Good Morning, All!
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who responded to my thread! The wisdom on this board is quite amazing!! I am very grateful to have gotten so much input from so many different points of view. It really helped get my thinking straight....
SO--when husband started to bring up the discussion about getting the next item on "The List", I was able to respond without being angry.
AND we were able to really discuss the matter....and it turns out that so many of you were absolutely right--the issue was far deeper than money or material things.
It seems that husband feels frustrated by our current financial situation (really, who can blame him?...). And so he is looking for something that will make him feel better (ie--the toys on his list). His feeling is that he has been working really hard and putting up with so much stress that he deserves a little "something". And when I say No! We can't afford that!--then he gets upset because I am being unreasonable.
So--I can understand the feelings behind his position....and why he would be angry at me....but I am beginning to think that Marg is right about the counseling. I asked husband if he could look at the issue from another point of view--could he put his "list" behind our other priorities? It seems that material possessions are such a sign of well-being to him, that he is really unable to separate the notion of "true financial security" from "having nice stuff".
What we have resolved in the meantime, though, is that I will continue to manage our finances and husband will try not to get angry and make me feel like a jerk if I tell him that things he wants are outside of our budget.
So...a pretty good resolution at this point.
Thanks, everyone! Without your wise counsel, I probably would have approached this from an attitude of "Take your stinkin' list and---"...and then we would have had a huge, nasty fight....which would have been really terrible.
--DaisyF
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who responded to my thread! The wisdom on this board is quite amazing!! I am very grateful to have gotten so much input from so many different points of view. It really helped get my thinking straight....
SO--when husband started to bring up the discussion about getting the next item on "The List", I was able to respond without being angry.
AND we were able to really discuss the matter....and it turns out that so many of you were absolutely right--the issue was far deeper than money or material things.
It seems that husband feels frustrated by our current financial situation (really, who can blame him?...). And so he is looking for something that will make him feel better (ie--the toys on his list). His feeling is that he has been working really hard and putting up with so much stress that he deserves a little "something". And when I say No! We can't afford that!--then he gets upset because I am being unreasonable.
So--I can understand the feelings behind his position....and why he would be angry at me....but I am beginning to think that Marg is right about the counseling. I asked husband if he could look at the issue from another point of view--could he put his "list" behind our other priorities? It seems that material possessions are such a sign of well-being to him, that he is really unable to separate the notion of "true financial security" from "having nice stuff".
What we have resolved in the meantime, though, is that I will continue to manage our finances and husband will try not to get angry and make me feel like a jerk if I tell him that things he wants are outside of our budget.
So...a pretty good resolution at this point.
Thanks, everyone! Without your wise counsel, I probably would have approached this from an attitude of "Take your stinkin' list and---"...and then we would have had a huge, nasty fight....which would have been really terrible.
--DaisyF