# Spouse borrows money but never paying back as agreed. Where do you draw the line?



## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

My wife has terrible money management habits and has borrowed a lot of money from me on the agreements to pay it back being much of it came form our life savings.

WHere do you draw the line at for cutting a partner off due to what is an obvious financial self management problems?

I believe in keeping a relationship balanced to a degree but unfortunately my wife has the higher paying job yet also has the least of the joint financial contributions from her side.


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## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

Our money is together, so I come from that perspective. You have to sit down and have a talk, and agree on some ground rules. Even if she makes more, there need to be common goals. Again, I cannot stress the "agreement" part enough.

Do you think it would be helpful to rethink the "she borrows money from me" thing? And consider it all more joint? I think this is what Dave Ramsey recommends. Are you familiar with him?


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## Wiltshireman (Jan 23, 2013)

It sounds like a "your money, their money" situation were as I am used to an "our money" relationship.

Even when my wife was a SAHM and I was the sole breadwinner we have only ever hand "our money". The joint account receives all the wages / income and pays all the bills, what is left is divided between savings and discretionary spending with everyone in the household getting "pocket money" for incidentals. Unusual / large purchases / expenditures are discussed and agreed in advance.

A few years were money was tight forced us to learn financial responsibility. 
IMHO a lesson that everyone (no matter how wealthy) should learn.


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## LoveBeingFemale (Nov 5, 2012)

We don't necessarily use the term "borrowed money" in regards to the spouse needing money. If the other needs funds for something above and beyond normal everyday expenditures, then we would take it out of savings and that person could have it--there would be no discussion of paying the other spouse back. If, by chance, we have a fairly large tax return, we try and put it back into savings. You and your spouse may also have very different ideas on what is considered a lot of money.


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## Sun Catcher (Dec 6, 2013)

married tech said:


> My wife has terrible money management habits and has borrowed a lot of money from me on the agreements to pay it back being much of it came form our life savings.
> 
> WHere do you draw the line at for cutting a partner off due to what is an obvious financial self management problems?
> 
> I believe in keeping a relationship balanced to a degree but unfortunately my wife has the higher paying job yet also has the least of the joint financial contributions from her side.


Agree with posters above, just one addition. You don't cut your wife off, you get her help. You sit her down and discuss all aspects of your JOINT finances. Lots of good books and often free courses in money management are offered.


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## Wiltshireman (Jan 23, 2013)

Sun Catcher said:


> Agree with posters above, just one addition. You don't cut your wife off, you get her help. You sit her down and discuss all aspects of your JOINT finances. Lots of good books and often free courses in money management are offered.


Go for it take a negative and turn it into something that will benefit you both for the rest of your lives.


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## Caribbean Man (Jun 3, 2012)

My wife and I have separate accounts and we do " borrow" money from each other.

I put the word " borrow" in inverted commas because neither of us ever repay the money. Between us it is understood.


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## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

To clarify we both have independant plus joint accounts and the original agreement was that a even percentage of what we made went into the joint accounts to pay the bills and monthly general odds and ends. 

The rest was to be split between joint savings and then personal accounts to do whatever we want with it be it save or spend it. 

The problem is her accounts are always dead flat empty so anything extra she wants comes out of the joint accounts of which since she already spent all her personal account money see that her part of the joint account money is also hers to spend as she wants. 

After that then the bills come out of the joint account for the money I put there and when there is not enough left to cover things the rest comes from my personal accounts. 

The problem with the borrowing is we agreed that when one of us needs extra money for a emergency expense that they can either take it out of the long term savings or borrow from the other person but they have to pay it back. 

I have borrowed from the joint savings and from her for large expenses like getting a vehicle or piece of my work equipment fixed. I however have always paid the joint account or her back in full. 

She however has rarely ever puts anything back and any money that came from me is lost forever to "when I have money I will pay you back" even though she pulls down 2 - 3 times the take home pay I average most months. 

Combined we make at least $75K take home a year but have zero in our savings accounts even though I go above and beyond on trying to keep money in them.  

