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I feel like hubby is hiding something
Hubby is the main breadwinner in our family. He's active duty, I'm a reservist. I'm going to school and working part time. We agreed that we would live off his income and tuck mine away in savings.
I have asked him several times to print off his LES so we can work out a budget. I get very anxious not knowing how much money we have coming in and how much is left over after bills are paid.Every time I ask him to print the LES he deflects me with a joke.
Also, his truck was in storage at his last duty station and his ex wife somehow got a hold of it (she was not allowed to be driving it) and was in an accident. He filed a claim with the insurance company to have it fixed over a month ago, but hasn't finalized the claim to get the truck fixed. He keeps telling me "I don't like talking to people on the phone, you know that." His ex wanted him to give her cash to get the truck fixed (she said she got an estimate) without getting insurance involved.
I feel like he's trying to hide something from me but I don't know what. I can't think of any other reason why he wouldn't be honest and open with me about the finances. We've been married 6 months now but he's been deployed for 4 of them. An I over reacting or does hubby have some explaining to do?
Re: I feel like hubby is hiding something
The thing with the ex-wife sounds weird. The thing with the LES just doesn't make sense. I admit it's possible he could have some type of allotment set up that you don't know about because it would all get separated out long before it hit your checking account.
Does the amount of money coming in to your checking account (minus taxes and all) seem unusually low compared to what his basic pay+BAH+other allowances should be?
DH doesn't like logging in to his at home he just thinks it's a pain, but if he knows I really want to see it, he'll let me.
I don't have access to H's LES. I've never seen his. Personally, I don't think that is weird, because I have access to everything else. I see what comes in and out of our USAA accounts.
Do you have joint accounts?
Shan I think I know you guys enough that he would show you if you asked him, right? I had never seen H's before he was leaving for his deployment and then he gave me his login and showed me how to read it. But I also had never asked before that or had any reason to want to see it.
There's totally a difference between "I don't have H's log in" and "my H refuses to give me his log in". I don't have Hs log in, but I've never asked for it or needed it. He would willingly give it to me, we have complete financial transparency.
Id want to know why he's not being more open. In the event he's not hiding something, he apparently has trust issues with money. Both the scenarios are not good for marriages
I changed my name
I agree with PP that logging into mypay is a PITA (as in, it's like 1 step harder than typing your PW for anything else, so really not that hard).
I agree, there may be some diverting of his pay into another bank account for his ex. Or that he may have gotten demoted for something at work, or something else entirely we're not thinking of.
H and I are totally open with each other and know very well exactly what each other makes, but that's mostly because we're both AD.
Do you have access to his credit card statements/ are they joint? Have you noticed him tightening the financial belt lately at all? Has he recently been promoted? Did you see lots of that deployment pay hit your joint bank account?
I agree with Jilly...there is a huge difference between not having it and being denied it.
I'd lay it out for him...either he gives you the log in information or print outs of every LES for the last 60 days or you'll need to re-evaluate the marriage. If I had to guess I'd say he's either paying alimony/child support that he didn't tell you about before you were married or he's paying off some type of lien (military or otherwise).
Funny you mention this, when I found out about the accident, I told him he needs to tell the police that she stole the truck. He said he didn't wanna get her in trouble. So he never did anything about it. That's still bugging me. Especially since she wouldn't even tell him where the truck was when he found out she had been driving it.
We don't have joint accounts. When we first got married I wanted to keep separate accounts bc my ex was abusive and when I left him he drained our joint accounts leaving me with nothing (even though I was the breadwinner in that marriage). Very scary for me and makes it hard for me to trust someone with $$. But since hubby got back from deployment I want to make our accounts joint and consolidate them, we just haven't gotten around to it.
He's high enough up that were he facing any type of UCMJ action, they would move him into another position so I know that's not the case. So now I'm wondering if he's got some sort of fishy allotment going on.
So I guess I need to get the accounts turned into joint accounts and just keep at him about the LES and truck issues. Thank you ladies for all your advice and reassurance that I am not an overbearing, controlling wife for making this request.
I look forward to being more active on the board in the coming months.
I would actually advise against getting joint accounts in your specific case. Your ex was abusive, this one is lying to you and protecting his ex, definitely keep some funds separate.
And separate accounts aren't your problem. H and I have a couple separate accounts, though we're mainly joint. Even couples with separate accounts can have accurate income pictures for each other. Financial transparency is important, as is other transparency, neither of which your husband seems to care about.
I really agree with this. Keep your accounts the way they are. I don't blame you for not trusting him. I couldn't have a joint account with someone who was delibreately hiding something for me.
And he needs to Man-up and get his truck back, or tell you the truth as to why he is letting his ex-wife walk all over him. The excuses he is giving you are useless to me. (Doesn't like to talk to anyone on the phone?! WTF?)
All of this.
And maybe hold off on TTC with a "man" who refuses to tell you the truth about his finances and the situation with his truck-stealing ex (how does someone just come across a truck that was "locked up" and how did he find out she stole it?).
"claps"
Glad he's finally seeing the light; I hope you get all your answers and that they actually make sense.