It’s Her Money Too

You know, we can be a little bit funny when it comes to money. Actually, it’s not really funny; it’s more like sad; sad in the sense that we can have a huge double standard when it comes to spending that money. We complain about our wives spending money on clothes and things for the house, while we spend money on our hobbies.

One of the things that’s hard to realize when we get married is that everything that used to be mine is now ours. Okay, there are a few exceptions, like your toothbrush, most couples don’t share those. There’s probably a few things you have that your wife wouldn’t want to touch as well, like the tools you use for working on the car. You can pretty much claim those as still being yours. But, everything else switches from being yours (singular) to yours (plural).

That can actually be a little threatening to some people; especially when they have collectibles or other prized possessions that mean something to them, but don’t mean a thing to their spouse. Granted, throwing your high school wrestling trophy away isn’t real cool, but do you really need it to be on the living room mantle? You might be better off moving it to the den.

Money is another one of those areas that both husbands and wives have trouble sharing. Oh, they might have a joint checking account, but usually each of them has their own little stash. We guys call it “she money,” you know, she doesn’t know I’ve got it.

Granted, your budget should allow each of you to have some money that you can use for whatever you want. No matter what your income is, we all need a few bucks that we can use for our own desires, whether it is buying a cold drink, or buying a new pair of shoes.

That money isn’t really what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the money that’s in the checking account, or for that matter, the credit cards. That’s the money we tend to get upset about when our wives spend it. They don’t see anything wrong with buying another gun out of that money to add to their collection, but it sure bothers them when their wife buys a chair for the living room; or even worse, when she buys… clothes.

Okay, stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and relax. C’mon now, her buying clothes really isn’t all that bad. You want your wife to look pretty, don’t you? Well, she buys clothes to make her look pretty. It’s really not all that bad.

Unless we want perpetual high blood pressure, we’ve got to learn to stop thinking of that money as a personal possession, and start thinking of it as a family possession, or at least as something that belongs to the two of you. It really does. When you married her your checking account and credit cards were part of the deal. It doesn’t matter which one of you earns the most money, that money belongs to both of you.

So, since it belongs to her too, she has as much right to buy those clothes or that chair as you do to buy a new fishing pole. You may not think that the chair is important, but then again, she probably doesn’t think your fishing pole is. I’m sure of one thing though, the chair is important to her, so that makes it important.