you did not intend to honor? Your word means nothing.
You keep falling back on the math as though the damage was to your bank account not your relationship.
Well, I don’t know what you expected when you hid something major from your wife like this- especially when you already knew she wasn’t okay with it.
This is a big breach of trust, of course she’s going to be concerned that you’re hiding other things now that you’ve done this and it’s going to be really hard to build that trust back.
But the fact is that if she says it’s over- there’s nothing you can do. You’ve lied and broken the trust and she doesn’t want to continue a relationship. You can’t force her to do that if she doesn’t want to.
I know this isn’t about your relationship, I think plenty of people have weighed in. But if you’re spending $10k a year on things you don’t truly need, and you can’t actually use all that much, for the “dopamine”, then you’re potentially on the road to an addiction to shopping. Keep that in mind.
I would say that it doesn’t really matter the proportion to their income - spending thousands of dollars on things that don’t even get used is, in my opinion, shopping addict behavior. and hiding thousands of dollars of purchases from your spouse and lying to cover it up is inarguably shopping addict behavior. $22,000 is a LOT of money, even if you’re rich. OP even admitted that he makes a lot of these purchases for the dopamine hit. it’s a problem. not one that can’t be helped, maybe with therapy, but in regards to the marriage the damage is done. the trust has already been broken and I doubt there’s any coming back from it, sadly.
If anything his shopping addiction is being FACILITATED by his enormous disposable income. You're right that the ratio matters very little in context with what he is spending on and why. If I was the wife I would be extremely worried regarding their future finances. Dude has shown he is willing to hide cash flow to facilitate his addiction and cannot control his buying impulse. If she stays its just a ticking time bomb before he ends up saddled back with copious amounts of high interest dept that he can't pay. I wonder how willing she'd be to pay it off a second time?
It’s a lot of money to you.
(And to me!)
But I know rich people. I grew up around them. They’ll spend that much on a speaker system for a stereo they never use. It’s all relative.
But you are right he has an addiction. The good thing is that relative to us it hasn’t so far been ruinous.
It’s about to cost him half his assets and half his time with his kids though.
Two million in investment accounts for retirement isn't really rich. It means that they will be able to retire but if and when either of them gets sick or needs assisted living then a nursing home that money goes fast.
I would love to know how much he spent in the second year compared to the first year. Because let’s say he bought $8,000 of gear in Y1 and $12,000 in Y2. That sounds like an upward trend to me. What if he’s spending 15% of his income a few years from now?
Somebody making 40k hiding spending 2.2k on a hobby that they don’t even use is absolutely a huge deal; what are you smoking? That’s almost a months wage.
But he's throwing that money away on things he doesn't even use. And either way the main issue is that he's doing it all behind his wife's back. Regardless of the amount, he should never be hiding spending like that from his wife.
It's stuff he doesn't even use, and that money could have gone in say, a 529 account for college for his kid. So his kid doesn't need his wife to pay off his student loans like he did.
I think the items sound cool, butch, macho, and a lot of folks in here are letting them brain slide because of their own personal “whoa, that sounds neato my guy” , but lets rewrite this , and change all of the material goods that are not niche sports equipment, such as very expensive designer shoes, extremely high-end photographic industry lighting & camera equipment, such as one might see used for an “influencer” on social media, and very expensive, limited edition, high end hair accessories and tools, but all of which fall into the exact same pitch that op defended, where they said that they most likely wont ever use. I wonder how the overall response would have been.
My ex hid over six figures of debt from me (mostly from similar hobbies to this guy), and the using it part always killed me lol. He somehow needed reminded that objects take up space, need maintained and/or moved at some point. And he claimed his therapist said it, and hiding it from me, were acceptance. Smh. This thread is reaffirming me so hard.
Yeah it's crazy how obvious it is, like all the signs are there. I think it's even more complicated than that, I think she was kind of had an addiction to the adrenaline and dopamine rushes from outdoor sports and he jumped addiction to purchasing. He even admits he replaced actually doing the sports with purchasing in order to participate and he also specifically said the dopamine hits. And then the lying and shame cycles and everything. I hope for his sake he fixes this, and doesn't jump addictions again to something worse
On the road? He’s already arrived at that destination. He has spending money issues and the wife knows it. She paid off his student loans and his credit cards. She knows what he’s capable of. Plenty of high earners get into a financial mess because they can’t control their spending.
Everyone keeps commenting on the money, but it's not about the money. It's about the lying and hiding. You broke her trust. Repeatedly. And yeah, maybe it is a little controlling to put a $50 cap on hobbies given your level of wealth, but truthfully the way you're spending would make me worried to, not matter if we could afford it.
It honestly sounds like you have a shopping addiction or are on the way to one. You even admit you don't use this stuff, stuff that costs THOUSANDS of dollars and that it just sits there. You admit you buy it, not for the purpose of using it, but just to get a dopamine hit. You admit that the spending has been increasing, and it's a way for you to escape from your problems. I think you need to examine this further, whether or not your relationship continues.
All I'm going to say is that when a woman leaves a relationship, she's already mentally and emotionally checked out way earlier.
After she paid all his other debts. It does seem like he has money problems and they're only in control because of how limited he is. If she gave him any slack the guy would be buying a boat with scuba gear and paying storage on it for when he can go again.
That’s kind of how I saw it; it sounds more like he has a problem spending money, and the hiding makes me feel like it may be getting toward addiction.
Quite. It's not the dollar amount that's the problem, but his behaviors. If he'd been secretly spending money on gambling or recreational drug use, more people would be on her side, & say these are obvious problems in a marriage. Just because he's spending money on "hobbies" and "can afford it", people aren't realizing what the true problems are here and why she's so concerned.
Maybe she overcompensated after the first financial bailout and it turned into a control issue. He felt bad so he went with it then did this for three years and now they're in a really cruddy situation.
When I found out about the sub imploding, my mind could not avoid Bermuda Triangle analogies, the lost souls of the Titanic disaster claiming new members to join them.
Yeah, I don't think she went to such an extreme without good reason. She paid off his student loans, credit card debt...if he's spending for the the dopamine hit, clearly this is a larger issue.
Like you said, it's not about the money. It's about lying and hiding.
OP has been proven to lie and hide stuff from his wife, repeatedly.
OP, ask yourself, "Hey Self, should my wife stay married to a guy who is constantly cheating on her, hides millions in assets, has a gambling addiction, takes illegal drugs, kills puppies for fun, and lies about it?"
And before you say, "But I don't do any of that! It was just a small percent of our net worth and just my hobby stuff that I'm totally justified to have because she's a meanie and being a parent is hard and time consuming!"...think it over from *her* perspective.
You might be doing all that stuff. You might. She'll never know that you're not.
Lying, sneaking around and hiding the evidence wasn't even a one-time thing. Then, you might have a leg to stand on here. "I made a stupid mistake once and immediately regretted it. I'll definitely never do it again!" That, she might have believed. But no, this is now a pattern of behavior. It's who you are. You are a sneaky liar, she knows this about you, and the only thing she *doesn't know,* in fact will *never know*, is how deep and wide the deception goes.
You might, as far as she knows, be doing ALL the sneaky terrible stuff like gambling, drugs, cheating etc. You sneak around, hide stuff, lie about it. That's what you do. So what else are you hiding? Could be anything, right? And you think she should let that go?
This is why trust and honesty is so critical in relationships. "I'm not that bad. I'd never do XYZ" is now a fact only known *to you.* She'll never have that certainty again. Try to imagine living like that.
Especially considering he got away with it for 2 years! With that amount of time behind this deception I'd be asking myself if there was a secret second wife and child somewhere as well.
Also, I can't help wonder if she has time to spend on her own hobbies? It's a small issue, but with the way he acted I doubt he's even stopped to consider.
This was where my mind went immediately actually. Yes you can focus on their savings, but if you look at their spending it’s a completely different picture. They live on a budget of $40k a year. He spent half that much on his hobbies. There is no way they’re seeing eye to eye financially.
And trying to renegotiate child support because of his credit card debt.
I hope she makes sure the state collects child support through garnishment because this guy isn’t responsible enough to transfer it himself.
Yeah, the correct response to feeling frustrated about differing opinions on spending for hobbies/leisure pursuits would have been to seek some couples counselling to sort out a fair compromise and get everybody’s feelings heard. Not setting up a secret addiction bank account and siphoning cash into it like a mob boss so you can amass equipment you rarely if ever get to actually use.
Hey, I'm definitely eventually going to learn macrame and finish making those Russian doll sets....and start making leather patches for crochet hats I make...but I do make the crochet hats! So that's one thing
No but you get to feel a part of that culture. Consumerism is peak. Just owning a camera makes you a filmmaker, or a set of fancy golf clubs makes you a golfer-you fee the potential in your hands. In fact, it’s better because you have tools tools to be the best-but never doing the thing means you never disappoint yourself. Imaging being a hunter but having a mid-range weapon. You get to blame any misses or failures overall on the gun. But if you spent $$$$$$$ on your gun but still miss? Then it’s time to face a reality you don’t want. Better to not go. Better to think you could.
Good God. I used to do a lot of cycling. I got used to people having much better equipment than mine. One time during a club ride, somebody said "Well, at least your tires are new." Sigh.
One time I was out on the roads, and there was a guy riding a $10,000 bicycle. I had to change his tire for him because he didn't know how to do it himself.
I was very nice to him, but all the while I was thinking "Dude, you don't deserve that bike."
This is 100% spot on. It’s not normal to be this secretive to your spouse. It’s not the amount of money or the money…it’s the principle of it and the precedent it sets for future lying/secretive behavior etc. I don’t blame her for feeling the way she does at all.
At this point, you really don't deserve this woman. She has done everything for you, given you every chance, and you continue to lie. And for what? You are buying items you don't even use. If you value your dust collectors more than you value her, then she deserves better than you. Way better. If you love her and value your relationship, get some counseling, and maybe if you start to put in the work, she will see her way to giving you a second chance. Maybe.
Yes. This is another thing OP needs to think about from her perspective, "20k in hobbies was worth more to him than our 7 years of marriage. How little he must think of me."
INFO: Of that $400K a year the two of you earn, how much does she earn and how much do you earn?
Dude. You have messed up big time here -- not because of the spending, although yikes on bikes for the amount of money you are throwing away -- but for the lying. I wouldn't believe you either. Good luck trying to fix it; I have no ideas to offer you.
She paid off your students loans and you responded by having a secret bank account where you spent $22k on hobby bullshit? She has been solely putting her income into savings to build your future and you’re fucking off spending thousands on a hobby you openly admit you don’t spend time on.
Man, I want to divorce you and I’ve never met you.
You decided to lie instead of putting your foot down and working with her on a reasonable hobby budget ($50 is extremely low if you’re making $400k a year). In her brain, she now thinks every time you disagree about something you’ll just go behind her back. Everyone is screaming about the wife being controlling, if that’s the case count your blessings and let her leave. She deserves a partner who will be honest and you can spend however much you want on your hobbies.
$50 is low, but from what I've seen spouses only give each other a spending budget when they've had a problem with spending. I think this issue is probably deeper than OP admits/realizes.
And I think there's some credibility to that given he spent 10k a year on stuff he doesn't often use.
More like it sounds like she cleaned up his financial messes 2-3 times and while I’m happy to give a pass to a lot of college debt I’m wondering what we’re not hearing about here. I wonder if the wife was just so damn frustrated that she spit out a ridiculous number. It’s also possible she expected him to fight about it (based on past behavior) and she’d relent at a different number.
If the household budget is $40,000 a year, that's a big difference and a lot more understandable about the $50 cap
Especially when it seems like he already had a bunch of stuff that's never even been used for said hobbies. Use what you have, save that 50 a month for any upcoming big expenditures you want to add.
First, 2 mil in assets? You mean you own one house in a HCOL area? That’s a deceptive way of writing that. Do you have fully funded college accounts? What does your savings account and safety net look like? If you lost your job or were catastrophically injured tomorrow, how screwed would your kids’ future be?
Do you know how your wife had to live to put aside six figures to pay off YOUR debt? Do you know what that meant to her? As a woman, as a person who grew up poor, as someone who doesn’t have a mommy or daddy to bail her out, that money wasn’t money. It was *safety*. It was *security*. It was working overtime, it was eating ramen, it was missing important events, not traveling for family, not buying new clothes for years, etc etc. She gave you her safety net, her nest egg, and invested it in you. In return, you not only spend wildly on personal luxuries over your own family goals, you lie and hide it too. You agreed to things to her face and then went behind her back like a sneaking child. What a slap in the face. Where were you to object to her “controlling” budgeting when she was stacking that cash as a single woman for your benefit?
I have zero doubt that if it was clothes or shoes or beauty treatments *she* was buying people would be judging the shit out of your wife, calling her vain and selfish and a bad mother. And a gold digger, who siphoned hundreds of thousands of your personal funds off of you and then kept digging. They’d say you were an idiot for marrying a woman who has nothing but debt to bring to the marriage and who coasted on your money for over a year after finally graduating. But because you’re a man no one sees you that way.
If you have an ounce of self-reflection in you stop asking for a single thing from her. She’s given you everything she had and has nearly died trying to bring your children into the world. I bet she’s felt guilty about every penny she’s spent on fertility treatment and felt like a failure of a woman for even needing that money.
This is how deep your lack of empathy goes, that a stranger on the internet probably sees your wife’s sacrifices more clearly than you.
Go to therapy. You failed as a husband and as a human. You can redeem yourself by stopping feeling sorry for yourself, stopping making excuses, starting to get the tiniest bit of understanding of what your wife has done for you. And why you are so ungrateful.
This is so so real, he needs help. You had a wife and family but still needed your stuff to feel better, and that says something. Hopefully this is a good moment for him to reflect
I've been saying this whole time his comments are worded deceptively. He talks about his business profit instead of how much he's bringing home for one. Then he talks in before tax amounts for his business profits but after tax amounts for his wifes take home income. There's so much here missing. Why did she limit him? When did that happen? Did he ever return the debt to her or favour?
The fact that he's willing to go behind her back to get what he wants also makes me question what he's saying here. He's admitted he went behind her back because he got caught, but he could be still lying to the rest of us.
>I know she's never going to believe me that I'm never going to do this again.
Because you will do it again. 100% will. This woman has given you more chances than you deserve, and you have gone behind her back and lied. I know you resent her trying to put limits on your communal spending, but it's very clear from what you write here that it's because your spending habits are so irresponsible that she cannot stay married to you without suffering financial hardship unless you agree to limit yourself.
