# Resenting my wife - I want to forgive her.



## toaster (Jun 12, 2012)

When my wife and I got married, I managed the money. I designed our lifestyle so that we would have enough to pay the bills, put something aside for savings and give ourselves an allowance. During that time, we never argued about money.

We recently moved to Japan, and my wife, whom is Japanese, is handling our finance. She is terrible with money, and I would not have let her done it, had it not been for the fact that I can’t read Japanese. However, I was hopeful that she had learned something from the way we were living before. At first, we broke down our finances and things seemed fantastic: we were making more than what we were spending.

I had a second job as a freelanced graphic design gig that I did from home after I got back from work. It brought in $1,000 - $1,400 every month. I kept that job while we transitioned to Japan, but I wasn’t happy going to bed at 2:00 am and waking up at 5:00 am to go to my full time job, then having to pester my client for payment. It was a hassel! 

I talked to my wife about quiting, since we both had jobs in Japan. She says “yes, we don’t need the money anymore”. 

After I quit, I noticed that we were running through more money than we should. We breakdown our finaces for the 8th time since moving, and I found out that our bills are $750 more than our income. We had broken down our finances before to see where our money is going, but it always seemed to look fine… it turns out she wasn’t including all the bills in our monthly breakdown.

I was so mad. I’m still mad. That job paid a lot of money for what was very little work done from home. I don’t think I can get it back, the lady in charge of that company was looking for a way to cut me loose, but our contract made it hard for her to terminate me.

I love my wife, but I find myself resenting her for not bringing those bills up earlier. I would not have quit if I new it. I’m so upset at her, I want to tell her “this is your fault, we might not recover from this”, but that will do no good. 

I can find a part time job, but it will be more hours than my old job, and I probably won’t be able to work from home. The jobs I CAN work from home pay very little. I'll probably end up working twice as long for half the pay.

I am still angry at her for keeping those bills from me even when I told her I wanted to quit.

How do I forgive her? I am so upset.


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## moxy (Apr 2, 2012)

You did the bills before. She didn't learn how because she had you to fall back on. Now she is doing them and is slipping up. Maybe you can both sit down to do the bills together. You can teach her your method. By watching how she does it, you will have a way to talk to her directly about the problem instead of deflecting the issue into anger about the outcome.

I'm sometimes terrible with money. I'm not used to having a budget that is terribly difficult. Stbxh and I had arguments about money issues because he is used to stringent budgeting and I spend more freely. This became less of an issue when we talked about our budget once a month.


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## toaster (Jun 12, 2012)

That is a great suggestion, Moxy.

I swallowed my pride and called a friend of mine at the company that hired me, and he's going to touch base with the higher ups on how they'd feel about re-hiring me on a meeting this monday.

I hope it works out, I can make enough to cover our gap without missing a lot of time with my wife and daughter if I am rehired.

I had been upset while I was bottling it up inside. Venting on this forum really helped. I feel like I got this anger out of my system.


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