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selfish spouse
My husband and I have been married for over a year now. He is a spender and I am a penny pincher. However, when it comes to the holidays I like to spend freely. For Christmas he was against having a budget planned so we didn’t know how much we spent on each other. I spent probably over $200 on him. Luckily he left all the price tags on my presents and it amounted to about $80. Perhaps I’m the Grinch but what really bothers me is he spends so much on himself outside of the holidays.
He spends over $200 a month eating out, over the past few months he bought himself a new computer for about $2,000 for his computer games, then another $300 on his other toys per a month. For Christmas I felt he spent more time, money and effort buying for his friends than on me and our families. And I spent more time and effort finding gifts for his and my family.
When these events happen I start dwelling on other things. Like the fact my wedding band cost $35 and I spent over $200 on his. My engagement ring was given to him. When I add up the figures it really gets to me and I start thinking of him as a selfish fat pig. When I bring up the topic of money it turns into hurt feelings and an argument. Maybe I have a justice system complex. I feel left out, hurt, clueless and at a loss what to do.
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In a years time, there isn't enough history to track what he is consistently like during holidays and special days like anniversary/valentines day. However if i am reading this correctly, aside from Christmas, it's his monthly spending on himself that is the biggest issues and points at a problem in your marriage. Many marriages break up over financial issues and that's why it is best to figure out if you two match in serious areas of life like this before marriage. As was already mentioned, attempting to have a talk with him about this, now in hindsight is all you can do. You can not change him. He has to want to change his spending and become more considerate of you and work out a budget that includes room for gift giving. It's the thought that counts, not the amount of the gift. However, in time, lavish uncontrolled spending monthly on one self and on gifts generally given can put you in a hole financially. And in a marriage, his debts are your debts, even if you had nothing to do with the spending.
One advise giver said that if he really loves you, a talk about how you feel is important to do. But be prepared because this talk may reveal more than you really wanted to know. A person so into himself or in love with himself often has no room to love others. In first marriage, I was told to pinch pennies, use food banks, buy 2nd hand. But it didn't apply to him. He spent $200. on the average, alone just on Starbucks coffees he purchased during day from a vender in office building and across the street. Food for himself was even more. He spent $200. in one evening on books on topic of making money online. His focus was never on me and how much he loved me. In fact, He was just using me for my piddley income so he could spend more. Said I couldn't stay home with the kids until I was laid off. He insisted I find a temp job which I did. God had other plans tho and the babysitter quit in the first month and a month of searching and trying everyone, no one had room for a child under age 2. I Had to stay home with daughter and I started a day care. At the end when we divorced, he confessed in front of me to a friend that he loved me as a person for being mother of his children but that he had never ever been in love with me. That is the key. If this man is not "In Love" with you, his conscious will not be prompted to change to please you and also be more responsible with a budget and less self centered. If he is in love with you, then a talk will yield results. He may be "in love" with the idea of having company, a roommate, someone handy for sex when he wants it. If he is self centered, then I am guessing he doesnt take time with you to make sure you are fully pleasured in sex first, before his release. I am guessing this is the most obvious sign out there for you but that there may be more once you start looking. Sounds like he'd prefer being parked in front of his computer playing games compared to some one on one time in conversation with you while rubbing your shoulders or feet or playing with your hair. I am also guessing he must be a young man in his twenties. My neighbor friend when I was younger had a husband and they had a child but this guy was more like a kid than a grown man, showing off to neighbors all the toys he kept buying himself. I never saw him spending time with his toddler nor hearing of special things he did for his wife. She had to run the household as he 'didn't have time for it' he was always playing. She asked him to keep to a budget but he blew it all the time. Some men accidently fall into marriage because they have their sexual needs, all attracted to a gal and the gal loses her heart to him before she really knows whether he is compatible with her on other important areas besides sex, which would be deal-breakers to getting married. I wasn't too smart when I married at 20. Many of us aren't and end up learning the hard way. You may be a very sweet, loving person but due to lack of understanding relationships, and lack of knowing what signs to look for of a dysfunctional man, you, like me, ended with someone less than perfect.