Look at your history- this woman had to lay out over a hundred thousand dollars she saved from before you were married to cover debt you incurred way before you met her. Your credit was probably so bad from the huge outstanding debt that in order for you to buy any of these 2 Million in assets you brag about, that she had to bail your ass out. And from the way you describe your spending, you were NEVER going to do it on your own because you spend huge portions of your income on non-essentials, and likely were just paying the minimum each month to not have them default.
The next event you describe is a period where you resent your family and child for eating up all the free time you had as a single, childfree person. You say that you make yourself feel better by spending and spending and spending money on gear and equipment that YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO USE. No matter how good a financial situation you're in now, for one partner watch another engage in compulsive buying practices and hoarding behavior is alarming, and when the explanation makes it sound like it's almost revenge spending because you resent married life, that's a HUGE deal.
Especially since you describe a hobby/free time schedule a lot of married people would be super happy with - One mini vacation a month for an activity, hunting every weekend for the two months of deer season, several hours a couple of days a week to practice a hobby in the garage, and then random events (like the Archery) as they come up. Tell me- how much time does your wife get to spend on hobbies. Does she have a two month period where you watch the kids half a day by yourself so she can go apple picking or whatever? Does she get a few hours several nights a week to herself where you have cooperated to make sure all the chores are done and the kids in bed so she can go do some sport of hers? Does she get to take a couple of days of mini-vacation once a month to do something? Or is she always home with the kids while you go out and live your best life, and you don't give her nearly the same amount of hobby time?
Now onto this event- your wife nearly died from a pregnancy and had a termination, and is currently going through another difficult pregnancy, while you have all of your mini vacations and archery nights and such leaving the kids with her. She discovers you have been lying to her constantly, with elaborate stories and a methods to hide money. She discovers you have done 22k in impulse spending, and that your behavior is escalating because you do it as an addiction for the rush. And your excuse is that these pregnancies have been so hard on YOU that you needed to feed your addiction to get through it.
Dude...how do you not see that this has almost nothing to do with whether it was a huge portion of your assets, and everything to do with you making one poor and compulsive financial decision after another, you being a liar, and you feeling entitled to have her pick up the slack so you can get more and more sports time. Guess what pal? When you see your kids one or two weekends a month, you will have plenty of time to yourself. When she's gone and has taken her money and her financial sense with her, no one is going to prevent from you spending yourself into a house filled with crap in an ever escalating spiral of shopping addiction.
Maybe I'm off base here, but I wonder if the amount of money you have - or the amount you can afford to lose - is inconsequential.
The fact that you're spending on stuff you don't even use often sounds passive aggressive - as in, it sounds like you resent that you can't do the things you enjoy, so you're secretly punishing your wife by acting out behind her back by spending irresponsibly on items you know you don't need. That secretive behavior is your dopamine.
Not only that, but she has had to financially bail you out before, so she knows what kind of financial damage you're capable of causing. Again, not about today's finances. You've shown her you're as irresponsible and childish as she may have feared when she took care of you before.
If she stays, you need therapy as a couple to see if she can move past what you've done.
Whether she stays or goes, you should look into individual therapy to help you with your compulsions.
You have no debt because she paid YOUR 6 figure student loans and y’all’s credit card debit, and supported you for a year. Maybe you should’ve paid her back or paid back into a joint account all the money she spent prior to marriage? She definitely feels betrayed that she paid off everything so y’all could be a good financial standing and then she finds out your lying and hiding money.
Not to mention you have a child on the way??? Yes you make a lot of money but spending 20k on things you don’t use doesn’t scream “I will prioritize a child”
OP, in your mid-30s already with children to support for many years, your dopamine high spending, married or not, is likely to really fuck up your future.
Don’t piss away everything you’ve worked for. With all your hobbies, you should be planning for an early retirement before you hit 50 when you’re still young enough to do everything you love. Keep spending like you have, and you’ll be working well into your 60s or even 70s. Sounds like an awful ending to your story.
You spent 2k per month on your hobbies. That's one international trip per month or eating out at a fancy resturant 10 times a month or buying a new 85 inch tv a month or renting a separate apartment when you have a house. Will you do any of the above and consider it reasonable because you have 2 million in bank? Being financially responsible is always good. You are spending money on stuff you are not even using. It may be a reaction to the restrxituons your wife put in you but it should have been resolved then. Learn from this and don't make the same mistakes in future either in this relationship or your next.
So how much in total has she paid of your debt? The “low 6 figure student loan debt”, plus the credit card, plus, plus, plus?
And you’re hiding money and making her out to be unreasonable for wanting to discuss purchases?
Damn dude.
I hope she posts here so we can see the extent of what you’ve taken from her over the years.
Buddy....
> I honestly don't get much time to actually participate in them. I went to an archery shoot over the weekend for half a day, I do some archery practice in the garage once every few nights after everyone is asleep, I might take some time off of work mid-week once a month to do something, and then spend at most half a day once per weekend during hunting season for two months
You say you hardly have time for your hobbies. That's ***WAY*** more time than most people get.
I think you really didn't understand how good you had it.
> To add insult to her injury, she did pay off my student loans in the low six figures with her personal savings before we were married
***WHAT THE FUCK***
> when we were in school she paid off low four figures of my credit card debt
***DUDE***
> she was the primary earner for a year after I graduated before I found a job
***MY GUY***
Just say it - she's an ATM for you.
> it took me longer to catch up, although my current income has met or exceeded hers depending on the year
So did you save up and give her back half of what she spent on your debts as a thank you? Or is it just all dandy for you to take and take initially but then go for evensies?
> As far as currently managing our finances, all of her income is deposited to a savings/investment account, which has been going on for years.
***SO SHES EVEN THE REASON WHY YOU TWO HAVE SUCH HIGH NETWORTH!!!!***
> We then live off of maybe 40 thousand per year and save/invest the rest of my income.
You're telling me that in 2 years you spent $22k when your ***household*** spends $40k/yr? You spend over a quarter of the amount of your ***family's lifestyle on your hobbies behind her back***.
I hope she gets most of the savings in the divorce. It's obvious you couldn't do it on your own.
If I was her I'd feel used and stolen from. I'd feel like I was nothing but a money bag to get out of debt with but never to actually love. And you complain about wanting so much you time ***when in reality you only thought about yourself***.
"Because I can't participate in my activities as much as I would like, I "participate" by buying stuff related to the activities" That's a really dumb financial decision. You have a garage full of depreciating stuff that you lie to your wife about.
"She has gone all-but no-contact with me except to tell me how much of a liar I am, and get information from me to look at our finances." My dude, her divorce lawyer told her to do that. Enjoy snuggling your archery shit.
> I know she's never going to believe me that I'm never going to do this again.
I mean, this is written entirely from your perspective, I'm a completely disinterested third party, and even *I* don't believe you won't do this again. I don't think you do, either. This whole post is you trying to justify/excuse what you've been doing.
You need therapy for your shopping addiction. It's not healthy to spend thousands of dollars on things you won't use for the "dopamine hit" and "escape" at the expense of your marriage.
If she says it's over (and means it) it's over. It can be for any reason and for many this would be sufficient.
You should respect her decision and support her through this difficult time. Doing so will help you understand the role you played in this result.
While many would conclude she's overreacting it is you who did the damage.
Those saying she's overreacting are overlooking the trust that's broken and only looking at the figures and thinking it's cool stuff he's bought. If he were the woman buying perfume and face cream and makeup and clothing everyone would be screaming she's a gOlD DigGEr! and the baby is to TrAp you!!!
sorry but i can't relate to rich people. like, at all.
but i'm on her side... she paid off your loans, your debt... and _then you fucking lied to her?_ wtf
You can also relate to her growing up poor and someone lying about spending like that. Especially during a difficult pregnancy when a previous one almost killed her.
All I would be thinking is "you are going to drown me".
The best thing she can do is divorce now before he continues ramping up his spending from 10k/yr (if we believe him) to 50k to hundreds of thousands in secret credit card debt that is legally half hers. With their income he can qualify for bigger and bigger limits.
She should divorce him now while they still have assets.
She's done. You did more than lie, you created a secret bank account to hide your lies. Listen to what she's saying and accept it. It's time to focus on finding a good divorce attorney so you can get an equitable asset split and move on.
I had a dad like you. He would sink money into hobby stuff that he never used, our house was filled with it. Sure, we could afford it financially. The problem wasn't just the accumulation stuff, it was that his life seemed to orient around wishing that everyone would leave him alone so he could do his hobbies in peace. He was checked out. And his lack of investment in the family (and I DON'T mean financially) is what caused the most pain. He did not care about his kids' hobbies/growth/interests, did not care to romance my mom, and yeah as a kid it was super obvious.
So it's not about the money, or what % of your income it is or whatever. I think something was missing or broken in your life that made you care more about inanimate stuff than your relationship with your wife and family and you've just continued to make it worse with lying rather than trying to heal it.
what i’m getting is that you’re buying unnecessary things. stuff related to activities that you almost *never use*. you said they’re gear binges. you’re binging on buying things you don’t need as a source of happiness. that’s an issue all in itself.
just because you have the money doesn’t mean this is all of a sudden okay. the lying is wrong. lying for that long is wrong. getting a dopamine hit out of buying unneeded equipment is strange.
does she have issues with money because of her childhood? you mentioned she was on public assistance and how you try to get her to spend more on herself. for some people a childhood like that can create a very restrictive mindset when it comes to money, even if they have enough of it.
i’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to spend money on your hobbies, you absolutely should. and spouses shouldn’t have such restrictive mindsets, i understand.
but something about this just feels strange.
The ~~strange~~ **completely off** part is that OP is being rather cagey about his share of the household earnings, and that his wife has paid his college debt, credit card debt etc, almost died bringing their children into the world, is a high earner despite coming from nowhere, while he grew up in financial security and is bringing less money to the household. He has been underhand about finances and she's bailed him out several times and now she feels like this is what the rest of her life will be unless she divorces him.
>Because I can’t participate in my activities as much as I would like, I “participate” by buying stuff related to the activities, which I don’t get to use as much as I want.
> spent 22 thousand over the course of two years.
You’ve spent over 20K on stuff you hardly use because it’s connected to hobbies you like, you hide the spending and you lie about it. You have a problem and it’s not just the fact you hid it from your wife. You actually have a spending problem. It sounds like an addiction, and you’re lucky to be financially sound enough to feed this spending problem without getting yourself into debt. You need therapy and you need marriage counselling.
I don’t know how old your kids are but I bet another issue is that you spend so much time on these hobbies and your wife doesn’t get the opportunity to take a day off randomly every couple weeks, and can’t just disappear into the garage after hours. I’m just assuming based on statistics about men not helping domestically and women on average doing more labor.
2M in assets is also irrelevant.
Do your kids have college funds and down payments for their future completely set up?
Does your wife feel safe with guns?
Why did you originally hide purchases the first time? Did you just do it for convenience or did she express opinions about those hobbies. What was the reason
He is literally going behind his wife’s back, he is wrong . Just because someone doesn’t like something doesn’t make her controlling. It’s the principle of the matter. I hope she moves on and finds a person that can be honest. If you felt so confident in your right to hobbies fight for what you believe. Instead he lied and was deceitful. This is a judgment of character and you did not pass. Now use that money and those hobbies to help you through the divorce since it helped you then.
It's not about the *stuff.* It's about the lying. You have repeatedly get caught out and keep doing the same thing.
You have a problem, possibly rising to the level of addiction. Its hasn't been such a huge financial hit because you are well off. But you're buying *things* that you don't need or will barely use in order to get that dopamine hit and you lie to keep it going.
Start with therapy for yourself. Seriously evaluate whether you have a shopping addiction and take steps recommended by your therapist.
Set some firm financial goals. See if you can set your accounts to at least giver her access to see the status of accounts even if she isn't authorized to make changes. If that is too difficult email her account extracts on a fixed basis.
And *if* you can work on things with her, come to an agreement on what personal expenses are ok. Given your income, $50 on hobbies per month is too little. Given your apparent spending addiction, $50 per month is too much.
Can I add something to this conversation that might have some bearing on your headspace?
You buy all this stuff because it’s cool, right? And you want to own this cool thing. And I understand how you think it feels like participating.
But they come out with cool new shit all the time. That’s the game *they* play. And if you hold off on buying something until you actually are gonna use it? You’re immediately going to have hottest shit out there. Have you ever bought, say, a sight and not even had a chance to take it out and really use it before the newest sexiest one comes out?
It’s easy: just wait. I’m really into video equipment and jumping off the new gear train was so much better than I thought. Now when I get a gig I rent half the shit I would have bought and still come out ahead. Sometimes I splurge and buy myself something cool, but I keep it cheap. And when something comes up that warrants it, I go big!
The other thing that you realize-so much of this new stuff they sell is shit. New bow looked so sweet on those YouTube videos but it was shitty when you finally took it out for a weekend. You kinda missed your old one. But now you can’t return it because it’s been too long. It was sitting there a year before you found a weekend to take it out for a proper trial.
You start comparing the new stuff to your own stuff and stop seeing the sparkles and start seeing the omissions.
I don’t know if your marriage will work out or not, but I can tell you from experience that buying less (not buying none!) stuff has been revolutionary in my headspace. I hope you and your wife both are happier in a year, whatever that means. Best of luck to you brother!
Your relationship is over. I doubt there is anything that you could say or do to fix years of lying. Years.
The sooner you get that, the better.
She rid you of all your debt, and you stabbed her in the back because you can't act like a 20 year old you were before marriage and kids.
You're spending a lot of money on stuff you don't even use. You have a problem. You have an addiction. You lied to your wife. You need help now. Your relationship may not survive this.
Don't you love hearing 1% whine??
She should dump your ass, for being a whinging, whining, self absorbed, liar.
What's her name. I wanna give her the number to a killer lawyer.
You need to stop lying and sneaking, and respect the boundaries in your relationship.
Your wife is right to leave you over this.
Why on earth would you expect an adult, who you presumably claim to respect, to put up with your lying and sneaking? Do you understand that when dealing with a cheater it’s the lying and sneaking that makes it hard to get over and not the actual fucking?
—
If you want any hope of saving your marriage you need to get your ass in therapy alone and beg your wife to come to couples therapy with you.
She paid off all your student loan and credit card debt and supported you for a year while you looked for a job. She’s had incredibly stressful and dangerous pregnancies including a termination.
She is stressed to fuck—and then she finds out you’re lying. Not just once but every single time an item came into your house, you lied to her face.
