Unless you’ve been in that sort of relationship, I recommend that you aren’t so quick to judge.īeen there too. In my situation, this was coupled with a wholly one-sided approach to discussing joint spending which characterised what I suggested as ‘spending on me’ while what they wanted as ‘spending on us’. Talking about finances together is very different from keeping a tight eye on your partner’s spending and questioning every last penny. Reading the comments here I guess none of the commentators has experienced this. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA Some agreed that bullying does occur when the funds are not shared and enjoyed equally: My credit was wrecked for seven years.Ĭredit card debt can leave a dark mark on your credit score for seven years. Of course, he never did and the creditors came after me – I wound up paying both of them off. The agreement was that I would pay off the family card and he would pay off the business card. When we got divorced we had two credit cards, one for the home and one for his “business” that never got off the ground. He spent all of our money and ran the credit cards up to the max. When the accounts wouldn’t match up, he would berate me for not being accurate. He would take money out of our accounts to buy and sell drugs and not tell me.
I was balancing the checkbook every month. That’s what I call financial bullying.Įven checking the accounts doesn’t stop financial ruin:Ī few years after we were married, my ex-husband developed a drug abuse problem. Would your partner gamble away all your money if you didn’t stop him? Does that make you a bully? Photograph: Oleksiy Maksymenko/Alamy Photograph: Oleksiy Maksymenko / Alamy/Alamy Remember: a partner’s spending habits can affect our lives for years to comeĪ reader from Arkansas says she was financially bullied by her then-husband for years:īut not the way you mean: when I suggested he cut back on his credit-card use on the card held in my name, he sharply increased his use, increasing our debt to $23,000 in a matter of months. Where does necessary budgeting and monitoring end, and bullying begin? Just as I should feel ashamed if I go out on a shopping spree that prevents us from buying food. My husband should feel ashamed if he blows our budget on expensive meals or jeans. My husband often does not know what is in our bank account, flies off on work, spends a large amount of money on dinner and drinks, and then leaves me scrimping on grocery bills.ĭoes that make me a bully if I check our balance and warn him if his spending is going over the budget? You know, we also have rent and food to pay for, and only one bank account between us, of which I am the larger earner.
Secondly, if there is a huge charge for something we didn't discuss, to make sure he knows what our budget is and to stay within it. Mostly, to make sure that anything unusual is not fraud. I often look at charges and ask my husband what they are. There's nothing wrong with checking in, making sure that both parties in a relationship know how much they can spend on XY or Z. And monitoring how much both people are spending is good practice. but in all fairness, if you have a joint back account, and a budget, and one member of the party goes out and spends $250 unannounced on some superfluous item, then that's worthy of a conversation. Someone has to keep an eye on the family’s money.” I won’t call it ‘financial bullying’, I call it ‘living together’. From a certain amount, I always ask him, if he’s OK with it. Nicole: “My husband knows how much money I spend. Sarah: “Financial bullying?! Sharing a life together and a bank account means both parties get to be involved in spending decisions.” Sean: “Families should work together to maintain a budget, often one spouse is more reckless than the other, that’s not bullying, that’s being responsible.” Rebecca: “I thought it was called teaching financial responsibility.” Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Corbis It’s not bullying, it’s vigilanceĪdam: “Having disagreements about spending in a relationship is hardly bullying, it is natural and unavoidable and has happened since the dawn of money.” Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Corbis Photograph: H.
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For richer, for poorer: what happens when a couple has different ideas about how to spend their money? Photograph: H.
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