My (36M) wife (36F) of 7 years found my secret bank account and says it’s over.

43 comments

1. If she says it’s over (and means it) it’s over. It can be for any reason and for many this would be sufficient.

   You should respect her decision and support her through this difficult time. Doing so will help you understand the role you played in this result.

   While many would conclude she’s overreacting it is you who did the damage.

2. We do his/hers/ours accounts.

   Based on percent of income, we each put in to “ours” to cover shared expenses and savings. Whatever is left goes to our individual accounts.

   I make a lot more than my partner so I pay in more.

   If he wants to buy a new boat? He doesn’t need to ask me. New rod or reel? Nope, nothing to discuss. If I want to buy a horse trailer? I might ask his opinion or to look at it with me but I don’t need permission.

   Seems to me you two need to separate finances so it becomes a non issue. And perhaps seek couples counseling together to learn to better communicated and individual counseling for you since you clearly have issues to address.

   Just because you have a wife and kids shouldn’t/doesn’t mean you can’t participate in hobbies on your own. Maybe not to the same level or frequency but each of you should be out doing some things on your own and together without kids.

   I (44F) have my own hobbies/interests/friends/volunteer work and so does my partner (46M). We have shared things too. But it’s simply not healthy to be buying all this stuff and not doing anything. It’s sounds like a mental health issue to be honest.

3. Well, I don’t know what you expected when you hid something major from your wife like this- especially when you already knew she wasn’t okay with it.

   This is a big breach of trust, of course she’s going to be concerned that you’re hiding other things now that you’ve done this and it’s going to be really hard to build that trust back.

   But the fact is that if she says it’s over- there’s nothing you can do. You’ve lied and broken the trust and she doesn’t want to continue a relationship. You can’t force her to do that if she doesn’t want to.

4. I pretty much understand your wife’s pov, it must be frightful when one comes from poverty, there’s the constant fear to go back to that.
   But what’s more important: either you are a massive liar, and in this case your wife is completely right, or you have a purchasing problem. This last seems the most reasonable outcome accordingly with what you said. So I would look for a therapist in any case, both because you should take care of your mental health, and to prevent this to escalate to a point where you would ruin your savings to keep up with this

5. what i’m getting is that you’re buying unnecessary things. stuff related to activities that you almost *never use*. you said they’re gear binges. you’re binging on buying things you don’t need as a source of happiness. that’s an issue all in itself.

   just because you have the money doesn’t mean this is all of a sudden okay. the lying is wrong. lying for that long is wrong. getting a dopamine hit out of buying unneeded equipment is strange.

   does she have issues with money because of her childhood? you mentioned she was on public assistance and how you try to get her to spend more on herself. for some people a childhood like that can create a very restrictive mindset when it comes to money, even if they have enough of it.

   i’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to spend money on your hobbies, you absolutely should. and spouses shouldn’t have such restrictive mindsets, i understand.

   but something about this just feels strange.

6. Everyone keeps commenting on the money, but it’s not about the money. It’s about the lying and hiding. You broke her trust. Repeatedly. And yeah, maybe it is a little controlling to put a $50 cap on hobbies given your level of wealth, but truthfully the way you’re spending would make me worried to, not matter if we could afford it.

   It honestly sounds like you have a shopping addiction or are on the way to one. You even admit you don’t use this stuff, stuff that costs THOUSANDS of dollars and that it just sits there. You admit you buy it, not for the purpose of using it, but just to get a dopamine hit. You admit that the spending has been increasing, and it’s a way for you to escape from your problems. I think you need to examine this further, whether or not your relationship continues.

   All I’m going to say is that when a woman leaves a relationship, she’s already mentally and emotionally checked out way earlier.

7. You have no debt because she paid YOUR 6 figure student loans and y’all’s credit card debit, and supported you for a year. Maybe you should’ve paid her back or paid back into a joint account all the money she spent prior to marriage? She definitely feels betrayed that she paid off everything so y’all could be a good financial standing and then she finds out your lying and hiding money.