My money is our money and her money is our money until she spends it all then my money is expected to become her money too. 

She prefers to drive my pickup to work since she won't drive her car (I paid for) in the winter even when the roads are good. 

I need my pickup for my work so I bought a fixer upper identical to my pickup two summers ago for $2000 that needs about $2000 more to get it back into good solid shape again. (Tires and engine work). 

The agreement was that since I paid the $2000 to buy the pickup she would pay the other $2000 or less that is needed to get it running so it would be her pickup. Two years later she has yet to put a dime towards it despite the fact that she could easily pay the $2000 off from two of her average paychecks without even having to have cut into her share of what she is supposed to be putting into our joint accounts. 

Thats the borrowing problem. She borrows us broke and I am sick of it.


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## mablenc (Feb 26, 2013)

what is she buying?


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## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

To go further on how we agreed to budget our money the concept was that it would not matter who made more than the other.

The monthly and general expenses we have are well known and stable from month to month plus our average take home pay is also pretty stable. 
From that was how we came to the agreements of how much each of us would put towards the joint family expense the joint family saving and what would come after that from remaining paycheck or side line income would be the individuals personal spending money to do as they please with. 

At the moment I am self employed but I do bring in more than enough to cover and equal amount to what she is expected to put in even though its well above what the agreed percentage split says I need to put in. 

Her complaint is that I should be working a normal oil field service job again (12 hours a day 6 days a week by her reckoning even though she only works a 5 day 40 hour desk job) so that we can build up our joint savings again plus get more of her wants taken care of like the pickup repair project. 

I don't find that the least bit fair or reasonable being she has the majority pay coming in as is and I more than meet my minimal fair contributions to our fixed expenditures.


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## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

> what is she buying?


Over priced crap. 

A lot of what she spends is on overpriced food. Over half of what we make for garbage is uneaten food or food items she started making but forgot about and left untill they needed to be thrown out. 

After that it's clothing or gifts for her friends family or daughter.I am not against buying cloths for our daughter but she does not need $100 shoes and shirts that she only wears once or twice before outgrowing. I also do not agree that if a clothing item got a stain on it that did not come out after a basic wash it needs to be thrown away. 

On top of that she has house improvement projects of which I contribute to but she like the "expensive" versions of whatever she wants repaired or replaced put in. We have $300 curtain rods to hold up her $25 curtains she found online.  

Then there is the general "stuff" expenditures. Our house is packed full of "stuff" she may need or found a good deal on even though she never uses it let alone has a place to put it. 

After that is fuel. Being she likes driving my pickup she has to pay for the fuel for it. However instead of planning ahead on how she does her shopping it's a common thing for ther to drive to town then around town and home then back to town again multiple times burning up $200+ in fuel a week to buy $5 and $10 items one at a time. 
The thing is my pickup is set up for dual fuel so it can run on cheap propane. $1.35 LPG Vs .$3.40 gasoline. The problem with that is being it is capable of being filled out of our bulk tank, intended to be primarily for home heating of which I pay for, it got to the point I was clearly paying for the fuel for her to go to her job and every where else every day so I made it clear that if she wants to drive the pickup on the cheap fuel she has to contribute proportionally to the purchases of bulk propane. 
Since then she fuels the pickup with gas in town at $3.40 a gallon rather than cough up/save the $300 - $400 a month for her share of the bulk tank refills. (she never seems to have the extra $150 - $200 a paycheck to save towards that but dumping a $100 in gasoline two or more times a week in the pickup is not a problem.) 

Largely thats where her money goes. Above and beyond that due to her not putting anything in the joint savings for emergency expenditures and just relying on me to fund those costs, by borrowing from me or joint savings, when they happen is why we have no money.


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## mablenc (Feb 26, 2013)

From what you say she seems to get a thrill from shopping. Do you think those things give her dorm kind of security? Maybe She needs individual counseling.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

She is most definitely a thrill shopper. Shopping just to buy what is needed is not all that fun for her. 