It is good that you are "adding up the figures" as you say, that you are now finally really scrutinizing all the bits and pieces of your relationship to him.
yOU are coming out of the fog of initial love and attraction and beginning to see for yourself what doesn't match up. Maybe over spending and being self centered in due to his age and he will change in time. He has to be willing to go to marriage counseling. At the very least get counseling on his spending and how to keep to a good budget, but that won't solve the fact of how he feels about you. I found some info on line once and added some of my own examples to it, about how to know whether a man really loves you or not. So check this out and see where you stand with him, if he comes out too low on the scale, you will have to decide whether you are okay with the same kind of treatment til the day you die, having kids with him and him being stingy on what is also spent on kids basic needs (provisional and love from him). If you can't stand the thought of spending decades with him, then you're with the wrong guy. Thats what helped me leave my ex. I knew I could handle getting by with no changes from him if I focused on just a day by day thing, even a month by month focus. I knew I could get just another year and when that year ended, look at the coming year and decide I could handle just one more year without things any better. But when I focused on living the next 25 years of my life the same way, something inside me freaked out and I began to cry and shake uncontrollably. It was beyond what I knew I could handle. I knew I deserved way better (he was verbally abusive as well) and was settling for less and wanted to at least live rest of my life free of him or better, finally find a man who cherished me. I found that man. Can't say I am telling you to leave him. You need to add up the figures yourself but I encourage you to do so. If the man truly loves you, he won't just make an effort for a month or two and be on good behavior but it will be a lasting thing if he doesnt want to lose you and you are the most important thing in his life. I sure hope this is the case and its just his youth that got him side tracked from with is important and that he will listen to 'reasion' from you and a counselor.
If you have anything else in particular you
want my perspective on regarding your relationship, feel free to go to my column and write me from there. This kind of situation is close to my heart. I'd love to hear back from you sometime as to how things are going. Mention a little of something you first wrote so I'll know who you are. Best wishes!
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I think the best thing for you to do, would be to sit down and talk to your husband about this. It may cause an argument but it's better to tell him how you feel, because it's obviously making you sad. You both married because you love each other and if he really does love you then he should be able to sit down and find a way to work this out as you aren't happy at the moment, and your happiness should be very important to him.
I hope this helped, and I hope things get better :)
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I know exactly how you feel as I'm the one that takes the time to figure out what to buy people for their birthday and for the holidays. My wife for my birthday unless I ask for something specific I'm lucky if I get a card. For Christmas she will run out and buy me a few shirts and maybe some socks and underwear and calls it Christmas. While she does not spend much money on herself she will spend lavishly on our only child. Who by the earns about 30% more than we do.
Now I married the original coal miners daughter who grew up poor in the coal mining towns of NE PA. The presents she got at Christmas is what she buys me. We can afford to buy them as needed and it is not something you buy at Christmas as I see it.
After 43 years of marriage I finally got tired of these presents and told my wife so. I'm retired I have shirts from past Christmases I haven't worn yet and told my wife so. I told her no more of these type gifts and gave her a Christmas list the same as my son does each year.
Like your husband some of the things that could be bought as presents are things I may buy during the year as while they may be looked at as toys they may also be needed for the work I did. Such as a computer, laptop or tablet.
I have adopted the adage that it is better to give than to get. I do get great pleasure in searching for the right gift, especially for my wife as I am trying to drag her into the 21st century electronic world.
Yes I have gotten depressed in years past having gotten the short end of the stick so to speak. But it is not worth getting sick over. I married her for I love her and she has always been this way. She is the mother of my son and did a great job raising him.
You married your husband because you love him. I assume you knew him before you married him. Is the way he is in gift buying for you a deal breaker worth breaking up your marriage over. Is the fact that your engagement ring was given to him any less meaningful. It just might be that ring was his mothers or grandmothers you don't say how he came by it. If so it could be far more valuable than anything he could have purchased on today's markets.
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