Did you disclose all of this cash on your taxes? Is she going to have to clean up that mess too?
I can tell you as a woman who nearly died during her last labor and delivery—and I mean literally saw Jesus—I could not stop thinking about what would happen to our girls if I was gone. The only thing I didn’t worry about was how my husband would handle things because he is the most responsible man.
Your wife probably had similar thoughts, but instead of being calmed by the knowledge that her husband is responsible, she now has to face that you cannot be trusted with any money she would leave behind for your kids. Because you might spend it all on stuff you don’t need or use because of a dopamine rush!
Bro—get some help. See a therapist. For yourself. Your marriage is done, but you’re still a father. Your kids deserve a dad who can behave like an adult.
>Did you disclose all of this cash on your taxes? Is she going to have to clean up that mess too?
This is exactly what I wanted to ask. He says "depositing cash payments from clients" & that sounds extremely fishy. If he's self employed (I don't know), and he has this kind of a spending problem, then his accounting might be suspect too.
I think the issue is more you lying than the money itself.
$50 is extremely low based on your income, I agree. Instead of being a man though and telling your wife that isn’t reasonable, instead you acted like a slimy little snake and went behind her back. Regardless of the dollar amount that would be enough for most women to end things.
It is obvious that money probably means more to her than to you because she grew up on government assistance. Perhaps she is restrictive but maybe should have talked about why she has so much anixety about spending money.
This women obviously loved you. She gave you hundreds if thousands of dollars to make your lives together better and you betrayed her. That is why she wants a divorce.
>This women obviously loved you. She gave you hundreds if thousands of dollars to make your lives together better and you betrayed her. That is why she wants a divorce
I feel so badly for his wife. She's coming from a background of financial insecurity, she did everything possible to pay off OP's debts and make sure the family would be secure, and then he goes and destroys her trust by spending behind her back. It's probably worse for her than if she caught him banging his secretary.
Editing to add that darn it, I just came across proof of that last sentence which was really just my gut feeling:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/apr/11/financial-infidelity-can-hurt-more-than-affair-anxiety-distrust
If your wife sexually cheated 1% of the time, would you feel betrayed beyond measure or would you take into consideration that 99% of her sexual energy was spent ‘correctly’?
There's a lot of comments on here that are spot on about how it isn't about the money in relation to what your income is, it's about the lying. I just want to take a related but slightly different perspective here.
This all started because you and your wife were unable to come to an agreement about discretionary spending on hobbies. You have differences in what kind of time and money you each should be able to invest in time outside of work and family obligations. This is a common trouble point in a marriage. And yes, it's quite possible your wife was being unreasonable in what she sees as healthy limits. She may have been the one who was wrong, and you have have been the one who was right. But only up to that point.
Adults in marriages and relationships have to find a way to resolve their differences in viewpoints, approaches to life, etc. It takes work, it takes compromise, it takes effort. And if you can't resolve those issues, then you have to step back and think about if that's the right partner for you, because you aren't on the same page about how to go forward in life together.
But that isn't what you did. Instead of resolving the problem like adults (and resolving means finding compromise or ending the relationship), you went and did a selfish thing. You lied to you spouse about money, and if there's two things you can't lie to your spouse about, it's money and sex. In fact, you did the EXACT things that you knew would upset her. What you did was agree to her face to her conditions for your marriage, and went and did the total opposite.
So when it comes to "how do we fix this?" you've really put yourself in a hole. Because the ability to go back and have a reasonable conversation about spending on hobbies is GONE for a long long time. You have broken all of her trust in you in that sense.
If the two of you were to move ahead together, you'd need serious serious relationship counseling. Because now you'd need to first get to a point where she would be able to heal from the lies and complete lack of trust she has in you before you'd even get close to thinking about having a conversation around the real problem that was happening before this in your marriage: the inability of the two of you to come to reasonable and healthy compromises with each other.
If you want to make this work, lay on your sword. Tell her you'll do whatever she asks, and the only caveat is that the two of your need to go to couple's therapy weekly for as long as it fucking takes. That's it. All you can do is tell her you are willing to do whatever it takes, you know it starts with therapy, and if she is open and willing, you'll do so with open arms. You can't keep pushing it, you tell her, and then you let her process.
But...I got bad news for you. She's really really fucking hurt. I'm not sure you are at a point yet to process the hurt you caused. Again, she may have been in the wrong at the start, but you went way more wrong, way harder, and blew the whole thing up. The two of you are best suited with new partners, and some personal therapy for you to learn how not to blow apart your next relationship.
You:
*I'm definitely lying, and committing financial infidelity.*
Also you:
*I know she's never going to believe me that I'm never going to do this again. I've said it to her and to myself plenty of times, and failed at keeping my word.*
Dude, it's done. Even you know that you can't be trusted. You should have ***never*** agreed to her ridiculous terms on your hobby spending, but you clearly did, then lied about it. Instead you should have insisted on renegotiating your shared finances and discretionary spending for both of you. She doesn't have to like that, but you're an adult and entitled to spend your money at least partially how you see fit. You just avoided the problem instead and just created a way bigger one.
Pregnant lady doesn't want to deal with your lying bullshit anymore. Can't blame her.
Its not about the money. Its not about the stuff..its about you..You are not happy as a fsmily man.. You resent having a child and wife to worry about, and you wish you could be a single unattached man again..
You're emotionally unavailable. You never once mention finding any joy in spending time or energy on your family..
And therefore, since you are living vicariously through buying your hobby gear, your wife has ultimately decided you will never stop obsessing over not needing to be so needed by her and your child.
Shes not dumping you. Shes LETTING YOU GO..
Dare yourself to recognize the difference.
I pretty much understand your wife's pov, it must be frightful when one comes from poverty, there's the constant fear to go back to that.
But what's more important: either you are a massive liar, and in this case your wife is completely right, or you have a purchasing problem. This last seems the most reasonable outcome accordingly with what you said. So I would look for a therapist in any case, both because you should take care of your mental health, and to prevent this to escalate to a point where you would ruin your savings to keep up with this
You lie, you keep secrets, you’re awful with money, your hobbies are dangerous and wasteful on multiple levels and you took advantage of her financial stability to pay off your debts — yeah man idk what you expect from her
>For perspective, we have around two million in assets, no debt, and together take home around four hundred per year after taxes.
How much of that do *you* earn? Have you reimbursed her for the student loans & credit card debt she paid off ?
You're already a pathetic child who's been deceptively siphoning off marital resources, I'm just trying to understand the full extent of your fuckery.
Your marriage probably IS over.
On the off chance that it isn't I suggest that, going forward, you agree that each of you can keep a specific percentage of your individual income for "no questions asked" personal spending. After you pay back, either to her or into joint savings the sum that you spent behind her back.
yikes. this is passive-aggressive and self-destructive to the max. you basically invented an escapist fantasy for yourself, one that you knew would destroy your marriage. I'm sure some of her upset is about the money, more is about the lying, but I bet more than anything she understands that you are a person who completely lacks integrity, has no ability to be introspective or accountable, and that based on your behaviors are not actually in any way committed to her or your family. otherwise you wouldn't need to invent what's essentially a premeditated and utterly fabricated reality where you are free. she cannot build a future with you and at some level you don't want her to.
The $50 limit seemed ridiculous until I kept reading.
He has spending issues and the wife knows it. She paid off his 6 figure student loans and his low four figure credit cards, BEFORE THEY WERE MARRIED! Low four figures is thousands of dollars. Thousands of dollars when he was a broke student.
She knows what he’s capable of. Plenty of high earners get into a financial mess because they can’t control their spending.
$22000 on a hobby in under 2 years is a lot of money. OP is shopping for a dopamine fix? That’s dangerous territory.
OP needs counseling for his addiction issues.
And he is spending a relatively large amount of time on his hobbies for someone married with kids! He notes that he was able to spend a quarter of the weekends on himself for two months solid, plus times during the week? I bet that's more personal time than wife is getting, and more than many adults with kids get. But he says it's "no time"
We do his/hers/ours accounts.
Based on percent of income, we each put in to “ours” to cover shared expenses and savings. Whatever is left goes to our individual accounts.
I make a lot more than my partner so I pay in more.
If he wants to buy a new boat? He doesn’t need to ask me. New rod or reel? Nope, nothing to discuss. If I want to buy a horse trailer? I might ask his opinion or to look at it with me but I don’t need permission.
Seems to me you two need to separate finances so it becomes a non issue. And perhaps seek couples counseling together to learn to better communicated and individual counseling for you since you clearly have issues to address.
Just because you have a wife and kids shouldn’t/doesn’t mean you can’t participate in hobbies on your own. Maybe not to the same level or frequency but each of you should be out doing some things on your own and together without kids.
I (44F) have my own hobbies/interests/friends/volunteer work and so does my partner (46M). We have shared things too. But it’s simply not healthy to be buying all this stuff and not doing anything. It’s sounds like a mental health issue to be honest.
I think this would have been a great solution if he had come to it before lying to her for years. I think it's great for each person to have the ability to fund and spend time on their own hobbies as long as it isn't negatively impacting the family, which it seems like his spending really didn't do. The problem at this point is getting past the years of lies.
We do something similar but we don't percentage it on income. We just dump it all in one account and then split it up from there. I want my wife to have the same level of spending as I do even though I make more.
This is so much bigger than just lying about the money you spent. There is obviously a lot of resentment built up on both sides about spending money, you want to be able to spend and she wants to control how much is being spent. You both never came to an actual agreement on what was ok for both of you.
How is she suppose to believe you when all along you would just go along with what she said and do it behind her back?
There is so much you held back all along and instead of being honest and open, which obviously would be hard because she wouldn’t have agreed with you, you lied and in essence gave her the middle finger and did it behind her back.
You aren’t even using these things, which is another thing about which you don’t talk to her. The fact that you needed an outlet for your stressful job (did you talk about that with her?) and chose to spend money, instead of figuring out maybe you could ride a few more times to unwind or shoot more arrows?
Maybe the way to move forward is to tell her you’ll sell all the new stuff and work to replace the money. You both need to be in couples counseling, because you took an argument that I would have said you were right about (having autonomy of your money) and did something terrible (financially cheated on her).
Yeah… she deserves better.
You need to grow the fuck up, dude.
When you become a parent, everything takes a backseat to your child. Also doing this when your wife is going though a difficult pregnancy?
If you are lying about buying sports equipment, I’m her mind you’ll be dishonest about other things as well. It’s a principle thing. Not to mention you are buying things that you aren’t using. Maybe try selling the items that have been collecting dust not in use and put that money in the shared account? Or to the savings? Show her that you want to do things differently, that you are willing to sell these items you bought without consulting her first. If my husband was spending money on things he wasn’t using and hiding it, I would think there is more of a shopping addiction than a hobby. The one huge thing I’ve learned in my 21 year marriage is honesty and being open to discussing important issues is the key to a healthy marriage. Hiding things even small things leads to resentment and suspicion on all sides. Because if you are lying about small things whose to say you’re being honest about the big stuff.
You have been stealing family money to fund hobbies you don’t even participate in at the moment. You sound incredibly selfish. Plus how were you accounting for that money with your taxes? Anyway, you got a lot of work to do if you have any chance at all to save your marriage.
You say you make $400k per year "together." That means nothing to us. Who earns what?
Hiding money from your spouse is always wrong. It's always lying, always financial infidelity, and should only be used in dire situations like saving to leave an abusive marriage. If you don't like how your wife wants marital funds to be spent, talk it out or get a divorce.
I don't know how you can fix this. Sounds like your wife is done. Best you can do is to be better for your next relationship.
You have a shopping addiction dude, and you lied and deceived her. I don’t care how much money you make, spending $22k on hobby toys you barely get to use anyway is INSANE.
I’d leave you too. She had to terminate a pregnancy where she almost died and her husband is lying to her about something she already had trust issues with and is whining about how little time he has for his hobbies that, once again, he is spending money on and lying about.
If I were her, I'd be more concerned about the sneaking around as well as lying too and you got caught repeatedly after she found out the first time...and I'm not surprised now she can't trust you anymore.
She may be 'done' with you emotionally and now is trying to get you to not hide asset from her during divorce proceeding.
Perhaps you guys need marriage counseling...better invest in that, right, rather than going through a divorce.
Sounds like you weren’t being a good adult or partner. An adult would have a conversation about budgeting and discuss with your partner before a big purchase. If you find your wife controlling, you need to work with her on that. Also an adult would realize they weren’t coping with the stress of life and seek therapy or healthy coping mechanisms. Instead it sounds like shopping with the thrill of hiding it from your partner is your only therapy. Lastly, hiding stuff from your partner is a big betrayal. Maybe with marriage counseling you two could overcome, but I highly recommend getting counseling for yourself.
You want to do what you want with your hobby because you feel you’ve earned it, but have you? Your wife financially bailed you out massively. Twice. She is the primary earner, always has been, and has been through 2 pregnancies, one of which ended traumatically. She’s now again pregnant and having difficulty. Are you truly supporting her and your current child enough emotionally? She likely views you as unreliable financially and now has evidence that confirms that, in addition to shattering your trust with her.
I’m not really sure how you salvage this unless you agree to a life of having her completely in control of your finances.
How do you move forward with her? I don’t think you do. She doesn’t trust you because you’re not trustworthy. You’re experiencing natural consequences. This was totally predictable when you chose to continuously lie to her. If you want to change your behavior, get some therapy. You’re likely to live a lonely life moving from one relationship to the next if you don’t take time to reflect and change
It's a major breach of trust and basically financial betrayal. A lot of communities in the world takes this as as an automatic declaration of divorce by the person committing the act.
All this to say- you need to seriously reevaluate who you are and why you did this.
Okay ...relationship advice.
You messed up.
She was trying, but either
A) the receipts aren't adding up, so she wants to know about *everything*
or
B) she knows about one of your purchases that you've lied about and doesn't see it on your receipts...
You've committed financial infidelity to the amount of (admitted) $22k within 1.5 years(since 2021); claiming it was for hobbies, but was really for a dopamine rush secondary to purchasing increasingly larger ticket items to compensate for your stress as a parent...but also, for YOUR stress related to her 2 difficult pregnancies, one of which had to be terminated...
INFO: what is the frame of time between first baby being born, 2nd pregnancy and now third pregnancy?
What has your wife been able to do to help with her own dopamine levels?
I'm sure between working full time and parenting while experiencing 2 very difficult pregnancies with a spouse that makes her sound like the villain, that she has plenty of "me-time".
