Am I checking up on her . . . . yes!

For years my wife and I have been struggling financially, like a lot of people in the country, but we manage to make it. We have separate checking accounts but we also have a joint account for household bills and things. We both drive older cars but they still run. My SUV is a 2008 Lincoln Navigator and she drives a 2009 Nissan Murano. Not classic cars or high end models but they get us where we need to be and back. For the past few months my wife's car has been needing a lot of work done, little things here and there. At one point she was crying in a Walgreen's parking lot because she said she was tired of putting money into her car. For years I've been telling her we need to go in together and purchase a nicer newer car for travel purposes or if one of our cars has to go to the shop we'd have the backup so that we didn't have to borrow either of our parent's car. My wife would always push that idea to the side. A few years back her youngest son, now 30 years old, had a baby with a girl he was involved with and a few months after his son was born he damaged his car which messed up his AC so he didn't have cool air for the summer months. Again, I've been trying to get us to get a newer car but she'd always brush me off. I then find out that my step-son got a newer car but here's the specifics. He traded his car in on the newer car, however, his name was nowhere on the paperwork. The car is in his "baby momma's" name AND my wife's name. Yes, she co-signed for them to get a newer car. Only to find out the child's mom didn't even want the car. So the car was for my step-son but again, his name is nowhere on the paperwork. This girl and the baby now live 5 states away but the car is still here with my step-son. Funny thing is that the AC in my truck doesn't work well either but I guess I wasn't as important as our grandson.

A few years back my wife and I were going through a program to help us purchase our first home. When we got to the personal interview stage they asked for me and my wife's financial information. They needed to see all our finances but my wife refused to give them hers because she said "they don't need all that" so we never went any further with the program. A few months later we were sitting at home and there was a knock on the door. It was a city sheriff bringing her paperwork for court because, unbeknownst to me, my wife had applied for a 10k credit card, maxed it out and had stopped paying the bills on it. So the credit card company was taking her to court. Now I see why she didn't want to go through with the home buyers program because this credit card bill would have come up. Funny to her, it came up anyway.

Down through the years I've owned a few cars. I'm one of those who doesn't just buy a new(er) car because I just want one but I will replace a car when I have to. Some 10+ years back my older car finally died so I was forced to get a newer one. Within a week of getting a newer car my wife pulls into the driveway with a newer car because, as she said, "if you're gonna get a new car I want one too." There was no discussion of her replacing her car or anything. She went to the car lot herself, picked out the car and drove it home. I knew about it the day she drove home after the paperwork was signed. Some years later I was picking my daughter up from work and a driver turned in front of me broadsiding us so that car was totaled. I went without a car for a while until I was able to replace it. Within a week or two my wife decided she wanted a newer car so she goes out and gets herself a another newer one. The car she picked out was the worst one on the car lot. It was an old Mazda Tribute with collision damage, rust spots on it and an inch of dust and dirt covering the engine among other issues with the car. This time she did take me to the car lot to look at it. I told her that was not the car for her but she wouldn't listen. She wanted that car because she was getting a great deal on it, probably because they were just trying to get it off their lot. I saw a very nice, very clean VW Passat wagon that we test drove and the only thing wrong with that car was that the volume knob for the radio was missing. She didn't want that because it was a wagon. One night my daughter and I were on the way home from me picking her up from college for her spring break. I let her drive the 2.5 hour road trip but a few miles from reaching our home we were in an accident and my SUV (different one) was totaled. Within a week I had replaced my car with the one I currently have. You know what I'm about to say, yep, she goes out and gets the current car she has. This is her pattern of her just making the decision to go out and get things on her own without any discussion with me, circle back to her just co-signing for her son, my step-son, and his gf to get a newer car because she didn't want the baby riding in the heat. And like I said, my current SUV is also having AC issues.

Financially my wife makes decisions that she feels doesn't / shouldn't affect up but they do. When it comes time to pay the bills she'll send me a text message as to what is due and what my half will be. I told her I needed to be more involved in our bills so instead of her just texting me what I needed to pay I wanted us to sit down together when she looks at the bills so I can see what's owed, etc. She took that to mean I didn't trust her and I wanted to see her paying her portion of the bills. No, that was not my intention. I just wanted US to be more involved with the household finances. And to this day we still don't sit down together because she refuses. A month or so ago I told her I was taking over the bill management and she complained majorly. After she sent me a text as to what was owed I took it upon myself to look into our bills and what I discovered was that for the past 2+ months I was the only one paying on the power bill. I looked at the past bills and what payments had been made only to see that all the payments were coming out of my account and not one from my wife's account. I then discovered that the power bill was almost $1000 and that she had put us on a payment arrangement. When I showed her the proof that night she argued me up and down that she knows she had made a payment. I told her to pull up her banking app and show me in the past 2 months were any payment had come out of her account. She looked and looked and looked but couldn't find anything.

