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follow up: another inlaws frustration...just a vent
I spoke with DH last night after the overwhelming negative comments (did not mention those though) and said that we need to just move some things around and take this payment on ourselves. (We plan to in January anyway). He was adamant that he wanted their help, since they had agreed and he feels "led astray when he was younger" but I said that if he wants to seek it out, that's fine but I'm not going to plan on it, since I do all the budgeting and bills. He eventually agreed with me.
DH learned some horrible money management from these people and made some huge mistakes before we met and while we were dating. (getting a little money matters here, I know). But we are on the right track now and he even said last night he regrets the bad decisions he made and is sorry for all the stress it causes me now.
So thank you for the wake up call. And TGIF!
Re: follow up: another inlaws frustration...just a vent
This feels disjointed to me, and the reason is that your DH needs to realize that it's not his or your decision to get his parents help.
I get where's he's coming from in feeling they should help, but there actually isn't anything here for him to "agree" w/ you on. Unless he puts a gun to his parents head, he has no control over whether they help pay for the car or not.
A part of all of this is that he needs to realize his parents have horrible money management and wanting them to do better isn't going to make them do better. This is who they are, and I actually think instead of looking for retribution/payback from them, he needs to start focusing on what he can control - himself. HE has learned bad skills from them and HE needs to do what he can to "unlearn" those skills.
That is really all he can control.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Right. He is un-learning those skills and I know he knows this is who they are, it's just hard to accept it. He also just found out that they helped his younger siblings pay for some things when they were in college and that's where his since of "payback" is coming from. We will probably have some more conversations about this again but I'm just not going to expect anything, then I won't be frustrated.
You're dealing with symptoms here, not the problem at all.
The problem here is that you two are not on the same page about your finances. At all. Your DH is perfectly willing to let you take on the same role his parents had for so many years: the person/people who handle the money and call the shots and tell him what to do.
Everybody has stuff in their lives for which they can blame their parents. At a certain point, you decide to let it go, deal with it however you need to deal with it, and move on. It's called growing up.
In your posts, there's a lot of "I, me, mine" and a lot of "he, him, his" -- not a lot of "we, us, ours." When it comes to your finances, that is a MAJOR problem. His attitude about money is different than yours. No amount of budgeting and bill paying on your part will alter that.
You and he would benefit greatly from a course in personal finance; there are several out there that are generally sponsored through churches and are geared towards couples: Crown Financial Ministries and Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University are two (both have a religious aspect, Crown more so than FPU). Honestly, until the two of you get on the same page and are making good financial decisions TOGETHER, this argument is going to crop up in different guises throughout your marriage.
Actually his parents did not take care of his fiances ever, nor did they guide him on how to. My mother did, and I'm very thankful for that. And I did say "We" quite a few times. Since we've lived together it has been "our" money and "our" bills.
Somehow this all got misinterpreted, and I feel very misunderstood. We go through the budget together and he knows where the money goes, but I'm the one who pays the bills and I don't feel like that is unfair and from what I gather normal in a marriage.
WE are working TOGETHER to fix his bad credit and issues from when he was younger and didn't have any sound financial advise. My initial frustration was that his parents agreed to fund half of the payment and then have been very flaky on that commitment. I have since decided not to count on getting that, and have made adjustments in our budget to accommodate us taking on the whole thing.
Well, whatever works for you. A begrudging acceptance of your decision, still clinging to his beliefs that other people are responsibile for his bad decisions, a complete lack of follow-up (well into adulthood) for his credit report and do you think you are really going to get a penny while he insists on doing so to his slippery, forgetful parents? And the light of hope is that he says he regrets the bad decisions that he made. Well, duh, who wouldn't. What a lack-luster, unimpressive response to your very real conserns and hard work.
Lucky you.