8. I don’t know how old your kids are but I bet another issue is that you spend so much time on these hobbies and your wife doesn’t get the opportunity to take a day off randomly every couple weeks, and can’t just disappear into the garage after hours. I’m just assuming based on statistics about men not helping domestically and women on average doing more labor.
   2M in assets is also irrelevant.
   Do your kids have college funds and down payments for their future completely set up?
   Does your wife feel safe with guns?

   Why did you originally hide purchases the first time? Did you just do it for convenience or did she express opinions about those hobbies. What was the reason

9. She’s done. You did more than lie, you created a secret bank account to hide your lies. Listen to what she’s saying and accept it. It’s time to focus on finding a good divorce attorney so you can get an equitable asset split and move on.

10. You’re spending a lot of money on stuff you don’t even use. You have a problem. You have an addiction. You lied to your wife. You need help now. Your relationship may not survive this.

11. I know this isn’t about your relationship, I think plenty of people have weighed in. But if you’re spending $10k a year on things you don’t truly need, and you can’t actually use all that much, for the “dopamine”, then you’re potentially on the road to an addiction to shopping. Keep that in mind.

12. He is literally going behind his wife’s back, he is wrong . Just because someone doesn’t like something doesn’t make her controlling. It’s the principle of the matter. I hope she moves on and finds a person that can be honest. If you felt so confident in your right to hobbies fight for what you believe. Instead he lied and was deceitful. This is a judgment of character and you did not pass. Now use that money and those hobbies to help you through the divorce since it helped you then.

13. Maybe I’m off base here, but I wonder if the amount of money you have – or the amount you can afford to lose – is inconsequential.

    The fact that you’re spending on stuff you don’t even use often sounds passive aggressive – as in, it sounds like you resent that you can’t do the things you enjoy, so you’re secretly punishing your wife by acting out behind her back by spending irresponsibly on items you know you don’t need. That secretive behavior is your dopamine.

    Not only that, but she has had to financially bail you out before, so she knows what kind of financial damage you’re capable of causing. Again, not about today’s finances. You’ve shown her you’re as irresponsible and childish as she may have feared when she took care of you before.

    If she stays, you need therapy as a couple to see if she can move past what you’ve done.
    Whether she stays or goes, you should look into individual therapy to help you with your compulsions.

14. You need to stop lying and sneaking, and respect the boundaries in your relationship.

    Your wife is right to leave you over this.

    Why on earth would you expect an adult, who you presumably claim to respect, to put up with your lying and sneaking? Do you understand that when dealing with a cheater it’s the lying and sneaking that makes it hard to get over and not the actual fucking?

    —

    If you want any hope of saving your marriage you need to get your ass in therapy alone and beg your wife to come to couples therapy with you.

15. You decided to lie instead of putting your foot down and working with her on a reasonable hobby budget ($50 is extremely low if you’re making $400k a year). In her brain, she now thinks every time you disagree about something you’ll just go behind her back. Everyone is screaming about the wife being controlling, if that’s the case count your blessings and let her leave. She deserves a partner who will be honest and you can spend however much you want on your hobbies.

16. You lie, you keep secrets, you’re awful with money, your hobbies are dangerous and wasteful on multiple levels and you took advantage of her financial stability to pay off your debts — yeah man idk what you expect from her

17. If this is a dealbreaker for your wife, it’s a dealbreaker no matter what people on Reddit say. Hiding significant spending is a big breach of trust. Only she can decide if she is willing to give you a second chance to rebuild trust, or if she will never trust you again and it’s time to walk away. Keep in mind that rebuilding trust takes work on her part, she may not want to do the hard work when you have repeatedly undermined your marriage.

    The amount of money you have or make isn’t really the issue here. You resent your wife and resent your obligations as a husband and father. You dealt with those by lying, hiding money, and compulsively buying things. You could have had a conversation with your wife about better work life balance, discretionary spending, and long term financial goals.