Earlier this month my granddaughter, my daughter's child, turned 5 so I went online and ordered her a little birthday bundt cake from a place called Nothing Bundt Cakes. Not sure if they are a national chain but we have several here and they are really good. I paid for it and 2 other little bundt cakes. One for me and one for my wife. This places closes before I get off work so I text my wife asking her if she could swing by after she got off work to pick up the 3 bundt cakes. Again, remember I had already paid for the cakes with my personal card so all my wife had to do was go in, give my name and pick them up. A week or so later I was looking at the transactions in the joint account and I noticed a transaction to this bundt cake for like $14. Knowing I had paid for the cakes with "my" account I wondered what that transaction was for. I asked her and she swore up and down she didn't make the transaction. I called the bank to inquire about the purchase and they told me the last 4 digits of the card that was used and guess what, it was my wife's debit card to the joint. When I grilled her on it she finally admitted that her dad's birthday was a few days after our granddaughter and since she was in the store she decided to get him a birthday bundt cake too. However, my wife has soooo many different cards in her wallet until when she pulled out her debit card she thought she was grabbing the card to her account at her current bank she actually pulled the card from our joint account. And again I say, my wife's wallet is crammed full of cards, grocery store cards, old and current insurance cards, AAA cards, gift cards, fitness facility cards, etc. And a lot of the cards she has have either expired or say it's a gift card that my only have $0.20 left on it. She refuses to go through her wallet to remove those unused or unnecessary cards from her wallet. Apparently her current bank's card (Navy Federal Credit Union) is the same color as our joint card (Bank of America). Both cards are red from what she's saying. Ok, here's the rub. I have a card for my personal account AND a card for our joint account and they are identical. You know how many times I've used the wrong card, not once, because when I pull out my wallet to pay for something I look at what card I intend to use. My wife just looked at the color and decided "this is the right one."

For years my wife and I both banked with the same bank. I had my personal account, she had hers, then we had the joint account. I could only see my account and the joint whereas she could only see her account and the joint when she signed into her app. It was so much easier to transfer funds to each other simply be putting it in the joint. Something happened and all of a sudden she closed her personal account and went with another bank. I later found out that she had some funds being pulled from her personal account from some group that she had signed up with and she was tired of paying them back so she just closed her account. Now that makes money difficult to transfer money because now. Lately in looking at the joint account we have I have been noticing a number of Zelle transfers between my wife and my mother-in-law. Here's the deal with that. My wife's mom, my MIL, works for a tax preparer doing people's taxes BUT she is just too busy to order food for herself and her husband, my father in law, to eat when she gets off work. So, my MIL will call my wife and tell her what she wants to eat for her and dad and my wife will order it on her food app then my MIL would Zelle her the money to our joint account. Now again, my wife has her own account at another bank which she'll order the food and pay for it with her account but instead of my MIL just sending the money to her directly she'll send it to the joint account then my wife will Zelle it from the joint account to her bank. I even asked my wife why doesn't she show my MIL how to order her own food on whatever app she chooses and just pays for it herself. My wife tells me that her mom is just too busy to order her own food she she'll do it for her hence all the Zelle transactions in and out of our joint account. This is a woman who can do people's taxes on a daily basis but she's just too busy to take 5 minutes to order food for her and her husband to pick up on her way home from work. Last I checked it doesn't take 30 minutes to order pickup food on an app. She can do it when she takes a break or just while she's in the bathroom at work AND, you can schedule when you want to food to be ready after you get off work.

Sorry this was such a long post but I just wanted you guys to get an idea of what I go through. Am I checking up on her or just trying to be more mindful of our finances. Here's another little issue I had with my wife when it came to money. For the past 10 years or so my dad had been battling dementia and mom took care of him during his decline. He passed in Jan and for a few weeks after he passed people from our church would give me sympathy cards and a lot of them would slip some money in it. I'd come home from church for a while and would walk in with 2 or 3 card people would slip me or my wife. Something there's be $25, $40, $50 and even one girl put a brand new crisp $100 bill in it. Yes, I love my church. Anyway, whenever I'd get a card and there'd be money in it my wife would get upset saying that I owed her some of that money because, as she said, "your dad was my dad too so I'm also in mourning." No sweetie, your dad is still sitting in his chair about 5 or 6 miles from us and he's breathing fine, so no, my dad was not your dad.

Would you have an issue with your spouse checking up on you financially if this was your track record? Nobody wants to admit their faults but given the money / financial history would this bother you? Look at it from both sides, mine and hers. Am I nit picking her and finances?