Dragging my less than enthusiastic butt all over everywhere to look at crap I know we don't need let alone can afford is her thing. That followed by chewing my butt for not being supportive of her whims afterwards. 

And yes I think she needs some counseling along with medical and psychological help. She has some very severe health and personality problems that are getting to be well beyond just cute little personality quirks.


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## anotherguy (Dec 14, 2011)

married tech said:


> My wife ..has borrowed a lot of money from me on the agreements to pay it back being much of it came form our life savings....


She is 'borrowing' money from 'me' and yet it comes from 'our' life savings?

Seems to me all of that is your problem right there. The 2 of you are not playing for the same team. Nothing is going to work until you can both say that 'we' are buying things, or not buying things. Marriage is teamwork and cooperation and keeping your word and acting responsibly - and also trust. Not competition and tit-for-tat and subterfuge and seeing what you can get away with or having to play gate keeper with the family purse.

The entire idea of 'lending' money to my spouse sounds completely alien to me... but then again we have been together 25 years and that sort of delineation disappeared long ago.

You need to talk about it and describe in detail how this is hurting your chances at having a long, happy, and financially secure life together. Make a budget... en entire years worth, track every dollar and go over it together. It is harder to argue when you can both clearly see the numbers. Make sure and illustrate exactly where you have been spending money the past couple of months. All of it. *All of it* for a couple months. You may have to simply start tracking before you can do this.

Until you make it real, until you can show what is happening - she may stay in fantasyland with terms like 'we will work it out' and 'we will make it up with something else'.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

*Provided that you had a prior meeting and agreement with her on this subject matter, and if it's indeed from either your personal or your mutual life savings; and that's what she spends the withdrawals on, then I'd say it is well beyond time for a hearty "Come-to-Jesus Meeting" with her!*


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## PBear (Nov 16, 2010)

So what happens when you discuss these things with her?

C
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

> She is 'borrowing' money from 'me' and yet it comes from 'our' life savings?


To further clarify we are both supposed to be putting an equal percentage of what we make in our joint savings. 

The problem of the 'me' part is she does not put in her share as she is supposed to and agreed to and I make up for it by putting more than my share so that we at least have something there. Unfortunately she uses that of which I put in for whatever under the reasoning of "I will put it back later" that never happens.

She wants me to get a different job that pays more so that my above and beyond contributions above our agreed percentages to our accounts will be higher. 

Does that make more sense on the where the me her and we aspects come from? 

I would like to run our relationship as the classic 'It's just us" approach but if I did that then both of us would be flat broke all the time instead of it being just her and the joint accounts that are flat all the time. 

Does that make sense?


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## anotherguy (Dec 14, 2011)

Yup, I understand what you are saying.

You both are operating like 2 separate branches of government - and equally dysfunctional.

I'm not trying to make this a joke or belittle your problem - I'm not. But maybe putting it down on paper and going over it together would be constructive more than simply stating that she is overly impulsive purchaser. SHOW her what it is doing. Show her the trend and where it leads. She need to be reminded EXACTLY how living within your plan pays off in ways more important than that thing she is looking at.

Know how to use Excel?


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## heartbroken0426 (Dec 4, 2013)

married tech said:


> My wife has terrible money management habits and has borrowed a lot of money from me on the agreements to pay it back being much of it came form our life savings.
> 
> WHere do you draw the line at for cutting a partner off due to what is an obvious financial self management problems?
> 
> I believe in keeping a relationship balanced to a degree but unfortunately my wife has the higher paying job yet also has the least of the joint financial contributions from her side.



This is what my H and I did regarding money (although I didn't really like it at the beginning). 

Each of our paychecks got deposited in our own personal account (although we were both signers on all accounts). Then a % of the check was transferred into our joint checking and joint savings. The remaining balance stayed in our personal account. All of our household bills, joint entertainment, and other reasonable personal expenses was spent out of our joint checking. We would then use our personal checking as "fun money" where we could spend it and the other person can't say a thing. 