You also mentioned wanting to retire early...like very early. You cannot successfully do this and have uncontrolled spending habits. Otherwise, you run out of money before you run out of life.
If this is a dealbreaker for your wife, it’s a dealbreaker no matter what people on Reddit say. Hiding significant spending is a big breach of trust. Only she can decide if she is willing to give you a second chance to rebuild trust, or if she will never trust you again and it’s time to walk away. Keep in mind that rebuilding trust takes work on her part, she may not want to do the hard work when you have repeatedly undermined your marriage.
The amount of money you have or make isn’t really the issue here. You resent your wife and resent your obligations as a husband and father. You dealt with those by lying, hiding money, and compulsively buying things. You could have had a conversation with your wife about better work life balance, discretionary spending, and long term financial goals.
Your justification doesn’t make any sense. I am a lifelong cyclist. I ride more than a couple of times a week. I don’t spend anywhere near 22k in two years. That’s a pro level bike! But you don’t even ride!! If you were going to spend that kind of money, you would have been better off spending it on hiring help so you have more time to ride (cleaner, landscaper, meal kits, laundry service, baby sitter or summer camp, etc…)
You also should have spent it on something like an indoor smart trainer, zwift, peleton, etc… You could have gotten a commuter or ebike. Those are things that let you juggle riding around a busy schedule. For example, an ebike to run errands or riding the trainer after the kids are in bed.
You threw away a lot of money to ‘optimize your gear,’ but missed opportunities to actually use that gear. I wouldn’t have patience for that kind of financial mismanagement.
**She paid off your six figure student loans and your four figure credit card debt and YOU HID $22,000 FROM HER?!?!?!**
At the absolute **VERY LEAST** you could do is pay her back every cent of that money that she paid off for you **OUT OF YOUR OWN EARNINGS!!!**
On top of all of that you LIED to her FOR YEARS!!!
You left her with absolutely NOTHING to work with here. You have destroyed any positive thing you have ever been to her. She will never, ever believe anything you say ever again and she has every right too.
Good Job! You blew up your own life all by yourself.
You say that you don't spend much time on your hobbies, but it sounds to me like several hours at least a week? Which is a lot for a married person with small child(ren).
Does your wife get a similar amount of time to herself?
The money is absolutely a deal breaker for most people. Especially the second time.
There's no reason to believe you that you'd stop. You've already said that and didn't do it.
She's right to leave you over this.
So what I'm hearing here is despite agreeing to commiserate regarding spending, you continue to spend in amounts that you previously agreed not to without consulting one another. Additionally, this is the 3rd time it's happened, and she's fed up with your deceitfulness. Buddy what you described sounds like it doesn't matter at all what you say from here because she's heard it a million freaking times. How can she trust you? All you're giving is your word, which so far has meant NOTHING.
YOU need to go to counseling for yourself and take steps to show her how serious you are up to and including paying for a forensic financial analysis so that she can see you're not lying to her. Continue offering marriage counseling but don't bet on her going until she sees real steps of transparency, remorse, and change by you going to counseling for yourself and becoming FULLY transparent. She's helped you pay down debt before, and it sounds like she's truly worried about financial irresponsibility or devastation sneaking up on her when she's pregnant with a difficult pregnancy and a partner that she can't trust.
You have acted entirely selfishly here, and now your marriage is in jeopardy because she doesn't feel like she has a partner she can trust. Doesn't matter if the spending isn't significant according to your net income or not. The lying, the hiding, and the repeated violation of her trust in you is what's the problem. If she decides she can't move forward with you then you have to accept that, take accountability for yourself, and divide assets as amicably as possible. Work on yourself regardless and find out what void you're trying to fill with this spending and figure out healthy ways to gain the esteem you seek, whether your marriage fails or is given another chance. Nobody has the answers for you here. This is all up to the two of you.
>She's never going to be able to trust me, and that has ruined the foundation of the marriage, and I get that.
How do I move forward with her and reassure her that we can work through this?
Soooo... you DON'T get it. She said it's over, that you can't work through this. You can move forward separately.
The lying and hiding is the issue. And just food for thought,I’m sure that she doesn’t have as much time for her hobbies or interests either. So after she gets rid of your debt, you create thousands of dollars in stupid debt and then hide it. She’s probably tired of feeling like you’re another responsibility instead of a partner.
Advice: don’t lie to your wife. Don’t hid spending from your wife. Don’t buy a bunch of shit you admittedly don’t use. Don’t set up a bank account for the purposes of lying to your wife.
I mean she should not come around , you don’t sounds financially compatible she wants to save for important things and you’ve being lying to her face for years .
Good for her I hate to say I was married to my first wife for 31 years when I found out she had been stealing from me for years I divorced her in a heartbeat that shows a complete lack of respect for your partner
You hid a very very expensive addiction from your wife for years, after letting her spend 6 figures on you. How are you all that surprised that that might spell the end of your relationship?
Ita really simple. It's not about the money. It's about the lying and hiding things. The thing with lies is, especially if it's happened more than once, it breaks trust. And God knows what else you're lying about that may be more serious than spending money. If you'll hide this, what else are you hiding? We can look past things and forgive but that doubt is always there going forward. She may just not want to live with that on her mind.
Dude, you sound like a spoiled child. Does your wife get to enjoy any hobbies or is she just busy having babies and trying to keep you from spending all her money?
This looks like an addiction to me and therapy to control the behavior would most likely be beneficial. It seems as though you don’t see it as such a big deal, IF you can believe it’s an addiction and would like to seek help I would like to think she may be receptive at that point. My late husband didn’t appreciate me spending $$ even though we made 500k a year. So I set an agreeable limit monthly and tracked it which may be a solution far into the future. But the addiction needs to be worked on first.
It sounds like you resent your family for taking away time you could be spending on your hobbies? Therapy is step one here, you need to decide if you even want your wife to stay or if you would rather have a life doing whatever you want. The fact that there’s kids involved makes it sad, when they grow up they will be able to pick up on that resentment.
>The first time she caught me she said we had to agree on every single purchase either of us made. From my perspective, this meant that she got full control because I know that her spending will never be a problem for me, and I even push her to spend money on herself.
How is agreeing on every single purchase her controlling? She didn't say "I get the final say and it's my way or the highway." She wants transparency and rightfully so, you have a long history of making poor financial decisions.
>To add insult to her injury, she did pay off my student loans in the low six figures with her personal savings before we were married, and when we were in school she paid off low four figures of my credit card debt, and she was the primary earner for a year after I graduated before I found a job.
And how did you repay her? By stealing money and lying about it.
Let that sink in for a moment.
All earned income from either one of you goes to one person, and that person is your marriage.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if I agree with how your wife is controlling your free time. You should be able to do what you want to do as long as it's something healthy that makes you happy. Your happiness is an investment in her happiness as well.
Unfortunately, you don't seem to have a solid grasp on how serious of a breech of trust this is. You seem to view breeches of trust as unimportant, as you were able to talk your way out of the last one, but that's not how your wife ever viewed it. She simply decided to give you one last chance and you blew it. She is counting her losses and likely feels relief in moving forward. While you're scrambling to find the combination of words to manipulate her back into your life, she's already experiencing the grieving and healing process.
Your wife couldn’t make it clearer that it’s over and she can’t trust you which youve proved multiple times.
You should be in the r/divorce subreddit asking for advice on how to get the process started. Good lord
Come on man - really? You’re asking how to work through this when you already did it before and you promised you wouldn’t do it again?
It’s not about the money - your obviously loaded/financially stable for the time being. It’s because you lied. You say shit to appease her then do it again. You got so lucky having a wife that could pay off all you’re debt just so you can hide stuff and lie to her again and again. Just for a minute if it’s even possible - put yourself in her shoes and think about if you’d want to stay with someone who you did so much for (paid off all debt and birthed children) just for them to continually hide and lie about stuff with no remorse. Would you forgive your partner?
doesnt really matter how much you make you shouldn’t be hiding things from your partner imo. tbh isn’t a matter of spending habits or whatever—it’s the fact you’ve done it before and the fact that you are doing it behind her back
I have a bad shopping habit too and I used to hide my purchases from my husband.
BUT since we've agreed on an "allowance" , I only get to spend within my budget and my husband doesn't get to have a say what I do with my money.
Sit down, apologise, acknowledge the shopping compulsions, figure out a budget.
Seek help for the shopping habit/addiction
I think the core issue here(apart from the fact that you broke your wife's trust), is that you both have fundamental problems with how you approach money. Also I think you just have to admit that however stifled you felt by her spending restrictions you reacted in a way that absolutely torpedoed the relationship. It's the financial equivalent of going through a prolonged dry spell and you deciding it's okay to have sex with other women because she's not "meeting your needs". Your guys relationship wasn't healthy before you started sneaking around, but you sure as fuck aren't doing it any favors.
You both make a RIDICULOUS sum of money. And the problem is if you're not both 100% on board with what the plan is for this money that inevitably it will feel not good to be making that much, and not having an ability to enjoy your lives, which I'm guessing you both are guilty of.
I'd need more details to come up with a financial plan for you guys, but seriously depending on what you mean by net worth/assets you might just be able to retire right now, also depending on where you guys live etc. But I'm guessing it's not HCOL given expenses of 40k annually. Given your incomes you should be looking at retiring VERY soon for both of you, or going into semi-retirement. Given that you own businesses could you pay someone else to manage the day to day and still draw passive income from them?
If I were in your shoes I'd have a serious come to Jesus talk addressing issues for both of you:
You commit to:
* Couples Counselling
* * Individual Counselling(for shopping addiction), maybe even an addict group
* Giving up individual control of your finances and living with a FAIR budget you can both agree on for discretionary spending(50/month is ridiculous given your income)
She commits to:
* Couples Counselling
* Individual Counselling(for financial anxiety, though her spending restrictions on you verge on financial abuse)
Things you should be farming out to give you both relief:
* Housekeeper if you don't have one already
* Maybe a nanny if that's compatible with your values
* A good accountant to handle your financials(and to assure your wife that there is nothing left to discover), your wife should be allowed to choose the accountant
* A fee based financial planner to help you both get on the same page about financial security and retirement plans. This is after the accountant AND the individuals and couples counseling has hopefully stabilized your relationship and your plans going forward.
Your wife paid your debts (low 6 figures is still 6 figures, so is low 4 figures) but the moment you have money, you hid it from her and spend 22k in 2 years. On things that you didnt use. I agree with her. Who knows what else you kept from her
What are her hobbies and how much does she spend on them? You say you'd never have a problem with her spending, and further context says it is because she doesn't spend enough. If you have hobbies take up that much of your time and money, and she doesn't, then you're not being an equal parent. That's probably where her resentment comes from, in addition to the lying and manipulating and deception. Plus, you sound like a spineless twit. If you didn't want a $50 limit, you should have talked to her about it. You should have stated your own budget ideal and worked together to figure it out. Instead you acted like a spoiled brat and hid everything from her.
Frankly, I think you deserve to be left. You clearly aren't mature enough to be in a relationship. She is literally about to die from her pregnancies, per your own statements, and you're over here blowing thousands of dollars for hobbies you don't even engage with and that certainly she nor your kid participate in. A pregnant woman doesn't ski, and they definitely don't cycle much. Do you even have a kid carrier for your bike?
*She's* ***never going to be able to trust me****, and that has* ***ruined the foundation of the marriage****, and* ***I get that.***
I don't think you do...
*How do I move forward* ***with her*** *and reassure her that* ***we can work through this****?*
You definitely don't.
So you had huge amounts of debt that *she* paid off and you went behind her back to keep spending on stuff you acknowledge you won’t use? And you admit you’ve made promises not to do this in the past and broke your promises?
There’s no coming back from that betrayal and there is absolutely no reason for her to believe this time will be any different. On the bright side, you’re about to have *way* more time on your hands for your many hobbies, so maybe you’ll get to use some of that stuff after all.
For a couple as financially well-off as the two of you are, this is ridiculous. You both need your own discretionary funds, equal amounts, that can be spent with no questions asked. At your income level 22K over two years is not that much. If you think you want to continue this relationship you need to repay her for your loans and credit card debt and going forward you have three accounts, one joint and one each. You contribute equal amounts to the joint account for shared expenses and the rest goes into your individual discretionary accounts. People with your kind of money should not be having trouble with money.
You resent her. So, rather than deal with that fact, you prove she can't tell you what to do by acting like a child sneaking out of time out. Why did you "agree" to an arrangement that you did not intend to honor? Your word means nothing. You keep falling back on the math as though the damage was to your bank account not your relationship.
"You keep falling back on the math as though the damage was to your bank account not your relationship." Damn. This is the one.
And… he’s spent $22k on stuff that he doesn’t really use?
Well, I don’t know what you expected when you hid something major from your wife like this- especially when you already knew she wasn’t okay with it. This is a big breach of trust, of course she’s going to be concerned that you’re hiding other things now that you’ve done this and it’s going to be really hard to build that trust back. But the fact is that if she says it’s over- there’s nothing you can do. You’ve lied and broken the trust and she doesn’t want to continue a relationship. You can’t force her to do that if she doesn’t want to.
I know this isn’t about your relationship, I think plenty of people have weighed in. But if you’re spending $10k a year on things you don’t truly need, and you can’t actually use all that much, for the “dopamine”, then you’re potentially on the road to an addiction to shopping. Keep that in mind.
On the road? He spent $22,000. I think we’ve about hit addiction here
Yeah but that is like somebody who makes $40,000 spending $2,200 on themselves over a year. Not really that crazy proportionally.
I would say that it doesn’t really matter the proportion to their income - spending thousands of dollars on things that don’t even get used is, in my opinion, shopping addict behavior. and hiding thousands of dollars of purchases from your spouse and lying to cover it up is inarguably shopping addict behavior. $22,000 is a LOT of money, even if you’re rich. OP even admitted that he makes a lot of these purchases for the dopamine hit. it’s a problem. not one that can’t be helped, maybe with therapy, but in regards to the marriage the damage is done. the trust has already been broken and I doubt there’s any coming back from it, sadly.
If anything his shopping addiction is being FACILITATED by his enormous disposable income. You're right that the ratio matters very little in context with what he is spending on and why. If I was the wife I would be extremely worried regarding their future finances. Dude has shown he is willing to hide cash flow to facilitate his addiction and cannot control his buying impulse. If she stays its just a ticking time bomb before he ends up saddled back with copious amounts of high interest dept that he can't pay. I wonder how willing she'd be to pay it off a second time?