    Your justification doesn’t make any sense. I am a lifelong cyclist. I ride more than a couple of times a week. I don’t spend anywhere near 22k in two years. That’s a pro level bike! But you don’t even ride!! If you were going to spend that kind of money, you would have been better off spending it on hiring help so you have more time to ride (cleaner, landscaper, meal kits, laundry service, baby sitter or summer camp, etc…)

    You also should have spent it on something like an indoor smart trainer, zwift, peleton, etc… You could have gotten a commuter or ebike. Those are things that let you juggle riding around a busy schedule. For example, an ebike to run errands or riding the trainer after the kids are in bed.

    You threw away a lot of money to ‘optimize your gear,’ but missed opportunities to actually use that gear. I wouldn’t have patience for that kind of financial mismanagement.

18. You spent 2k per month on your hobbies. That’s one international trip per month or eating out at a fancy resturant 10 times a month or buying a new 85 inch tv a month or renting a separate apartment when you have a house. Will you do any of the above and consider it reasonable because you have 2 million in bank? Being financially responsible is always good. You are spending money on stuff you are not even using. It may be a reaction to the restrxituons your wife put in you but it should have been resolved then. Learn from this and don’t make the same mistakes in future either in this relationship or your next.

19. >Because I can’t participate in my activities as much as I would like, I “participate” by buying stuff related to the activities, which I don’t get to use as much as I want.

    > spent 22 thousand over the course of two years.

    You’ve spent over 20K on stuff you hardly use because it’s connected to hobbies you like, you hide the spending and you lie about it. You have a problem and it’s not just the fact you hid it from your wife. You actually have a spending problem. It sounds like an addiction, and you’re lucky to be financially sound enough to feed this spending problem without getting yourself into debt. You need therapy and you need marriage counselling.

20. >For perspective, we have around two million in assets, no debt, and together take home around four hundred per year after taxes.

    How much of that do *you* earn? Have you reimbursed her for the student loans & credit card debt she paid off ?

    You’re already a pathetic child who’s been deceptively siphoning off marital resources, I’m just trying to understand the full extent of your fuckery.

    Your marriage probably IS over.
    On the off chance that it isn’t I suggest that, going forward, you agree that each of you can keep a specific percentage of your individual income for “no questions asked” personal spending. After you pay back, either to her or into joint savings the sum that you spent behind her back.

21. I think the issue is more you lying than the money itself.

    $50 is extremely low based on your income, I agree. Instead of being a man though and telling your wife that isn’t reasonable, instead you acted like a slimy little snake and went behind her back. Regardless of the dollar amount that would be enough for most women to end things.

    It is obvious that money probably means more to her than to you because she grew up on government assistance. Perhaps she is restrictive but maybe should have talked about why she has so much anixety about spending money.

    This women obviously loved you. She gave you hundreds if thousands of dollars to make your lives together better and you betrayed her. That is why she wants a divorce.

22. She paid off all your student loan and credit card debt and supported you for a year while you looked for a job. She’s had incredibly stressful and dangerous pregnancies including a termination.

    She is stressed to fuck—and then she finds out you’re lying. Not just once but every single time an item came into your house, you lied to her face.

    Did you disclose all of this cash on your taxes? Is she going to have to clean up that mess too?

    I can tell you as a woman who nearly died during her last labor and delivery—and I mean literally saw Jesus—I could not stop thinking about what would happen to our girls if I was gone. The only thing I didn’t worry about was how my husband would handle things because he is the most responsible man.

    Your wife probably had similar thoughts, but instead of being calmed by the knowledge that her husband is responsible, she now has to face that you cannot be trusted with any money she would leave behind for your kids. Because you might spend it all on stuff you don’t need or use because of a dopamine rush!

    Bro—get some help. See a therapist. For yourself. Your marriage is done, but you’re still a father. Your kids deserve a dad who can behave like an adult.

23. This is so much bigger than just lying about the money you spent. There is obviously a lot of resentment built up on both sides about spending money, you want to be able to spend and she wants to control how much is being spent. You both never came to an actual agreement on what was ok for both of you.