Since she makes more money, she'll have more money in her personal account to spend on whatever. If she spends all of that money, then oh well....she has to wait until the next paycheck.


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## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

> So what happens when you discuss these things with her?


Irrational sh!t hits the fan.  

Reasoning like she grew up lower income or below where she thought her family should have lived, 
or that she had to be the financially responsible one in past relationships, 
or that I used to be or spent money on XYZ when we met four years ago, 
or our health insurance comes from her job and that's expensive (even though if she opted out her take home pay would not change one cent), 
or 'happy wife happy life' puts her wants first,
or the man is supposed to work to give the woman money,
or I'm obviously more financially resourceful so I will find us more money after she spends all that we have now,
or she doesn't need to think about retiring because she will be dead long before then so saving now doesn't matter,
or someday my stocks or oil mineral rights will pay off and we will have plenty of money then so dont worry about it now,
or when my dad dies I get 1/3 of all of his net worth so we will cash that in some day
and that's just the off the top of my head ones that sort of make poor logical sense. 

Wanna hear about how I am some advanced space alien who has access to a huge space bank account? :scratchhead:

Or that I have lived past lives and hid valuable items in those lives but I have yet to recall where they are but once I do we can cash some of them in? :scratchhead:


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## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

> This is what my H and I did regarding money (although I didn't really like it at the beginning).
> 
> Each of our paychecks got deposited in our own personal account (although we were both signers on all accounts). Then a % of the check was transferred into our joint checking and joint savings. The remaining balance stayed in our personal account. All of our household bills, joint entertainment, and other reasonable personal expenses was spent out of our joint checking. We would then use our personal checking as "fun money" where we could spend it and the other person can't say a thing.
> 
> Since she makes more money, she'll have more money in her personal account to spend on whatever. If she spends all of that money, then oh well....she has to wait until the next paycheck.


That's exactly how we agreed to set up our finances. The problem was at some point I got suckered into letting her spend savings money under the promise of paying it back and the paying it back never happened. 

I used to borrow thousands from savings to do work projects and then put it back over a few months of payments. She decided that since I took thousands out and put it back over a few months she could slowly take hundreds out when her paychecks were burned up and promise to put it back when she got paid again but when she got paid she always forgot and all her money was gone before she remembered. 

Sound familiar? 

Now we are nearly flat broke and she is on me to get a better paying job so that I will start building up our savings again.


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## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

> Yup, I understand what you are saying.
> 
> You both are operating like 2 separate branches of government - and equally dysfunctional.
> 
> ...


Yes well this branch sees the problem and is trying to fix it by spending less. The other branch is tossing cash at everything hand over fist believing that the first branch will step up and increase the cash flow to balance things out again. 

We have done the item by item financial reasoning. It works for a little while but the financial leak keeps coming back so when her next big expenditure comes along that I can see as normally being a justifiable cash outlay hits we are broke and I am the bad guy for having to say no because I will no longer tap into my play money to pay for her stuff even if I agree she could have it if we still had the money in the joint accounts. 

Simply put I am no longer willing to give up my play money and remaining personal saving in order to get her to shut up and get off my case due to her having ran all of her and our primary financial resources dry.


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## lenzi (Apr 10, 2012)

Having been married and then divorced, largely due to over spending issues on her part, I can totally relate to where you're coming from.

But realize that marriage is essentially a financial agreement. As far as the money goes, except for monies and assets that you had prior to the marriage, the rest is all joint marital property. 

Until and unless you divorce some day, it's not really her money and your money, it's one big chunk of money that you both share. In a way, you're really somewhat hypocritical by getting married while maintaining that it's your money versus her money, and again, I'm not trying to get on you, I'm just pointing out that's what it is.

Now I applaud you for trying to keep the finances separate but in the end it's going to be a futile effort because she isn't respecting or following your mutual agreement which makes it useless.

Not sure there's anything you can do, except try to prevent her from borrowing money from your savings to spend on herself. Or, get really agressive and divide up all the liquid funds so that each of you control your own portion. 

