I have been married to my husband for four years, and we have a two-year-old son together. Before we got married, we both agreed that we wanted to build a comfortable life for ourselves. We didn’t want to depend on anyone, so we decided to save towards buying land and eventually building our own house. My husband earns more than I do, so we agreed on how to divide our financial responsibilities. He takes care of the rent, utility bills and other major expenses, while I handle groceries, our son’s needs and some household expenses. We also opened a joint savings account where we both deposited money every month.
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One thing we agreed on was that neither of us would withdraw money from that account without informing the other. It wasn’t because we didn’t trust each other. We wanted to be accountable and make sure we were both working towards the same goal.
My husband has always been generous, especially towards his mother. He is her only son, and I understand that he has responsibilities towards her. Whenever she needs money, he tries to help. Sometimes, I even encourage him to send her something because I believe there is nothing wrong with supporting one’s parents.
However, I recently discovered that his generosity was becoming a problem in our marriage.
A few weeks ago, our son fell ill, and I needed money to take him to the hospital. I decided to withdraw some money from our joint savings account, only to discover that the balance was far lower than I expected. I initially thought there had been a banking error, so I checked the transaction history.
That was when I noticed several withdrawals I knew nothing about. Some were small amounts, but others were quite substantial. When I added everything up, I realised that a significant portion of our savings had been withdrawn over several months.
I immediately confronted my husband. At first, he tried to brush it off, but when I showed him the transactions, he admitted that he had been sending money to his mother. I asked him why he couldn’t tell me before making those withdrawals, especially when we had agreed to discuss anything involving our joint savings.
His response made me even angrier. He told me that his mother had needs and that he couldn’t watch her struggle when he had money available. He also reminded me that he contributed more to the account than I did. I told him that I had never stopped him from supporting his mother. My problem was that he was taking money from an account we both agreed to protect without consulting me.
Nothing pained me more than finding out that my mother-in-law knew about our joint account. Whenever my husband told her he was low on cash, she would encourage him to take money from our account. She even told him, “He’s the man, so he doesn’t need to tell you about every financial decision he makes.”
How did she find out? Of course, my husband told her about the account. This raises another question: How many of our private affairs has my husband discussed with his mother? I don’t like people getting involved in my business, and I certainly don’t like the idea of my marital and financial affairs being discussed with someone outside our marriage.
My husband said I was making a big deal out of something that should be normal in a family. Since then, things have been uncomfortable between us. I have started questioning whether I can continue saving with someone who doesn’t respect the agreements we make.
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I don’t want to be the wife who prevents her husband from taking care of his mother. I am sure that by now, she is already telling anyone who cares to listen that I am trying to stop her son from sending her money.
Now I am seriously considering opening a separate savings account and keeping my contributions away from him. But my husband says that doing so would mean I don’t trust him, and he is insisting that I apologise to his mother for making her feel unwelcome in our financial affairs.
Am I wrong for wanting to protect our savings, or is my husband allowing his mother’s needs to come before his responsibilities to our marriage?
—Cath
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Integrity is a scarce commodity now, therefore if it is a joint account, two of you must be signatories to the account. Yes, he’s contributing more but marriage is team work.
Open your own account. He hasn’t earned your trust.
Cath
Please open your own separate account .
Let your husband who earns more also keep his account and use that to assist his mother without your consent.
He is not getting the rules of the game right. He is even making it difficult to own a property with him.