    How is she suppose to believe you when all along you would just go along with what she said and do it behind her back?

    There is so much you held back all along and instead of being honest and open, which obviously would be hard because she wouldn’t have agreed with you, you lied and in essence gave her the middle finger and did it behind her back.

    You aren’t even using these things, which is another thing about which you don’t talk to her. The fact that you needed an outlet for your stressful job (did you talk about that with her?) and chose to spend money, instead of figuring out maybe you could ride a few more times to unwind or shoot more arrows?

    Maybe the way to move forward is to tell her you’ll sell all the new stuff and work to replace the money. You both need to be in couples counseling, because you took an argument that I would have said you were right about (having autonomy of your money) and did something terrible (financially cheated on her).

24. You resent her. So, rather than deal with that fact, you prove she can’t tell you what to do by acting like a child sneaking out of time out. Why did you “agree” to an arrangement that you did not intend to honor? Your word means nothing.

    You keep falling back on the math as though the damage was to your bank account not your relationship.

25. First, 2 mil in assets? You mean you own one house in a HCOL area? That’s a deceptive way of writing that. Do you have fully funded college accounts? What does your savings account and safety net look like? If you lost your job or were catastrophically injured tomorrow, how screwed would your kids’ future be?

    Do you know how your wife had to live to put aside six figures to pay off YOUR debt? Do you know what that meant to her? As a woman, as a person who grew up poor, as someone who doesn’t have a mommy or daddy to bail her out, that money wasn’t money. It was *safety*. It was *security*. It was working overtime, it was eating ramen, it was missing important events, not traveling for family, not buying new clothes for years, etc etc. She gave you her safety net, her nest egg, and invested it in you. In return, you not only spend wildly on personal luxuries over your own family goals, you lie and hide it too. You agreed to things to her face and then went behind her back like a sneaking child. What a slap in the face. Where were you to object to her “controlling” budgeting when she was stacking that cash as a single woman for your benefit?

    I have zero doubt that if it was clothes or shoes or beauty treatments *she* was buying people would be judging the shit out of your wife, calling her vain and selfish and a bad mother. And a gold digger, who siphoned hundreds of thousands of your personal funds off of you and then kept digging. They’d say you were an idiot for marrying a woman who has nothing but debt to bring to the marriage and who coasted on your money for over a year after finally graduating. But because you’re a man no one sees you that way.

    If you have an ounce of self-reflection in you stop asking for a single thing from her. She’s given you everything she had and has nearly died trying to bring your children into the world. I bet she’s felt guilty about every penny she’s spent on fertility treatment and felt like a failure of a woman for even needing that money.

    This is how deep your lack of empathy goes, that a stranger on the internet probably sees your wife’s sacrifices more clearly than you.

    Go to therapy. You failed as a husband and as a human. You can redeem yourself by stopping feeling sorry for yourself, stopping making excuses, starting to get the tiniest bit of understanding of what your wife has done for you. And why you are so ungrateful.

26. The $50 limit seemed ridiculous until I kept reading.

    He has spending issues and the wife knows it. She paid off his 6 figure student loans and his low four figure credit cards, BEFORE THEY WERE MARRIED! Low four figures is thousands of dollars. Thousands of dollars when he was a broke student.

    She knows what he’s capable of. Plenty of high earners get into a financial mess because they can’t control their spending.

    $22000 on a hobby in under 2 years is a lot of money. OP is shopping for a dopamine fix? That’s dangerous territory.

    OP needs counseling for his addiction issues.

27. It’s not about the *stuff.* It’s about the lying. You have repeatedly get caught out and keep doing the same thing.

    You have a problem, possibly rising to the level of addiction. Its hasn’t been such a huge financial hit because you are well off. But you’re buying *things* that you don’t need or will barely use in order to get that dopamine hit and you lie to keep it going.

    Start with therapy for yourself. Seriously evaluate whether you have a shopping addiction and take steps recommended by your therapist.