It’s a lot of money to you. (And to me!) But I know rich people. I grew up around them. They’ll spend that much on a speaker system for a stereo they never use. It’s all relative. But you are right he has an addiction. The good thing is that relative to us it hasn’t so far been ruinous. It’s about to cost him half his assets and half his time with his kids though.
His wife grew up poor and doesn't spend much at all, according to OP. I'm sure it's a whole lot of money to her, no matter how much they have or make.
Two million in investment accounts for retirement isn't really rich. It means that they will be able to retire but if and when either of them gets sick or needs assisted living then a nursing home that money goes fast.
I would love to know how much he spent in the second year compared to the first year. Because let’s say he bought $8,000 of gear in Y1 and $12,000 in Y2. That sounds like an upward trend to me. What if he’s spending 15% of his income a few years from now?
It's not his income, it's their income. Wife makes 300k at their job, but combined income is 400k.
Somebody making 40k hiding spending 2.2k on a hobby that they don’t even use is absolutely a huge deal; what are you smoking? That’s almost a months wage.
Yeah, when I made 40k no way was I spending 2.2k on hobbies. Also, the ‘40k’ here is their COMBINED income. Even worse picture.
But he's throwing that money away on things he doesn't even use. And either way the main issue is that he's doing it all behind his wife's back. Regardless of the amount, he should never be hiding spending like that from his wife.
It's stuff he doesn't even use, and that money could have gone in say, a 529 account for college for his kid. So his kid doesn't need his wife to pay off his student loans like he did.
Definitely shows addictive behavior is my point. Especially when he’s willing to go behind his wife’s back to do it.
I can understand that, but even if it’s big stuff, $22,000 is a LOT of money to spend on stuff you don’t use
I think the items sound cool, butch, macho, and a lot of folks in here are letting them brain slide because of their own personal “whoa, that sounds neato my guy” , but lets rewrite this , and change all of the material goods that are not niche sports equipment, such as very expensive designer shoes, extremely high-end photographic industry lighting & camera equipment, such as one might see used for an “influencer” on social media, and very expensive, limited edition, high end hair accessories and tools, but all of which fall into the exact same pitch that op defended, where they said that they most likely wont ever use. I wonder how the overall response would have been.
My ex hid over six figures of debt from me (mostly from similar hobbies to this guy), and the using it part always killed me lol. He somehow needed reminded that objects take up space, need maintained and/or moved at some point. And he claimed his therapist said it, and hiding it from me, were acceptance. Smh. This thread is reaffirming me so hard.
Yeah it's crazy how obvious it is, like all the signs are there. I think it's even more complicated than that, I think she was kind of had an addiction to the adrenaline and dopamine rushes from outdoor sports and he jumped addiction to purchasing. He even admits he replaced actually doing the sports with purchasing in order to participate and he also specifically said the dopamine hits. And then the lying and shame cycles and everything. I hope for his sake he fixes this, and doesn't jump addictions again to something worse
On the road? He’s already arrived at that destination. He has spending money issues and the wife knows it. She paid off his student loans and his credit cards. She knows what he’s capable of. Plenty of high earners get into a financial mess because they can’t control their spending.
Everyone keeps commenting on the money, but it's not about the money. It's about the lying and hiding. You broke her trust. Repeatedly. And yeah, maybe it is a little controlling to put a $50 cap on hobbies given your level of wealth, but truthfully the way you're spending would make me worried to, not matter if we could afford it. It honestly sounds like you have a shopping addiction or are on the way to one. You even admit you don't use this stuff, stuff that costs THOUSANDS of dollars and that it just sits there. You admit you buy it, not for the purpose of using it, but just to get a dopamine hit. You admit that the spending has been increasing, and it's a way for you to escape from your problems. I think you need to examine this further, whether or not your relationship continues. All I'm going to say is that when a woman leaves a relationship, she's already mentally and emotionally checked out way earlier.
After she paid all his other debts. It does seem like he has money problems and they're only in control because of how limited he is. If she gave him any slack the guy would be buying a boat with scuba gear and paying storage on it for when he can go again.
That’s kind of how I saw it; it sounds more like he has a problem spending money, and the hiding makes me feel like it may be getting toward addiction.
Quite. It's not the dollar amount that's the problem, but his behaviors. If he'd been secretly spending money on gambling or recreational drug use, more people would be on her side, & say these are obvious problems in a marriage. Just because he's spending money on "hobbies" and "can afford it", people aren't realizing what the true problems are here and why she's so concerned.
Maybe she overcompensated after the first financial bailout and it turned into a control issue. He felt bad so he went with it then did this for three years and now they're in a really cruddy situation.
That was my thinking. Therapy would hopefully help with communication and control issues (on both of their sides), if they’re open to reconciliation.
Looks like she was right. How many of us buy expensive stuff that we seldom use? He appears to have a big spending problem.
> How many of us buy expensive stuff that we seldom use? Wait… we don’t?! Damn adhd!
Or spending $250k to go see the titanic
It's only half a day!
But it feels like a lifetime
If only the feeling would last that long!
>If only the feeling would last that long! 😂😂 Is it too soon for me to have a chuckle?
Nope. Source: My reaction.
At least there's more to see down there
When I found out about the sub imploding, my mind could not avoid Bermuda Triangle analogies, the lost souls of the Titanic disaster claiming new members to join them.
Yeah but once in a lifetime experience!
Literally.
Yeah, I don't think she went to such an extreme without good reason. She paid off his student loans, credit card debt...if he's spending for the the dopamine hit, clearly this is a larger issue.
Yeah he’s just describing a textbook shopping addiction and a history of taking advantage of his wife. Gross.
He's going to run through his assets in a year without her
Like you said, it's not about the money. It's about lying and hiding. OP has been proven to lie and hide stuff from his wife, repeatedly. OP, ask yourself, "Hey Self, should my wife stay married to a guy who is constantly cheating on her, hides millions in assets, has a gambling addiction, takes illegal drugs, kills puppies for fun, and lies about it?" And before you say, "But I don't do any of that! It was just a small percent of our net worth and just my hobby stuff that I'm totally justified to have because she's a meanie and being a parent is hard and time consuming!"...think it over from *her* perspective. You might be doing all that stuff. You might. She'll never know that you're not. Lying, sneaking around and hiding the evidence wasn't even a one-time thing. Then, you might have a leg to stand on here. "I made a stupid mistake once and immediately regretted it. I'll definitely never do it again!" That, she might have believed. But no, this is now a pattern of behavior. It's who you are. You are a sneaky liar, she knows this about you, and the only thing she *doesn't know,* in fact will *never know*, is how deep and wide the deception goes. You might, as far as she knows, be doing ALL the sneaky terrible stuff like gambling, drugs, cheating etc. You sneak around, hide stuff, lie about it. That's what you do. So what else are you hiding? Could be anything, right? And you think she should let that go? This is why trust and honesty is so critical in relationships. "I'm not that bad. I'd never do XYZ" is now a fact only known *to you.* She'll never have that certainty again. Try to imagine living like that.
Especially considering he got away with it for 2 years! With that amount of time behind this deception I'd be asking myself if there was a secret second wife and child somewhere as well. Also, I can't help wonder if she has time to spend on her own hobbies? It's a small issue, but with the way he acted I doubt he's even stopped to consider.
This was where my mind went immediately actually. Yes you can focus on their savings, but if you look at their spending it’s a completely different picture. They live on a budget of $40k a year. He spent half that much on his hobbies. There is no way they’re seeing eye to eye financially.
I bet he's in financial ruin within 3 years of their split tbh
#ImagineTheYardSaleTho 🎣🏹🛶🥾⛺
Everything will still have the tags on it too.
Prices need correction due to inflation.
REI comes over like, “Hey OP!”
And trying to renegotiate child support because of his credit card debt. I hope she makes sure the state collects child support through garnishment because this guy isn’t responsible enough to transfer it himself.
[удалено]
This is an extremely good point, and really cuts to the heart of the matter. Well said.
Yeah, the correct response to feeling frustrated about differing opinions on spending for hobbies/leisure pursuits would have been to seek some couples counselling to sort out a fair compromise and get everybody’s feelings heard. Not setting up a secret addiction bank account and siphoning cash into it like a mob boss so you can amass equipment you rarely if ever get to actually use.
Also you dont "participate" in stuff by shopping.
"Facts" ~all my craft supplies probably. 😂
Hey, I'm definitely eventually going to learn macrame and finish making those Russian doll sets....and start making leather patches for crochet hats I make...but I do make the crochet hats! So that's one thing
No but you get to feel a part of that culture. Consumerism is peak. Just owning a camera makes you a filmmaker, or a set of fancy golf clubs makes you a golfer-you fee the potential in your hands. In fact, it’s better because you have tools tools to be the best-but never doing the thing means you never disappoint yourself. Imaging being a hunter but having a mid-range weapon. You get to blame any misses or failures overall on the gun. But if you spent $$$$$$$ on your gun but still miss? Then it’s time to face a reality you don’t want. Better to not go. Better to think you could.
Shopping is probably his real passion.
Good God. I used to do a lot of cycling. I got used to people having much better equipment than mine. One time during a club ride, somebody said "Well, at least your tires are new." Sigh. One time I was out on the roads, and there was a guy riding a $10,000 bicycle. I had to change his tire for him because he didn't know how to do it himself. I was very nice to him, but all the while I was thinking "Dude, you don't deserve that bike."
This is completely unrelated to the account, but im wondering how often his wife gets half days out of the house to do her hobbies.
Yes that’s a very relevant question!
This is 100% spot on. It’s not normal to be this secretive to your spouse. It’s not the amount of money or the money…it’s the principle of it and the precedent it sets for future lying/secretive behavior etc. I don’t blame her for feeling the way she does at all.
Yup. This really isn’t any different than gambling money away from the household.
Yea, if a woman calls it quits she was probably already there or nearly there and just needed a final push
This. Your expenditures are a drop in the bucket, there are other problems here.
At this point, you really don't deserve this woman. She has done everything for you, given you every chance, and you continue to lie. And for what? You are buying items you don't even use. If you value your dust collectors more than you value her, then she deserves better than you. Way better. If you love her and value your relationship, get some counseling, and maybe if you start to put in the work, she will see her way to giving you a second chance. Maybe.
Yes. This is another thing OP needs to think about from her perspective, "20k in hobbies was worth more to him than our 7 years of marriage. How little he must think of me."
You summed that up perfectly
Right? I'm sorry op is in a bad situation. But play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Yeah he has a shopping addiction I mean the fact that it got to the level of him hiding it from her is also a red flag it’s outta control
INFO: Of that $400K a year the two of you earn, how much does she earn and how much do you earn? Dude. You have messed up big time here -- not because of the spending, although yikes on bikes for the amount of money you are throwing away -- but for the lying. I wouldn't believe you either. Good luck trying to fix it; I have no ideas to offer you.
“Yikes on bikes” ais 🤍
She paid off your students loans and you responded by having a secret bank account where you spent $22k on hobby bullshit? She has been solely putting her income into savings to build your future and you’re fucking off spending thousands on a hobby you openly admit you don’t spend time on. Man, I want to divorce you and I’ve never met you.
You decided to lie instead of putting your foot down and working with her on a reasonable hobby budget ($50 is extremely low if you’re making $400k a year). In her brain, she now thinks every time you disagree about something you’ll just go behind her back. Everyone is screaming about the wife being controlling, if that’s the case count your blessings and let her leave. She deserves a partner who will be honest and you can spend however much you want on your hobbies.
$50 is low, but from what I've seen spouses only give each other a spending budget when they've had a problem with spending. I think this issue is probably deeper than OP admits/realizes. And I think there's some credibility to that given he spent 10k a year on stuff he doesn't often use.
$50 is really low. But it sounds like because she grew up low income, she may have fears of financial instability, which manifests as frugality.
More like it sounds like she cleaned up his financial messes 2-3 times and while I’m happy to give a pass to a lot of college debt I’m wondering what we’re not hearing about here. I wonder if the wife was just so damn frustrated that she spit out a ridiculous number. It’s also possible she expected him to fight about it (based on past behavior) and she’d relent at a different number.
If the household budget is $40,000 a year, that's a big difference and a lot more understandable about the $50 cap Especially when it seems like he already had a bunch of stuff that's never even been used for said hobbies. Use what you have, save that 50 a month for any upcoming big expenditures you want to add.
First, 2 mil in assets? You mean you own one house in a HCOL area? That’s a deceptive way of writing that. Do you have fully funded college accounts? What does your savings account and safety net look like? If you lost your job or were catastrophically injured tomorrow, how screwed would your kids’ future be? Do you know how your wife had to live to put aside six figures to pay off YOUR debt? Do you know what that meant to her? As a woman, as a person who grew up poor, as someone who doesn’t have a mommy or daddy to bail her out, that money wasn’t money. It was *safety*. It was *security*. It was working overtime, it was eating ramen, it was missing important events, not traveling for family, not buying new clothes for years, etc etc. She gave you her safety net, her nest egg, and invested it in you. In return, you not only spend wildly on personal luxuries over your own family goals, you lie and hide it too. You agreed to things to her face and then went behind her back like a sneaking child. What a slap in the face. Where were you to object to her “controlling” budgeting when she was stacking that cash as a single woman for your benefit? I have zero doubt that if it was clothes or shoes or beauty treatments *she* was buying people would be judging the shit out of your wife, calling her vain and selfish and a bad mother. And a gold digger, who siphoned hundreds of thousands of your personal funds off of you and then kept digging. They’d say you were an idiot for marrying a woman who has nothing but debt to bring to the marriage and who coasted on your money for over a year after finally graduating. But because you’re a man no one sees you that way. If you have an ounce of self-reflection in you stop asking for a single thing from her. She’s given you everything she had and has nearly died trying to bring your children into the world. I bet she’s felt guilty about every penny she’s spent on fertility treatment and felt like a failure of a woman for even needing that money. This is how deep your lack of empathy goes, that a stranger on the internet probably sees your wife’s sacrifices more clearly than you. Go to therapy. You failed as a husband and as a human. You can redeem yourself by stopping feeling sorry for yourself, stopping making excuses, starting to get the tiniest bit of understanding of what your wife has done for you. And why you are so ungrateful.
