How to get my husband more involved financially

[becomingkate]

I pay the bills and my husband has no idea and doesn't remember to check, so I tend to send random texts when I'm dealing with the bank account:

 

Loan payment came out, today would be a good day to buy a sirius card.

 

Mortgage hasn't come out yet, keep spending to less than $20 today.

 

All utilities paid, keep $140 for food and $40 for gas.

 

Sometimes he calls me from the road and asks me to log into the bank account to see where we are, but it's mostly done through text.

[hers]

Thanks for the posts y'all.

 

I guess I need to accept that this is who he is. I just don't like dictating stuff. Like the other day I said "we have x in the account so we need to not touch it till Friday" and he still asked if we could go to dinner. That's the stuff that gets me--bc I hate telling him no, like I'm solely in charge and I don't want to be.

 

So we do communicate about it but something doesn't register to him and that's when it gets me. Bc it's his reaction to it. And then I feel like I've managed the money wrong.

 

I'm not that great at it, obv but I do try to be and budget myself about extra spending. He never lived on his own though and I always have so it was just sort of established that I'd do it. I'm sure if something happened to me he could do it but I don't want that to ever be the case.

[catfeeder]

Like the other day I said "we have x in the account so we need to not touch it till Friday" and he still asked if we could go to dinner. That's the stuff that gets me--bc I hate telling him no, like I'm solely in charge and I don't want to be.

 

Then this is where you put the decision on his shoulders. You just told him you only have X. So? Respond to his question with a question: "Well, as I said, we have X until Friday. Is there a place you'd like to go where we can spend that amount?"

 

Hell, even if X was only 5 dollars, the point is, HE gets to decide to nix the dinner or not.

 

Head high, and transfer responsibility by asking rather than telling.

[lady00]

I think catfeeder has a really good suggestion. This is tough because I can completely understand your frustrations over this but at the same time, you obviously recognize that you have to pick your battles in a sense and you seem to be coming to the conclusion that this may just be something he's not going to take an interest in. And maybe that's OK. I'm not in a relationship right now, but I can understand that in relationships we all have things we wish our partner would do differently (and vice versa). Sometimes those things change and evolve over time. And sometimes a person is just who they are and we learn to accept it. As this is not a dealbreaker type of situation, you might just end up coming to accept it.

[Batya33]

Maybe he should have a separate account too (sorry if others already suggested it) -that way if he wants to indulge he can if he has the $ to do so -and he has complete control over managing that account.