    Set some firm financial goals. See if you can set your accounts to at least giver her access to see the status of accounts even if she isn’t authorized to make changes. If that is too difficult email her account extracts on a fixed basis.

    And *if* you can work on things with her, come to an agreement on what personal expenses are ok. Given your income, $50 on hobbies per month is too little. Given your apparent spending addiction, $50 per month is too much.

28. So how much in total has she paid of your debt? The “low 6 figure student loan debt”, plus the credit card, plus, plus, plus?

    And you’re hiding money and making her out to be unreasonable for wanting to discuss purchases?

    Damn dude.

    I hope she posts here so we can see the extent of what you’ve taken from her over the years.

29. OP, in your mid-30s already with children to support for many years, your dopamine high spending, married or not, is likely to really fuck up your future.
    Don’t piss away everything you’ve worked for. With all your hobbies, you should be planning for an early retirement before you hit 50 when you’re still young enough to do everything you love. Keep spending like you have, and you’ll be working well into your 60s or even 70s. Sounds like an awful ending to your story.

30. Yeah… she deserves better.

    You need to grow the fuck up, dude.

    When you become a parent, everything takes a backseat to your child. Also doing this when your wife is going though a difficult pregnancy?

31. There’s a lot of comments on here that are spot on about how it isn’t about the money in relation to what your income is, it’s about the lying. I just want to take a related but slightly different perspective here.

    This all started because you and your wife were unable to come to an agreement about discretionary spending on hobbies. You have differences in what kind of time and money you each should be able to invest in time outside of work and family obligations. This is a common trouble point in a marriage. And yes, it’s quite possible your wife was being unreasonable in what she sees as healthy limits. She may have been the one who was wrong, and you have have been the one who was right. But only up to that point.

    Adults in marriages and relationships have to find a way to resolve their differences in viewpoints, approaches to life, etc. It takes work, it takes compromise, it takes effort. And if you can’t resolve those issues, then you have to step back and think about if that’s the right partner for you, because you aren’t on the same page about how to go forward in life together.

    But that isn’t what you did. Instead of resolving the problem like adults (and resolving means finding compromise or ending the relationship), you went and did a selfish thing. You lied to you spouse about money, and if there’s two things you can’t lie to your spouse about, it’s money and sex. In fact, you did the EXACT things that you knew would upset her. What you did was agree to her face to her conditions for your marriage, and went and did the total opposite.

    So when it comes to “how do we fix this?” you’ve really put yourself in a hole. Because the ability to go back and have a reasonable conversation about spending on hobbies is GONE for a long long time. You have broken all of her trust in you in that sense.

    If the two of you were to move ahead together, you’d need serious serious relationship counseling. Because now you’d need to first get to a point where she would be able to heal from the lies and complete lack of trust she has in you before you’d even get close to thinking about having a conversation around the real problem that was happening before this in your marriage: the inability of the two of you to come to reasonable and healthy compromises with each other.

    If you want to make this work, lay on your sword. Tell her you’ll do whatever she asks, and the only caveat is that the two of your need to go to couple’s therapy weekly for as long as it fucking takes. That’s it. All you can do is tell her you are willing to do whatever it takes, you know it starts with therapy, and if she is open and willing, you’ll do so with open arms. You can’t keep pushing it, you tell her, and then you let her process.

    But…I got bad news for you. She’s really really fucking hurt. I’m not sure you are at a point yet to process the hurt you caused. Again, she may have been in the wrong at the start, but you went way more wrong, way harder, and blew the whole thing up. The two of you are best suited with new partners, and some personal therapy for you to learn how not to blow apart your next relationship.