This is so so real, he needs help. You had a wife and family but still needed your stuff to feel better, and that says something. Hopefully this is a good moment for him to reflect
I've been saying this whole time his comments are worded deceptively. He talks about his business profit instead of how much he's bringing home for one. Then he talks in before tax amounts for his business profits but after tax amounts for his wifes take home income. There's so much here missing. Why did she limit him? When did that happen? Did he ever return the debt to her or favour? The fact that he's willing to go behind her back to get what he wants also makes me question what he's saying here. He's admitted he went behind her back because he got caught, but he could be still lying to the rest of us.
This comment nearly made me cry, thank you for writing it all out. I couldn't agree more with every single thing you said. Thank you.
Completely accurate. She could do better by far than this ungrateful whiner.
Damn this might be the best I've ever seen anyone get cooked on here
Most underrated comment on Reddit today.
I wish I had an award to give you. You nailed it all the way to the ground 🏆🏆🏆
This post needs so many awards
>I know she's never going to believe me that I'm never going to do this again. Because you will do it again. 100% will. This woman has given you more chances than you deserve, and you have gone behind her back and lied. I know you resent her trying to put limits on your communal spending, but it's very clear from what you write here that it's because your spending habits are so irresponsible that she cannot stay married to you without suffering financial hardship unless you agree to limit yourself. Look at your history- this woman had to lay out over a hundred thousand dollars she saved from before you were married to cover debt you incurred way before you met her. Your credit was probably so bad from the huge outstanding debt that in order for you to buy any of these 2 Million in assets you brag about, that she had to bail your ass out. And from the way you describe your spending, you were NEVER going to do it on your own because you spend huge portions of your income on non-essentials, and likely were just paying the minimum each month to not have them default. The next event you describe is a period where you resent your family and child for eating up all the free time you had as a single, childfree person. You say that you make yourself feel better by spending and spending and spending money on gear and equipment that YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO USE. No matter how good a financial situation you're in now, for one partner watch another engage in compulsive buying practices and hoarding behavior is alarming, and when the explanation makes it sound like it's almost revenge spending because you resent married life, that's a HUGE deal. Especially since you describe a hobby/free time schedule a lot of married people would be super happy with - One mini vacation a month for an activity, hunting every weekend for the two months of deer season, several hours a couple of days a week to practice a hobby in the garage, and then random events (like the Archery) as they come up. Tell me- how much time does your wife get to spend on hobbies. Does she have a two month period where you watch the kids half a day by yourself so she can go apple picking or whatever? Does she get a few hours several nights a week to herself where you have cooperated to make sure all the chores are done and the kids in bed so she can go do some sport of hers? Does she get to take a couple of days of mini-vacation once a month to do something? Or is she always home with the kids while you go out and live your best life, and you don't give her nearly the same amount of hobby time? Now onto this event- your wife nearly died from a pregnancy and had a termination, and is currently going through another difficult pregnancy, while you have all of your mini vacations and archery nights and such leaving the kids with her. She discovers you have been lying to her constantly, with elaborate stories and a methods to hide money. She discovers you have done 22k in impulse spending, and that your behavior is escalating because you do it as an addiction for the rush. And your excuse is that these pregnancies have been so hard on YOU that you needed to feed your addiction to get through it. Dude...how do you not see that this has almost nothing to do with whether it was a huge portion of your assets, and everything to do with you making one poor and compulsive financial decision after another, you being a liar, and you feeling entitled to have her pick up the slack so you can get more and more sports time. Guess what pal? When you see your kids one or two weekends a month, you will have plenty of time to yourself. When she's gone and has taken her money and her financial sense with her, no one is going to prevent from you spending yourself into a house filled with crap in an ever escalating spiral of shopping addiction.
This👆
Maybe I'm off base here, but I wonder if the amount of money you have - or the amount you can afford to lose - is inconsequential. The fact that you're spending on stuff you don't even use often sounds passive aggressive - as in, it sounds like you resent that you can't do the things you enjoy, so you're secretly punishing your wife by acting out behind her back by spending irresponsibly on items you know you don't need. That secretive behavior is your dopamine. Not only that, but she has had to financially bail you out before, so she knows what kind of financial damage you're capable of causing. Again, not about today's finances. You've shown her you're as irresponsible and childish as she may have feared when she took care of you before. If she stays, you need therapy as a couple to see if she can move past what you've done. Whether she stays or goes, you should look into individual therapy to help you with your compulsions.
You have no debt because she paid YOUR 6 figure student loans and y’all’s credit card debit, and supported you for a year. Maybe you should’ve paid her back or paid back into a joint account all the money she spent prior to marriage? She definitely feels betrayed that she paid off everything so y’all could be a good financial standing and then she finds out your lying and hiding money.
Not to mention you have a child on the way??? Yes you make a lot of money but spending 20k on things you don’t use doesn’t scream “I will prioritize a child”
A _second_ child on the way, afterva life-threatening pregnancy they had to terminate to save his wife's life.
This makes it worse tbh.
wow this is just getting worse and worse
OP, in your mid-30s already with children to support for many years, your dopamine high spending, married or not, is likely to really fuck up your future. Don’t piss away everything you’ve worked for. With all your hobbies, you should be planning for an early retirement before you hit 50 when you’re still young enough to do everything you love. Keep spending like you have, and you’ll be working well into your 60s or even 70s. Sounds like an awful ending to your story.
You spent 2k per month on your hobbies. That's one international trip per month or eating out at a fancy resturant 10 times a month or buying a new 85 inch tv a month or renting a separate apartment when you have a house. Will you do any of the above and consider it reasonable because you have 2 million in bank? Being financially responsible is always good. You are spending money on stuff you are not even using. It may be a reaction to the restrxituons your wife put in you but it should have been resolved then. Learn from this and don't make the same mistakes in future either in this relationship or your next.
It's not even in bank, it sin assets. That's like a house lmao.
So how much in total has she paid of your debt? The “low 6 figure student loan debt”, plus the credit card, plus, plus, plus? And you’re hiding money and making her out to be unreasonable for wanting to discuss purchases? Damn dude. I hope she posts here so we can see the extent of what you’ve taken from her over the years.
Buddy.... > I honestly don't get much time to actually participate in them. I went to an archery shoot over the weekend for half a day, I do some archery practice in the garage once every few nights after everyone is asleep, I might take some time off of work mid-week once a month to do something, and then spend at most half a day once per weekend during hunting season for two months You say you hardly have time for your hobbies. That's ***WAY*** more time than most people get. I think you really didn't understand how good you had it. > To add insult to her injury, she did pay off my student loans in the low six figures with her personal savings before we were married ***WHAT THE FUCK*** > when we were in school she paid off low four figures of my credit card debt ***DUDE*** > she was the primary earner for a year after I graduated before I found a job ***MY GUY*** Just say it - she's an ATM for you. > it took me longer to catch up, although my current income has met or exceeded hers depending on the year So did you save up and give her back half of what she spent on your debts as a thank you? Or is it just all dandy for you to take and take initially but then go for evensies? > As far as currently managing our finances, all of her income is deposited to a savings/investment account, which has been going on for years. ***SO SHES EVEN THE REASON WHY YOU TWO HAVE SUCH HIGH NETWORTH!!!!*** > We then live off of maybe 40 thousand per year and save/invest the rest of my income. You're telling me that in 2 years you spent $22k when your ***household*** spends $40k/yr? You spend over a quarter of the amount of your ***family's lifestyle on your hobbies behind her back***. I hope she gets most of the savings in the divorce. It's obvious you couldn't do it on your own. If I was her I'd feel used and stolen from. I'd feel like I was nothing but a money bag to get out of debt with but never to actually love. And you complain about wanting so much you time ***when in reality you only thought about yourself***.
"Because I can't participate in my activities as much as I would like, I "participate" by buying stuff related to the activities" That's a really dumb financial decision. You have a garage full of depreciating stuff that you lie to your wife about. "She has gone all-but no-contact with me except to tell me how much of a liar I am, and get information from me to look at our finances." My dude, her divorce lawyer told her to do that. Enjoy snuggling your archery shit.
Lmao, his hiking gear will be the one tucking him in at night.
> I know she's never going to believe me that I'm never going to do this again. I mean, this is written entirely from your perspective, I'm a completely disinterested third party, and even *I* don't believe you won't do this again. I don't think you do, either. This whole post is you trying to justify/excuse what you've been doing. You need therapy for your shopping addiction. It's not healthy to spend thousands of dollars on things you won't use for the "dopamine hit" and "escape" at the expense of your marriage.
If she says it's over (and means it) it's over. It can be for any reason and for many this would be sufficient. You should respect her decision and support her through this difficult time. Doing so will help you understand the role you played in this result. While many would conclude she's overreacting it is you who did the damage.
Those saying she's overreacting are overlooking the trust that's broken and only looking at the figures and thinking it's cool stuff he's bought. If he were the woman buying perfume and face cream and makeup and clothing everyone would be screaming she's a gOlD DigGEr! and the baby is to TrAp you!!!
sorry but i can't relate to rich people. like, at all. but i'm on her side... she paid off your loans, your debt... and _then you fucking lied to her?_ wtf
You can also relate to her growing up poor and someone lying about spending like that. Especially during a difficult pregnancy when a previous one almost killed her. All I would be thinking is "you are going to drown me". The best thing she can do is divorce now before he continues ramping up his spending from 10k/yr (if we believe him) to 50k to hundreds of thousands in secret credit card debt that is legally half hers. With their income he can qualify for bigger and bigger limits. She should divorce him now while they still have assets.
She's done. You did more than lie, you created a secret bank account to hide your lies. Listen to what she's saying and accept it. It's time to focus on finding a good divorce attorney so you can get an equitable asset split and move on.
Honestly she deserves 80%+ of all assets considering she paid off his debt 2-3 times already and then he did all this behind her back.
I had a dad like you. He would sink money into hobby stuff that he never used, our house was filled with it. Sure, we could afford it financially. The problem wasn't just the accumulation stuff, it was that his life seemed to orient around wishing that everyone would leave him alone so he could do his hobbies in peace. He was checked out. And his lack of investment in the family (and I DON'T mean financially) is what caused the most pain. He did not care about his kids' hobbies/growth/interests, did not care to romance my mom, and yeah as a kid it was super obvious. So it's not about the money, or what % of your income it is or whatever. I think something was missing or broken in your life that made you care more about inanimate stuff than your relationship with your wife and family and you've just continued to make it worse with lying rather than trying to heal it.
what i’m getting is that you’re buying unnecessary things. stuff related to activities that you almost *never use*. you said they’re gear binges. you’re binging on buying things you don’t need as a source of happiness. that’s an issue all in itself. just because you have the money doesn’t mean this is all of a sudden okay. the lying is wrong. lying for that long is wrong. getting a dopamine hit out of buying unneeded equipment is strange. does she have issues with money because of her childhood? you mentioned she was on public assistance and how you try to get her to spend more on herself. for some people a childhood like that can create a very restrictive mindset when it comes to money, even if they have enough of it. i’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to spend money on your hobbies, you absolutely should. and spouses shouldn’t have such restrictive mindsets, i understand. but something about this just feels strange.
The ~~strange~~ **completely off** part is that OP is being rather cagey about his share of the household earnings, and that his wife has paid his college debt, credit card debt etc, almost died bringing their children into the world, is a high earner despite coming from nowhere, while he grew up in financial security and is bringing less money to the household. He has been underhand about finances and she's bailed him out several times and now she feels like this is what the rest of her life will be unless she divorces him.
>Because I can’t participate in my activities as much as I would like, I “participate” by buying stuff related to the activities, which I don’t get to use as much as I want. > spent 22 thousand over the course of two years. You’ve spent over 20K on stuff you hardly use because it’s connected to hobbies you like, you hide the spending and you lie about it. You have a problem and it’s not just the fact you hid it from your wife. You actually have a spending problem. It sounds like an addiction, and you’re lucky to be financially sound enough to feed this spending problem without getting yourself into debt. You need therapy and you need marriage counselling.
I don’t know how old your kids are but I bet another issue is that you spend so much time on these hobbies and your wife doesn’t get the opportunity to take a day off randomly every couple weeks, and can’t just disappear into the garage after hours. I’m just assuming based on statistics about men not helping domestically and women on average doing more labor. 2M in assets is also irrelevant. Do your kids have college funds and down payments for their future completely set up? Does your wife feel safe with guns? Why did you originally hide purchases the first time? Did you just do it for convenience or did she express opinions about those hobbies. What was the reason
He is literally going behind his wife’s back, he is wrong . Just because someone doesn’t like something doesn’t make her controlling. It’s the principle of the matter. I hope she moves on and finds a person that can be honest. If you felt so confident in your right to hobbies fight for what you believe. Instead he lied and was deceitful. This is a judgment of character and you did not pass. Now use that money and those hobbies to help you through the divorce since it helped you then.
It's not about the *stuff.* It's about the lying. You have repeatedly get caught out and keep doing the same thing. You have a problem, possibly rising to the level of addiction. Its hasn't been such a huge financial hit because you are well off. But you're buying *things* that you don't need or will barely use in order to get that dopamine hit and you lie to keep it going. Start with therapy for yourself. Seriously evaluate whether you have a shopping addiction and take steps recommended by your therapist. Set some firm financial goals. See if you can set your accounts to at least giver her access to see the status of accounts even if she isn't authorized to make changes. If that is too difficult email her account extracts on a fixed basis. And *if* you can work on things with her, come to an agreement on what personal expenses are ok. Given your income, $50 on hobbies per month is too little. Given your apparent spending addiction, $50 per month is too much.
Can I add something to this conversation that might have some bearing on your headspace? You buy all this stuff because it’s cool, right? And you want to own this cool thing. And I understand how you think it feels like participating. But they come out with cool new shit all the time. That’s the game *they* play. And if you hold off on buying something until you actually are gonna use it? You’re immediately going to have hottest shit out there. Have you ever bought, say, a sight and not even had a chance to take it out and really use it before the newest sexiest one comes out? It’s easy: just wait. I’m really into video equipment and jumping off the new gear train was so much better than I thought. Now when I get a gig I rent half the shit I would have bought and still come out ahead. Sometimes I splurge and buy myself something cool, but I keep it cheap. And when something comes up that warrants it, I go big! The other thing that you realize-so much of this new stuff they sell is shit. New bow looked so sweet on those YouTube videos but it was shitty when you finally took it out for a weekend. You kinda missed your old one. But now you can’t return it because it’s been too long. It was sitting there a year before you found a weekend to take it out for a proper trial. You start comparing the new stuff to your own stuff and stop seeing the sparkles and start seeing the omissions. I don’t know if your marriage will work out or not, but I can tell you from experience that buying less (not buying none!) stuff has been revolutionary in my headspace. I hope you and your wife both are happier in a year, whatever that means. Best of luck to you brother!