That much being said, given the spending disparities, I fear things are going to get ugly.


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## mablenc (Feb 26, 2013)

married tech said:


> Irrational sh!t hits the fan.
> 
> Reasoning like she grew up lower income or below where she thought her family should have lived,
> or that she had to be the financially responsible one in past relationships,
> ...


Are you serious? Other than this, is she "out of touch" with reality? Im thinking she needs counseling pronto.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## PBear (Nov 16, 2010)

But you make an agreement, she doesn't follow through on it... When you remind her of the agreement, she comes up with excuses. So the next time she wants to "borrow" money, you remind her that she still "owes" money... Then more excuses? What about if you refuse to "lend" her money?

At some point, if she's not going to be responsible, you might have to put on your big boy pants and take ownership of the family finances. Get you both in financial counselling. All the money goes into one pot of money and you have allowances put into your separate accounts. Something to make a change, because what you have going on now isn't working. 

C


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## lenzi (Apr 10, 2012)

PBear said:


> At some point, if she's not going to be responsible, you might have to put on your big boy pants and take ownership of the family finances. C


When I realized my exwife's spending was out of control, (and she agreed), I cut her off from the checking and savings accounts.

She was ok for a while. Then she started running up the charge cards..

That's what they do. It's like a disease.

She won't stop spending, she'll just stop asking. It's like having an affair except instead of sex it's spending.


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## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

> Until and unless you divorce some day, it's not really her money and your money, it's one big chunk of money that you both share. In a way, you're really somewhat hypocritical by getting married while maintaining that it's your money versus her money, and again, I'm not trying to get on you, I'm just pointing out that's what it is.


Yes I am aware of that and I agree to a point but as I have said, If I don't keep the money I makes separate as my money from our money/her money we both will have no money.  



> Are you serious? Other than this, is she "out of touch" with reality? I'm thinking she needs counseling pronto.


Well yea I do have other threads here relating to her problem there as well. 
In fact I am meeting with a psychologist tomorrow just so that I can get a start on us getting professional help. That and to make sure I'm not nuts too. 



> But you make an agreement, she doesn't follow through on it... When you remind her of the agreement, she comes up with excuses. So the next time she wants to "borrow" money, you remind her that she still "owes" money... Then more excuses? What about if you refuse to "lend" her money?


I feel similar. As I said there are bigger price things she wants to have and do that I fully agree with spending money one but due to the fact she burns up her paychecks before they ever hit the joint accounts for monthly bills and savings the only money left for these things is the part of my income that should be my play money. I contributed above and beyond what our agreed to percentages of individual income are. 

I don't see loaning my percentage of play money and expecting it back in a reasonable time frame as a greed to to be excessive by any means. 



> She was ok for a while. Then she started running up the charge cards..
> 
> That's what they do. It's like a disease.
> 
> She won't stop spending, she'll just stop asking. It's like having an affair except instead of sex it's spending.


That brings up another point. I have no idea how much credit card debt she may have or be carrying. I am not a credit card person. All the spending I have done for the last 15+ years went as checks, cash or cash cards tied to my checking account. 

Not to long ago she was all excited one day because one of her credit cards got raised from its $500 limit to a $1500 limit. I have suspicions that since her cash card for her checking account and our joint accounts dont work being there is no money in them that her credit cards are now carrying much of what I now refuse to support above and beyond my share of the bills.


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## Wiltshireman (Jan 23, 2013)

I do think that it is past time for your wife to get some help in understanding and managing her personal finances. There are loads of groups / schemes out there so take a look around and see what you can find.

Some offer free advice / training.

We have enrolled our teenage kids on course with the UK charity.

pfeg.org | Providing lesson plans and teaching resources on money management to help teachers of financial capability

And I think that there are similar things in the US, this might be a good place to start.

Free Personal Finance Programs - NFEC's Financial EduNation Campaign

Managing your money is a life skill and it does need to be taught.


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