32. You:

    *I’m definitely lying, and committing financial infidelity.*

    Also you:

    *I know she’s never going to believe me that I’m never going to do this again. I’ve said it to her and to myself plenty of times, and failed at keeping my word.*

    Dude, it’s done. Even you know that you can’t be trusted. You should have ***never*** agreed to her ridiculous terms on your hobby spending, but you clearly did, then lied about it. Instead you should have insisted on renegotiating your shared finances and discretionary spending for both of you. She doesn’t have to like that, but you’re an adult and entitled to spend your money at least partially how you see fit. You just avoided the problem instead and just created a way bigger one.

    Pregnant lady doesn’t want to deal with your lying bullshit anymore. Can’t blame her.

33. If I were her, I’d be more concerned about the sneaking around as well as lying too and you got caught repeatedly after she found out the first time…and I’m not surprised now she can’t trust you anymore.

    She may be ‘done’ with you emotionally and now is trying to get you to not hide asset from her during divorce proceeding.

    Perhaps you guys need marriage counseling…better invest in that, right, rather than going through a divorce.

34. INFO: Of that $400K a year the two of you earn, how much does she earn and how much do you earn?

    Dude. You have messed up big time here — not because of the spending, although yikes on bikes for the amount of money you are throwing away — but for the lying. I wouldn’t believe you either. Good luck trying to fix it; I have no ideas to offer you.

35. Don’t you love hearing 1% whine??
    She should dump your ass, for being a whinging, whining, self absorbed, liar.
    What’s her name. I wanna give her the number to a killer lawyer.

36. > I know she’s never going to believe me that I’m never going to do this again.

    I mean, this is written entirely from your perspective, I’m a completely disinterested third party, and even *I* don’t believe you won’t do this again. I don’t think you do, either. This whole post is you trying to justify/excuse what you’ve been doing.

    You need therapy for your shopping addiction. It’s not healthy to spend thousands of dollars on things you won’t use for the “dopamine hit” and “escape” at the expense of your marriage.

37. She paid off your students loans and you responded by having a secret bank account where you spent $22k on hobby bullshit? She has been solely putting her income into savings to build your future and you’re fucking off spending thousands on a hobby you openly admit you don’t spend time on.

    Man, I want to divorce you and I’ve never met you.

38. If your wife sexually cheated 1% of the time, would you feel betrayed beyond measure or would you take into consideration that 99% of her sexual energy was spent ‘correctly’?

39. Can I add something to this conversation that might have some bearing on your headspace?

    You buy all this stuff because it’s cool, right? And you want to own this cool thing. And I understand how you think it feels like participating.

    But they come out with cool new shit all the time. That’s the game *they* play. And if you hold off on buying something until you actually are gonna use it? You’re immediately going to have hottest shit out there. Have you ever bought, say, a sight and not even had a chance to take it out and really use it before the newest sexiest one comes out?

    It’s easy: just wait. I’m really into video equipment and jumping off the new gear train was so much better than I thought. Now when I get a gig I rent half the shit I would have bought and still come out ahead. Sometimes I splurge and buy myself something cool, but I keep it cheap. And when something comes up that warrants it, I go big!

    The other thing that you realize-so much of this new stuff they sell is shit. New bow looked so sweet on those YouTube videos but it was shitty when you finally took it out for a weekend. You kinda missed your old one. But now you can’t return it because it’s been too long. It was sitting there a year before you found a weekend to take it out for a proper trial.

    You start comparing the new stuff to your own stuff and stop seeing the sparkles and start seeing the omissions.

    I don’t know if your marriage will work out or not, but I can tell you from experience that buying less (not buying none!) stuff has been revolutionary in my headspace. I hope you and your wife both are happier in a year, whatever that means. Best of luck to you brother!

40. Your relationship is over. I doubt there is anything that you could say or do to fix years of lying. Years.

    The sooner you get that, the better.

    She rid you of all your debt, and you stabbed her in the back because you can’t act like a 20 year old you were before marriage and kids.