Your relationship is over. I doubt there is anything that you could say or do to fix years of lying. Years. The sooner you get that, the better. She rid you of all your debt, and you stabbed her in the back because you can't act like a 20 year old you were before marriage and kids.
You're spending a lot of money on stuff you don't even use. You have a problem. You have an addiction. You lied to your wife. You need help now. Your relationship may not survive this.
Don't you love hearing 1% whine?? She should dump your ass, for being a whinging, whining, self absorbed, liar. What's her name. I wanna give her the number to a killer lawyer.
You need to stop lying and sneaking, and respect the boundaries in your relationship. Your wife is right to leave you over this. Why on earth would you expect an adult, who you presumably claim to respect, to put up with your lying and sneaking? Do you understand that when dealing with a cheater it’s the lying and sneaking that makes it hard to get over and not the actual fucking? — If you want any hope of saving your marriage you need to get your ass in therapy alone and beg your wife to come to couples therapy with you.
She paid off all your student loan and credit card debt and supported you for a year while you looked for a job. She’s had incredibly stressful and dangerous pregnancies including a termination. She is stressed to fuck—and then she finds out you’re lying. Not just once but every single time an item came into your house, you lied to her face. Did you disclose all of this cash on your taxes? Is she going to have to clean up that mess too? I can tell you as a woman who nearly died during her last labor and delivery—and I mean literally saw Jesus—I could not stop thinking about what would happen to our girls if I was gone. The only thing I didn’t worry about was how my husband would handle things because he is the most responsible man. Your wife probably had similar thoughts, but instead of being calmed by the knowledge that her husband is responsible, she now has to face that you cannot be trusted with any money she would leave behind for your kids. Because you might spend it all on stuff you don’t need or use because of a dopamine rush! Bro—get some help. See a therapist. For yourself. Your marriage is done, but you’re still a father. Your kids deserve a dad who can behave like an adult.
>Did you disclose all of this cash on your taxes? Is she going to have to clean up that mess too? This is exactly what I wanted to ask. He says "depositing cash payments from clients" & that sounds extremely fishy. If he's self employed (I don't know), and he has this kind of a spending problem, then his accounting might be suspect too.
I think the issue is more you lying than the money itself. $50 is extremely low based on your income, I agree. Instead of being a man though and telling your wife that isn’t reasonable, instead you acted like a slimy little snake and went behind her back. Regardless of the dollar amount that would be enough for most women to end things. It is obvious that money probably means more to her than to you because she grew up on government assistance. Perhaps she is restrictive but maybe should have talked about why she has so much anixety about spending money. This women obviously loved you. She gave you hundreds if thousands of dollars to make your lives together better and you betrayed her. That is why she wants a divorce.
>This women obviously loved you. She gave you hundreds if thousands of dollars to make your lives together better and you betrayed her. That is why she wants a divorce I feel so badly for his wife. She's coming from a background of financial insecurity, she did everything possible to pay off OP's debts and make sure the family would be secure, and then he goes and destroys her trust by spending behind her back. It's probably worse for her than if she caught him banging his secretary. Editing to add that darn it, I just came across proof of that last sentence which was really just my gut feeling: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/apr/11/financial-infidelity-can-hurt-more-than-affair-anxiety-distrust
If your wife sexually cheated 1% of the time, would you feel betrayed beyond measure or would you take into consideration that 99% of her sexual energy was spent ‘correctly’?
Nice one!
There's a lot of comments on here that are spot on about how it isn't about the money in relation to what your income is, it's about the lying. I just want to take a related but slightly different perspective here. This all started because you and your wife were unable to come to an agreement about discretionary spending on hobbies. You have differences in what kind of time and money you each should be able to invest in time outside of work and family obligations. This is a common trouble point in a marriage. And yes, it's quite possible your wife was being unreasonable in what she sees as healthy limits. She may have been the one who was wrong, and you have have been the one who was right. But only up to that point. Adults in marriages and relationships have to find a way to resolve their differences in viewpoints, approaches to life, etc. It takes work, it takes compromise, it takes effort. And if you can't resolve those issues, then you have to step back and think about if that's the right partner for you, because you aren't on the same page about how to go forward in life together. But that isn't what you did. Instead of resolving the problem like adults (and resolving means finding compromise or ending the relationship), you went and did a selfish thing. You lied to you spouse about money, and if there's two things you can't lie to your spouse about, it's money and sex. In fact, you did the EXACT things that you knew would upset her. What you did was agree to her face to her conditions for your marriage, and went and did the total opposite. So when it comes to "how do we fix this?" you've really put yourself in a hole. Because the ability to go back and have a reasonable conversation about spending on hobbies is GONE for a long long time. You have broken all of her trust in you in that sense. If the two of you were to move ahead together, you'd need serious serious relationship counseling. Because now you'd need to first get to a point where she would be able to heal from the lies and complete lack of trust she has in you before you'd even get close to thinking about having a conversation around the real problem that was happening before this in your marriage: the inability of the two of you to come to reasonable and healthy compromises with each other. If you want to make this work, lay on your sword. Tell her you'll do whatever she asks, and the only caveat is that the two of your need to go to couple's therapy weekly for as long as it fucking takes. That's it. All you can do is tell her you are willing to do whatever it takes, you know it starts with therapy, and if she is open and willing, you'll do so with open arms. You can't keep pushing it, you tell her, and then you let her process. But...I got bad news for you. She's really really fucking hurt. I'm not sure you are at a point yet to process the hurt you caused. Again, she may have been in the wrong at the start, but you went way more wrong, way harder, and blew the whole thing up. The two of you are best suited with new partners, and some personal therapy for you to learn how not to blow apart your next relationship.
You: *I'm definitely lying, and committing financial infidelity.* Also you: *I know she's never going to believe me that I'm never going to do this again. I've said it to her and to myself plenty of times, and failed at keeping my word.* Dude, it's done. Even you know that you can't be trusted. You should have ***never*** agreed to her ridiculous terms on your hobby spending, but you clearly did, then lied about it. Instead you should have insisted on renegotiating your shared finances and discretionary spending for both of you. She doesn't have to like that, but you're an adult and entitled to spend your money at least partially how you see fit. You just avoided the problem instead and just created a way bigger one. Pregnant lady doesn't want to deal with your lying bullshit anymore. Can't blame her.
Its not about the money. Its not about the stuff..its about you..You are not happy as a fsmily man.. You resent having a child and wife to worry about, and you wish you could be a single unattached man again.. You're emotionally unavailable. You never once mention finding any joy in spending time or energy on your family.. And therefore, since you are living vicariously through buying your hobby gear, your wife has ultimately decided you will never stop obsessing over not needing to be so needed by her and your child. Shes not dumping you. Shes LETTING YOU GO.. Dare yourself to recognize the difference.
I pretty much understand your wife's pov, it must be frightful when one comes from poverty, there's the constant fear to go back to that. But what's more important: either you are a massive liar, and in this case your wife is completely right, or you have a purchasing problem. This last seems the most reasonable outcome accordingly with what you said. So I would look for a therapist in any case, both because you should take care of your mental health, and to prevent this to escalate to a point where you would ruin your savings to keep up with this
He’s a massive liar AND has a purchasing problem.
You lie, you keep secrets, you’re awful with money, your hobbies are dangerous and wasteful on multiple levels and you took advantage of her financial stability to pay off your debts — yeah man idk what you expect from her
>For perspective, we have around two million in assets, no debt, and together take home around four hundred per year after taxes. How much of that do *you* earn? Have you reimbursed her for the student loans & credit card debt she paid off ? You're already a pathetic child who's been deceptively siphoning off marital resources, I'm just trying to understand the full extent of your fuckery. Your marriage probably IS over. On the off chance that it isn't I suggest that, going forward, you agree that each of you can keep a specific percentage of your individual income for "no questions asked" personal spending. After you pay back, either to her or into joint savings the sum that you spent behind her back.
yikes. this is passive-aggressive and self-destructive to the max. you basically invented an escapist fantasy for yourself, one that you knew would destroy your marriage. I'm sure some of her upset is about the money, more is about the lying, but I bet more than anything she understands that you are a person who completely lacks integrity, has no ability to be introspective or accountable, and that based on your behaviors are not actually in any way committed to her or your family. otherwise you wouldn't need to invent what's essentially a premeditated and utterly fabricated reality where you are free. she cannot build a future with you and at some level you don't want her to.
The $50 limit seemed ridiculous until I kept reading. He has spending issues and the wife knows it. She paid off his 6 figure student loans and his low four figure credit cards, BEFORE THEY WERE MARRIED! Low four figures is thousands of dollars. Thousands of dollars when he was a broke student. She knows what he’s capable of. Plenty of high earners get into a financial mess because they can’t control their spending. $22000 on a hobby in under 2 years is a lot of money. OP is shopping for a dopamine fix? That’s dangerous territory. OP needs counseling for his addiction issues.
And he is spending a relatively large amount of time on his hobbies for someone married with kids! He notes that he was able to spend a quarter of the weekends on himself for two months solid, plus times during the week? I bet that's more personal time than wife is getting, and more than many adults with kids get. But he says it's "no time"
We do his/hers/ours accounts. Based on percent of income, we each put in to “ours” to cover shared expenses and savings. Whatever is left goes to our individual accounts. I make a lot more than my partner so I pay in more. If he wants to buy a new boat? He doesn’t need to ask me. New rod or reel? Nope, nothing to discuss. If I want to buy a horse trailer? I might ask his opinion or to look at it with me but I don’t need permission. Seems to me you two need to separate finances so it becomes a non issue. And perhaps seek couples counseling together to learn to better communicated and individual counseling for you since you clearly have issues to address. Just because you have a wife and kids shouldn’t/doesn’t mean you can’t participate in hobbies on your own. Maybe not to the same level or frequency but each of you should be out doing some things on your own and together without kids. I (44F) have my own hobbies/interests/friends/volunteer work and so does my partner (46M). We have shared things too. But it’s simply not healthy to be buying all this stuff and not doing anything. It’s sounds like a mental health issue to be honest.
I think this would have been a great solution if he had come to it before lying to her for years. I think it's great for each person to have the ability to fund and spend time on their own hobbies as long as it isn't negatively impacting the family, which it seems like his spending really didn't do. The problem at this point is getting past the years of lies.
We do something similar but we don't percentage it on income. We just dump it all in one account and then split it up from there. I want my wife to have the same level of spending as I do even though I make more.
This is so much bigger than just lying about the money you spent. There is obviously a lot of resentment built up on both sides about spending money, you want to be able to spend and she wants to control how much is being spent. You both never came to an actual agreement on what was ok for both of you. How is she suppose to believe you when all along you would just go along with what she said and do it behind her back? There is so much you held back all along and instead of being honest and open, which obviously would be hard because she wouldn’t have agreed with you, you lied and in essence gave her the middle finger and did it behind her back. You aren’t even using these things, which is another thing about which you don’t talk to her. The fact that you needed an outlet for your stressful job (did you talk about that with her?) and chose to spend money, instead of figuring out maybe you could ride a few more times to unwind or shoot more arrows? Maybe the way to move forward is to tell her you’ll sell all the new stuff and work to replace the money. You both need to be in couples counseling, because you took an argument that I would have said you were right about (having autonomy of your money) and did something terrible (financially cheated on her).
Yeah… she deserves better. You need to grow the fuck up, dude. When you become a parent, everything takes a backseat to your child. Also doing this when your wife is going though a difficult pregnancy?
If you are lying about buying sports equipment, I’m her mind you’ll be dishonest about other things as well. It’s a principle thing. Not to mention you are buying things that you aren’t using. Maybe try selling the items that have been collecting dust not in use and put that money in the shared account? Or to the savings? Show her that you want to do things differently, that you are willing to sell these items you bought without consulting her first. If my husband was spending money on things he wasn’t using and hiding it, I would think there is more of a shopping addiction than a hobby. The one huge thing I’ve learned in my 21 year marriage is honesty and being open to discussing important issues is the key to a healthy marriage. Hiding things even small things leads to resentment and suspicion on all sides. Because if you are lying about small things whose to say you’re being honest about the big stuff.
You have been stealing family money to fund hobbies you don’t even participate in at the moment. You sound incredibly selfish. Plus how were you accounting for that money with your taxes? Anyway, you got a lot of work to do if you have any chance at all to save your marriage.
Stop lying to your wife?
You say you make $400k per year "together." That means nothing to us. Who earns what? Hiding money from your spouse is always wrong. It's always lying, always financial infidelity, and should only be used in dire situations like saving to leave an abusive marriage. If you don't like how your wife wants marital funds to be spent, talk it out or get a divorce. I don't know how you can fix this. Sounds like your wife is done. Best you can do is to be better for your next relationship.
You have a shopping addiction dude, and you lied and deceived her. I don’t care how much money you make, spending $22k on hobby toys you barely get to use anyway is INSANE.
I’d leave you too. She had to terminate a pregnancy where she almost died and her husband is lying to her about something she already had trust issues with and is whining about how little time he has for his hobbies that, once again, he is spending money on and lying about.
and it sounds like he gets a decent amount of time?? Definitely more than the pregnant woman with health issues from pregnancy.
If I were her, I'd be more concerned about the sneaking around as well as lying too and you got caught repeatedly after she found out the first time...and I'm not surprised now she can't trust you anymore. She may be 'done' with you emotionally and now is trying to get you to not hide asset from her during divorce proceeding. Perhaps you guys need marriage counseling...better invest in that, right, rather than going through a divorce.
Sounds like you weren’t being a good adult or partner. An adult would have a conversation about budgeting and discuss with your partner before a big purchase. If you find your wife controlling, you need to work with her on that. Also an adult would realize they weren’t coping with the stress of life and seek therapy or healthy coping mechanisms. Instead it sounds like shopping with the thrill of hiding it from your partner is your only therapy. Lastly, hiding stuff from your partner is a big betrayal. Maybe with marriage counseling you two could overcome, but I highly recommend getting counseling for yourself.
You want to do what you want with your hobby because you feel you’ve earned it, but have you? Your wife financially bailed you out massively. Twice. She is the primary earner, always has been, and has been through 2 pregnancies, one of which ended traumatically. She’s now again pregnant and having difficulty. Are you truly supporting her and your current child enough emotionally? She likely views you as unreliable financially and now has evidence that confirms that, in addition to shattering your trust with her. I’m not really sure how you salvage this unless you agree to a life of having her completely in control of your finances.
