This post is a continuation on my post last week. I write about the money issues in my marriage because I don’t consider my problems to be unique nor do I think the current state will stay unchanged forever. Writing helps me to think and to examine the past, and hopefully provides something helpful to you, especially to those who encounter some kind of money issues in their marriage. As I stated on my money story, wealth can be achieved with simple ways, and yet my confidence to do so is shaky due to financial disharmony in my marriage. It is an unavoidable subject.

So I talked to my husband again about our past financial mistakes. He agreed that buying our rental property was a mistake, but disagreed that buying our third house to be a mistake. He said that he was worried if we could make the payments, if we had sold our third house after we renovated it, we could have made money, but “ you wanted to move in to this beautiful house.” he said.

Life is like a comedy. It’s hard enough to communicate without memory problem to complicate the matters. It reminded me of one commercial I saw on TV: the husband was unpleasantly surprised about something his wife bought, his wife did not explain, but just smiled and pressed the button on her tape recorder she held up in the air. That’s what we need in marriage, a tape recorder. Only if it works! I questioned him why he said “ her money making ideas got us into trouble.” to our friends? He replied that he was only referring to the fact I brought up the idea of trading forex. Of course, I knew why he said that, but how much truth it conveyed? He was the person who had a hard time to let go of the idea of making money from trading forex. Who got whom into trouble?

“You wanted to sell this house? I don’t remember that. Did you strongly suggest that?” I questioned him. “No, I didn’t strongly suggest that.” Ok, so it was just one of his ideas. What I remember is that I had a hard time to accept the idea of selling our modest, first house, not the third house- not the beautifully renovated house we are living in now. I knew it was a good deal and I did not want to let go of it. I suggested we rent it out instead, and he did not want to consider it at all. At that time, we were trying to take the advantage of free capital gain up to $500,000 on the sale of primary residence, that’s one reason we did sell our first house, and did not really consider to sell the third house. But now he claimed that he wanted to sell the third house right away but “I” wanted to move into this beautiful house.

“ All I did was to make you happy. You wanted a gourmet kitchen, I gave you one.” he said. No, I did not want a gourmet kitchen, I reminded him the fact that I was mad with him in the appliances store when he spent about $8000 on gourmet appliances despite my objections. He remembered that, “ Are you still mad about it?” he asked. You tell me. Now that I’m the person blamed for wanting a gourmet kitchen. I was so angry after we got home from the store, he finally took one step back and let me return some stuff. I called the store and was only able to cancel the purchase for the dishwasher. I bought one on eBay instead, and saved about $300 dollars. How true was that “all I did was to make you happy” when he made me angry in the appliances store 3 years ago and despite my disagreement he bought whatever he wanted, talking to the salesman happily and ignoring me as if I was just his housewife who had no say here?

A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged. The only way that we can be certain that our map of reality is valid is to expose it to the criticism and challenge of other map-makers….Yet, because of the pain inherent in the process of revising our map of reality, we mostly seek to avoid or ward off any challenges to its validity. To our children we say, “Don’t talk back to me, I’m your parent.” To our spouse we give the message, “Let’s live and let live….by M.Scott Peck, M.D. The Road Less Traveled

How different our map of reality is! So now what? I don’t know. I have not finished reading the book, maybe I will be enlightened after I read the whole book.

My husband, being a cynical person, I’m afraid, may just enjoy being disagreeable with me. One time I complained about our disagreement, he responded, “Must I agree with you? Can I disagree?” as if it’s fun for him.

The positive side about money issues as Dave Ramsey put it:

So if you are married and have money fights, you are normal. But if this is a real problem area for you, there is also an opportunity to improve your relationship and maybe even reach agreement with your spouse. I’m not talking about agreement brought on by surrender, but rather by each person getting a vote, understanding the other’s view, and finding common ground.

You may be interested in:

•Couples with different levels of income at The Financial Blogger

•How to stop fighting with your spouse about money at Get Rich Slowly

Carnival:

•Carnival of Debt Management #47 is live in the air. Check it out.

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