“He Won’t Give Me Access to Our Money”

[Music] brought to you by the every dollar app start budgeting for free today um so I'm having a bit of some marital disagreement I'm hoping you can give me some clarity or at least how to approach it with my husband um we've been married for eight years I've been a stay-at-home mom for two and um he makes about 250,000 a year and refuses to give me um access to the finances pretty much I'm not on his um he does give me you know x amount of money each month to pay the bills um it doesn't even really cover the bill amount to be honest with you and I'm always left with zero dollars to my name so I just wanted to to talk to you about this and get some feedback from you dang Angela why why won't he put you on the account what does he say um to be honest with you I think it's maybe fear of giving that control up um when we got married he was already you know he was very established he's 12 years older than I am he's always been on his own so I think he's having a really hard time relinquishing that years later I know I know yeah because that's where the difficulty comes in yeah I mean it would be I mean to a degree Angela I'm like I mean it's a it's a level of of this the splitting of finances to the point that you don't have access I mean that that borders line Financial abuse that you don't have the ability to access money that is coming into your household regardless of who makes it or not the idea that that he's withholding that that's a that's a big red flag to me are there other areas of your marriage that you that you feel this control or is it mostly to the money honestly it's just the money everything else you know feels great um and of course I can ask him for $20 or $50 but who want he wants to you're not daughter yeah exactly exactly this is bothering you because it's wrong yes and so let me just confirm for you this is wrong and it the what you're describing to me is um it sounds to me like it it's a whole lot more toxic and bad than you actually think it is you've kind of you've kind of normalized this and you're trying to just kind of well it's not it's not but it's just like I can't get him no I mean this is like weird okay this is strange it's it's at that level and so and it's wrong uh relationally it's a it's a disaster um so I I don't know I I can't judge you know not talking to him I I uh I I can but I might be wrong what is the root of this for him but I really honestly don't care either um if you were my little sister or my daughter and you told me this was going on I I this is not a financial problem you have a very serious marriage problem okay you have an older guy that is you married a man older than you that thinks he's your dad or he thinks he does not have any he does not have to uh involve you so I mean you're you're just to do what you're told okay and I just boy it just sounds really icky so I I think you guys I think you guys need to sit down with a marriage counselor desperately okay um I have I have tried that route and he wouldn't go I still kid for a little bit of course he wouldn't go you need to go yes and the marriage counselor needs to explain to you how icky this is and how you can start have having conversations that either comes to the table or you're leaving because this is not healthy honey this is ugly okay and I'm not telling you to leave but I am telling you to get some people in your life to walk alongside you so you don't continue to tolerate this eight years is too long okay perfect yeah you you you've you put up with it so long it starts to kind of feel normal to you and Rachel and I both like we we about flipped out when you told us thought this right so we're trying to we're trying to temper and be nice yeah because I mean you know there's degrees of all of us Angel we get this call a lot of how do I get my spouse on board and there's everything from how do I get them on board with the intensity of which we're doing baby step two but we're doing baby St two but I want to you know do more than he does or how do I get it where we this is control that's what I'm saying is the the checking account like we have separate checking accounts I don't know if we want to do one you know whatever whatever this is like this is on the extreme scale of it that you don't have access to your money to run your household and your husband is holding the keys and so there's probably too Angela that um of and I think Dave's right I think going to an if he won't go to marriage counseling with you then you need to find a counselor or a therapist and start walking through because there's a level of strength Angela that you may have been giving up over the last eight years due to codependency due to you know really being kind of warped into what is normal and this is just you know your normaly and so to have this level of and it's scary because you're going to start to learn some new tools and new realizations of what's really going on and it's going to give you the strength though to speak up and I pray pray that with that and through that he comes to the table and starts to do work and understands all of that right and you guys I I hope he loves you more than he loves control but I'm not sure right now okay yeah it feels that way for sure you guys do you guys have kids Angela you've been home for two years I have three you have three okay okay wow uh what did you do when you met when you you said I've been home for two years what were you doing before that when you were working and making an income where was that money going um well I worked for a municipality and um you know we I tried to get him to combine finances then when I was bringing in money but he wasn't interested so okay you know I just kept it kept it to myself you know in my account but since we've been married I have tried to get him to combine finances we did go to FPU together that was one of my things I wanted us to do upfront I think it helped for about a year but he never he never wanted to actually make that step and combine our account down to our account well and more than that he's still doing out money to you I have to ask him for $20 it sounds like you're 16 years old and you're asking your dad for money yes that's the way that that's the way that sentence structure came out and that's what that's um you know how I got to tell you man somebody that a guy that can go through financial University and see that whole scope of information viewing it from an emotional spiritual mathematical process and then go back to doing what he's doing there's something going on here there's something going on okay and I'm so sorry Angela yeah this is har this is bad I'm sorry darling yeah I I don't want to be some doomsayer and I don't want to add drama but I want to add enough drama that you do something about it yeah uh don't stay in this situation um do something to cause the situation to change like see a therapist and let them walk you through some you know some structures of what you can do to get get some help in this relationship create your free every dollar budget today the simplest way to budget for your life