41. If you are lying about buying sports equipment, I’m her mind you’ll be dishonest about other things as well. It’s a principle thing. Not to mention you are buying things that you aren’t using. Maybe try selling the items that have been collecting dust not in use and put that money in the shared account? Or to the savings? Show her that you want to do things differently, that you are willing to sell these items you bought without consulting her first. If my husband was spending money on things he wasn’t using and hiding it, I would think there is more of a shopping addiction than a hobby. The one huge thing I’ve learned in my 21 year marriage is honesty and being open to discussing important issues is the key to a healthy marriage. Hiding things even small things leads to resentment and suspicion on all sides. Because if you are lying about small things whose to say you’re being honest about the big stuff.

42. >I know she’s never going to believe me that I’m never going to do this again.

    Because you will do it again. 100% will. This woman has given you more chances than you deserve, and you have gone behind her back and lied. I know you resent her trying to put limits on your communal spending, but it’s very clear from what you write here that it’s because your spending habits are so irresponsible that she cannot stay married to you without suffering financial hardship unless you agree to limit yourself.

    Look at your history- this woman had to lay out over a hundred thousand dollars she saved from before you were married to cover debt you incurred way before you met her. Your credit was probably so bad from the huge outstanding debt that in order for you to buy any of these 2 Million in assets you brag about, that she had to bail your ass out. And from the way you describe your spending, you were NEVER going to do it on your own because you spend huge portions of your income on non-essentials, and likely were just paying the minimum each month to not have them default.

    The next event you describe is a period where you resent your family and child for eating up all the free time you had as a single, childfree person. You say that you make yourself feel better by spending and spending and spending money on gear and equipment that YOU DON’T HAVE TIME TO USE. No matter how good a financial situation you’re in now, for one partner watch another engage in compulsive buying practices and hoarding behavior is alarming, and when the explanation makes it sound like it’s almost revenge spending because you resent married life, that’s a HUGE deal.

    Especially since you describe a hobby/free time schedule a lot of married people would be super happy with – One mini vacation a month for an activity, hunting every weekend for the two months of deer season, several hours a couple of days a week to practice a hobby in the garage, and then random events (like the Archery) as they come up. Tell me- how much time does your wife get to spend on hobbies. Does she have a two month period where you watch the kids half a day by yourself so she can go apple picking or whatever? Does she get a few hours several nights a week to herself where you have cooperated to make sure all the chores are done and the kids in bed so she can go do some sport of hers? Does she get to take a couple of days of mini-vacation once a month to do something? Or is she always home with the kids while you go out and live your best life, and you don’t give her nearly the same amount of hobby time?

    Now onto this event- your wife nearly died from a pregnancy and had a termination, and is currently going through another difficult pregnancy, while you have all of your mini vacations and archery nights and such leaving the kids with her. She discovers you have been lying to her constantly, with elaborate stories and a methods to hide money. She discovers you have done 22k in impulse spending, and that your behavior is escalating because you do it as an addiction for the rush. And your excuse is that these pregnancies have been so hard on YOU that you needed to feed your addiction to get through it.

    Dude…how do you not see that this has almost nothing to do with whether it was a huge portion of your assets, and everything to do with you making one poor and compulsive financial decision after another, you being a liar, and you feeling entitled to have her pick up the slack so you can get more and more sports time. Guess what pal? When you see your kids one or two weekends a month, you will have plenty of time to yourself. When she’s gone and has taken her money and her financial sense with her, no one is going to prevent from you spending yourself into a house filled with crap in an ever escalating spiral of shopping addiction.

43. I had a dad like you. He would sink money into hobby stuff that he never used, our house was filled with it. Sure, we could afford it financially. The problem wasn’t just the accumulation stuff, it was that his life seemed to orient around wishing that everyone would leave him alone so he could do his hobbies in peace. He was checked out. And his lack of investment in the family (and I DON’T mean financially) is what caused the most pain. He did not care about his kids’ hobbies/growth/interests, did not care to romance my mom, and yeah as a kid it was super obvious.

    So it’s not about the money, or what % of your income it is or whatever. I think something was missing or broken in your life that made you care more about inanimate stuff than your relationship with your wife and family and you’ve just continued to make it worse with lying rather than trying to heal it.