Well I’ve been out-ed.
No, not the lesbian kind.
And no not even the pregnant kind (cuz I’m still kind of in the closet about that with some people).
It’s the financial failure closet that I was in. And now I am out.
See although Tyler & I have been together more than 8 years, and married for 3 ½ of those, we started our relationship with very separate views about money and thus kept our money separate. In the beginning we had our own accounts and chose how we spent our own money and split most of the bills 50/50. As our relationship got more committed and he started earning more money we sort’ve combined our accounts but it’s still very separate. We definitely still have very different views on how money should be spent: me on frivolous things and Tyler on nothing at all!
Anyway, long story short...I've technically been unemployed for the last 15 months but I've continued to spend like I have a full time job. I've basically racked up all my credit (credit cards & a line of credit) to the point of "maxed" by the end of December and I've just been paying the minimums for the last few months. I didn't go out of my way to hide it from Tyler, but I also didn't advertise it either. On Easter Monday when he was home, he was digging through the paper pile looking for something and came across one of my statements. Surprisingly, he didn't even bring it up until Wednesday night, and he was much more calm about it then I would have expected. I guess for me, I'm seeing HUGE amounts of money with little to no income coming in on my end as I'm the one who racked them up, I should be the one who needs to work hard to pay them off. Tyler, very nicely, suggested that I should limit my extra-ciricular activities until I've paid off some of my bills which I completely agree with.
I think for me, money spending is as much as addiction as my junk food habit is for me and the drugs and alcohol can be for others. As far as I'm concerned, an addiciton is when you look outside yourself to fulfil something inside yourself. So I need to start doing more fulfilling things and less "empty" things. Easier said then done I think!
I'm impressed with Tyler's reaction/response. good for him for not freaking out! And good for you for not ragging on yourself about it (at least that is what your tone is portraying in your blog).
ReplyDeleteSo do you have a game plan? Are you going to take Tyler's advice?
:) Spending is totally an addiction like you described - good comparison. It's like when I try and explain FA ("food addicts") that my mom does to others - people don't always see food as being an addictive category.
Anyways, I am excited to see what comes of your "out"ed-ness.
:D
Kyla