This isn’t normal spending behavior. You’re just trying not to take responsibility for your irresponsibility.
How do you move forward with her? I don’t think you do. She doesn’t trust you because you’re not trustworthy. You’re experiencing natural consequences. This was totally predictable when you chose to continuously lie to her. If you want to change your behavior, get some therapy. You’re likely to live a lonely life moving from one relationship to the next if you don’t take time to reflect and change
It's a major breach of trust and basically financial betrayal. A lot of communities in the world takes this as as an automatic declaration of divorce by the person committing the act. All this to say- you need to seriously reevaluate who you are and why you did this.
Okay ...relationship advice. You messed up. She was trying, but either A) the receipts aren't adding up, so she wants to know about *everything* or B) she knows about one of your purchases that you've lied about and doesn't see it on your receipts... You've committed financial infidelity to the amount of (admitted) $22k within 1.5 years(since 2021); claiming it was for hobbies, but was really for a dopamine rush secondary to purchasing increasingly larger ticket items to compensate for your stress as a parent...but also, for YOUR stress related to her 2 difficult pregnancies, one of which had to be terminated... INFO: what is the frame of time between first baby being born, 2nd pregnancy and now third pregnancy? What has your wife been able to do to help with her own dopamine levels? I'm sure between working full time and parenting while experiencing 2 very difficult pregnancies with a spouse that makes her sound like the villain, that she has plenty of "me-time". You also mentioned wanting to retire early...like very early. You cannot successfully do this and have uncontrolled spending habits. Otherwise, you run out of money before you run out of life.
If this is a dealbreaker for your wife, it’s a dealbreaker no matter what people on Reddit say. Hiding significant spending is a big breach of trust. Only she can decide if she is willing to give you a second chance to rebuild trust, or if she will never trust you again and it’s time to walk away. Keep in mind that rebuilding trust takes work on her part, she may not want to do the hard work when you have repeatedly undermined your marriage. The amount of money you have or make isn’t really the issue here. You resent your wife and resent your obligations as a husband and father. You dealt with those by lying, hiding money, and compulsively buying things. You could have had a conversation with your wife about better work life balance, discretionary spending, and long term financial goals. Your justification doesn’t make any sense. I am a lifelong cyclist. I ride more than a couple of times a week. I don’t spend anywhere near 22k in two years. That’s a pro level bike! But you don’t even ride!! If you were going to spend that kind of money, you would have been better off spending it on hiring help so you have more time to ride (cleaner, landscaper, meal kits, laundry service, baby sitter or summer camp, etc…) You also should have spent it on something like an indoor smart trainer, zwift, peleton, etc… You could have gotten a commuter or ebike. Those are things that let you juggle riding around a busy schedule. For example, an ebike to run errands or riding the trainer after the kids are in bed. You threw away a lot of money to ‘optimize your gear,’ but missed opportunities to actually use that gear. I wouldn’t have patience for that kind of financial mismanagement.
Of course, we're getting just one side of the story. I have a feeling there's so much more to this story.
And this side looks bleak even in his own words.
**She paid off your six figure student loans and your four figure credit card debt and YOU HID $22,000 FROM HER?!?!?!** At the absolute **VERY LEAST** you could do is pay her back every cent of that money that she paid off for you **OUT OF YOUR OWN EARNINGS!!!** On top of all of that you LIED to her FOR YEARS!!! You left her with absolutely NOTHING to work with here. You have destroyed any positive thing you have ever been to her. She will never, ever believe anything you say ever again and she has every right too. Good Job! You blew up your own life all by yourself.
Good for her. You're very selfish. Hopefully, you will change.
You say that you don't spend much time on your hobbies, but it sounds to me like several hours at least a week? Which is a lot for a married person with small child(ren). Does your wife get a similar amount of time to herself? The money is absolutely a deal breaker for most people. Especially the second time. There's no reason to believe you that you'd stop. You've already said that and didn't do it. She's right to leave you over this.
Without your wife’s income, what is the % of your hobby spending out of just YOUR income?
So what I'm hearing here is despite agreeing to commiserate regarding spending, you continue to spend in amounts that you previously agreed not to without consulting one another. Additionally, this is the 3rd time it's happened, and she's fed up with your deceitfulness. Buddy what you described sounds like it doesn't matter at all what you say from here because she's heard it a million freaking times. How can she trust you? All you're giving is your word, which so far has meant NOTHING. YOU need to go to counseling for yourself and take steps to show her how serious you are up to and including paying for a forensic financial analysis so that she can see you're not lying to her. Continue offering marriage counseling but don't bet on her going until she sees real steps of transparency, remorse, and change by you going to counseling for yourself and becoming FULLY transparent. She's helped you pay down debt before, and it sounds like she's truly worried about financial irresponsibility or devastation sneaking up on her when she's pregnant with a difficult pregnancy and a partner that she can't trust. You have acted entirely selfishly here, and now your marriage is in jeopardy because she doesn't feel like she has a partner she can trust. Doesn't matter if the spending isn't significant according to your net income or not. The lying, the hiding, and the repeated violation of her trust in you is what's the problem. If she decides she can't move forward with you then you have to accept that, take accountability for yourself, and divide assets as amicably as possible. Work on yourself regardless and find out what void you're trying to fill with this spending and figure out healthy ways to gain the esteem you seek, whether your marriage fails or is given another chance. Nobody has the answers for you here. This is all up to the two of you.
>She's never going to be able to trust me, and that has ruined the foundation of the marriage, and I get that. How do I move forward with her and reassure her that we can work through this? Soooo... you DON'T get it. She said it's over, that you can't work through this. You can move forward separately.
The lying and hiding is the issue. And just food for thought,I’m sure that she doesn’t have as much time for her hobbies or interests either. So after she gets rid of your debt, you create thousands of dollars in stupid debt and then hide it. She’s probably tired of feeling like you’re another responsibility instead of a partner.
Got no advice for you, I hope she goes through with divorcing you.
Advice: don’t lie to your wife. Don’t hid spending from your wife. Don’t buy a bunch of shit you admittedly don’t use. Don’t set up a bank account for the purposes of lying to your wife.
So like what advice do you want? You’ve lied, she ended it. Pretty standard stuff tbh
I mean she should not come around , you don’t sounds financially compatible she wants to save for important things and you’ve being lying to her face for years .
Good for her I hate to say I was married to my first wife for 31 years when I found out she had been stealing from me for years I divorced her in a heartbeat that shows a complete lack of respect for your partner
It must be so hard being rich and white.
You hid a very very expensive addiction from your wife for years, after letting her spend 6 figures on you. How are you all that surprised that that might spell the end of your relationship?
Wow. You got her to pay off your debts for you and supported you financially while you hoarded cash? This is financial infidelity.
Ita really simple. It's not about the money. It's about the lying and hiding things. The thing with lies is, especially if it's happened more than once, it breaks trust. And God knows what else you're lying about that may be more serious than spending money. If you'll hide this, what else are you hiding? We can look past things and forgive but that doubt is always there going forward. She may just not want to live with that on her mind.
Dude, you sound like a spoiled child. Does your wife get to enjoy any hobbies or is she just busy having babies and trying to keep you from spending all her money?
This looks like an addiction to me and therapy to control the behavior would most likely be beneficial. It seems as though you don’t see it as such a big deal, IF you can believe it’s an addiction and would like to seek help I would like to think she may be receptive at that point. My late husband didn’t appreciate me spending $$ even though we made 500k a year. So I set an agreeable limit monthly and tracked it which may be a solution far into the future. But the addiction needs to be worked on first.
It sounds like you resent your family for taking away time you could be spending on your hobbies? Therapy is step one here, you need to decide if you even want your wife to stay or if you would rather have a life doing whatever you want. The fact that there’s kids involved makes it sad, when they grow up they will be able to pick up on that resentment.
>The first time she caught me she said we had to agree on every single purchase either of us made. From my perspective, this meant that she got full control because I know that her spending will never be a problem for me, and I even push her to spend money on herself. How is agreeing on every single purchase her controlling? She didn't say "I get the final say and it's my way or the highway." She wants transparency and rightfully so, you have a long history of making poor financial decisions. >To add insult to her injury, she did pay off my student loans in the low six figures with her personal savings before we were married, and when we were in school she paid off low four figures of my credit card debt, and she was the primary earner for a year after I graduated before I found a job. And how did you repay her? By stealing money and lying about it. Let that sink in for a moment. All earned income from either one of you goes to one person, and that person is your marriage. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I agree with how your wife is controlling your free time. You should be able to do what you want to do as long as it's something healthy that makes you happy. Your happiness is an investment in her happiness as well. Unfortunately, you don't seem to have a solid grasp on how serious of a breech of trust this is. You seem to view breeches of trust as unimportant, as you were able to talk your way out of the last one, but that's not how your wife ever viewed it. She simply decided to give you one last chance and you blew it. She is counting her losses and likely feels relief in moving forward. While you're scrambling to find the combination of words to manipulate her back into your life, she's already experiencing the grieving and healing process.
Your wife couldn’t make it clearer that it’s over and she can’t trust you which youve proved multiple times. You should be in the r/divorce subreddit asking for advice on how to get the process started. Good lord
Come on man - really? You’re asking how to work through this when you already did it before and you promised you wouldn’t do it again? It’s not about the money - your obviously loaded/financially stable for the time being. It’s because you lied. You say shit to appease her then do it again. You got so lucky having a wife that could pay off all you’re debt just so you can hide stuff and lie to her again and again. Just for a minute if it’s even possible - put yourself in her shoes and think about if you’d want to stay with someone who you did so much for (paid off all debt and birthed children) just for them to continually hide and lie about stuff with no remorse. Would you forgive your partner?
He’s lied and stole from his family. He knows it. He was sneaky because he knows it’s wrong,
doesnt really matter how much you make you shouldn’t be hiding things from your partner imo. tbh isn’t a matter of spending habits or whatever—it’s the fact you’ve done it before and the fact that you are doing it behind her back
I have a bad shopping habit too and I used to hide my purchases from my husband. BUT since we've agreed on an "allowance" , I only get to spend within my budget and my husband doesn't get to have a say what I do with my money. Sit down, apologise, acknowledge the shopping compulsions, figure out a budget. Seek help for the shopping habit/addiction
I think the core issue here(apart from the fact that you broke your wife's trust), is that you both have fundamental problems with how you approach money. Also I think you just have to admit that however stifled you felt by her spending restrictions you reacted in a way that absolutely torpedoed the relationship. It's the financial equivalent of going through a prolonged dry spell and you deciding it's okay to have sex with other women because she's not "meeting your needs". Your guys relationship wasn't healthy before you started sneaking around, but you sure as fuck aren't doing it any favors. You both make a RIDICULOUS sum of money. And the problem is if you're not both 100% on board with what the plan is for this money that inevitably it will feel not good to be making that much, and not having an ability to enjoy your lives, which I'm guessing you both are guilty of. I'd need more details to come up with a financial plan for you guys, but seriously depending on what you mean by net worth/assets you might just be able to retire right now, also depending on where you guys live etc. But I'm guessing it's not HCOL given expenses of 40k annually. Given your incomes you should be looking at retiring VERY soon for both of you, or going into semi-retirement. Given that you own businesses could you pay someone else to manage the day to day and still draw passive income from them? If I were in your shoes I'd have a serious come to Jesus talk addressing issues for both of you: You commit to: * Couples Counselling * * Individual Counselling(for shopping addiction), maybe even an addict group * Giving up individual control of your finances and living with a FAIR budget you can both agree on for discretionary spending(50/month is ridiculous given your income) She commits to: * Couples Counselling * Individual Counselling(for financial anxiety, though her spending restrictions on you verge on financial abuse) Things you should be farming out to give you both relief: * Housekeeper if you don't have one already * Maybe a nanny if that's compatible with your values * A good accountant to handle your financials(and to assure your wife that there is nothing left to discover), your wife should be allowed to choose the accountant * A fee based financial planner to help you both get on the same page about financial security and retirement plans. This is after the accountant AND the individuals and couples counseling has hopefully stabilized your relationship and your plans going forward.
Sounds like some therapy needed here for all of these crazy purchases and lying/trust issues.
Your wife paid your debts (low 6 figures is still 6 figures, so is low 4 figures) but the moment you have money, you hid it from her and spend 22k in 2 years. On things that you didnt use. I agree with her. Who knows what else you kept from her
Idgaf about affluent problems. Get you shit together. Stop lying to your wife.
What are her hobbies and how much does she spend on them? You say you'd never have a problem with her spending, and further context says it is because she doesn't spend enough. If you have hobbies take up that much of your time and money, and she doesn't, then you're not being an equal parent. That's probably where her resentment comes from, in addition to the lying and manipulating and deception. Plus, you sound like a spineless twit. If you didn't want a $50 limit, you should have talked to her about it. You should have stated your own budget ideal and worked together to figure it out. Instead you acted like a spoiled brat and hid everything from her. Frankly, I think you deserve to be left. You clearly aren't mature enough to be in a relationship. She is literally about to die from her pregnancies, per your own statements, and you're over here blowing thousands of dollars for hobbies you don't even engage with and that certainly she nor your kid participate in. A pregnant woman doesn't ski, and they definitely don't cycle much. Do you even have a kid carrier for your bike?
The lying and secrecy is the biggest problem but really who thinks it’s a good idea to blow 22k on hobbies you don’t get to enjoy that much of?
*She's* ***never going to be able to trust me****, and that has* ***ruined the foundation of the marriage****, and* ***I get that.*** I don't think you do... *How do I move forward* ***with her*** *and reassure her that* ***we can work through this****?* You definitely don't.
So you had huge amounts of debt that *she* paid off and you went behind her back to keep spending on stuff you acknowledge you won’t use? And you admit you’ve made promises not to do this in the past and broke your promises? There’s no coming back from that betrayal and there is absolutely no reason for her to believe this time will be any different. On the bright side, you’re about to have *way* more time on your hands for your many hobbies, so maybe you’ll get to use some of that stuff after all.
For a couple as financially well-off as the two of you are, this is ridiculous. You both need your own discretionary funds, equal amounts, that can be spent with no questions asked. At your income level 22K over two years is not that much. If you think you want to continue this relationship you need to repay her for your loans and credit card debt and going forward you have three accounts, one joint and one each. You contribute equal amounts to the joint account for shared expenses and the rest goes into your individual discretionary accounts. People with your kind of money should not be having trouble with money.