Debt

In my first marriage I handled all the finances.  My ex husband didn’t want to have anything to do with it.  It was frustrating to try and move money around to different areas to pay for things that were not expected.  I didn’t have a budget per se and found myself in quite a bit of debt after the divorce. 

After being in charge of the finances in my first marriage, I completely washed my hands of it in my second marriage.  I had no problem letting my husband control the money and if I wanted to buy something I would.  I expected that no matter how much money he or I spent, we would have the money that we needed because our paychecks were larger.  He would talk to me about being more careful with our money and I couldn’t understand why.  We made so much more, how could we be running out of money.  He didn’t have a budget and we again ended up in a lot of debt.

Here is my point to all married people or anyone thinking about getting married.  HAVE A BUDGET!!!  Whether you are savers or spenders, or one of each, make sure that you have a budget.  Not having a budget, whether I was in charge or my husband led us to debt, and a lot more debt than we realized.

I was required to put together a budget for a class.  Just sitting down and looking at the numbers, changing a few things and sticking within a budget completely changed our financial situation.  We went from a crazy about of debt to quite a bit of money in savings. 

The stress that my husband was under as he saw our monthly debt continue to increase and trying to move money from one area to another was something I knew all too well from my first marriage.  Marriage is hard enough without having to dig yourself out of a hole of debt.  Not having the money for something that you need or for something your children need is not a good feeling either.

I may have a love/hate relationship with our budget.  Only having a certain amount of money for different items can be frustrating and can leave you with a sense of feeling like you never have enough money.  But seeing your savings account grow, knowing that in case of an emergency you have money to take care of it, and being able to have money set aside for vacations, holidays, birthdays is priceless.  I hate having to stay on top of our money, but love the sense of peace it brings knowing that if we truly need something – the money is there.

Forgiveness

A friend recently told a story about forgiveness in marriage that helped illustrate how it can work sometimes.  She said that over the weekend, she was really annoyed with her husband.  It was Thanksgiving and the holiday didn’t go as she had planned due to some things that her husband had done.  Instead of pushing the feeling away she allowed herself to simply be annoyed with him.  She didn’t want to punish him or make him feel sorry for what he had done but she recognized that it was fine for her to feel annoyed.  She let herself feel the annoyance and then after a time she was able to let it go completely.  I’m not sure if her husband even realized that he had done something to annoy her.  The point is she allowed herself to feel what she was feeling but then recognized that after a few hours or a day, she would let it go and it would be done.

Sometimes we get into the habit of thinking that we can’t feel anything negative.  I know I do this to my children all the time.  It’s okay for me to be grumpy when I am sick, but they better treat their siblings and parents with respect all the time.  That isn’t fair to them, we need to be allowed to feel what we feel.  My friend made a point of saying that she wasn’t trying to exact revenge on her husband and he wasn’t expected to repay her in some way for messing up the weekend, she also didn’t push her feelings aside.  She let herself feel what she needed to feel and then let it go.  That is one way to use forgiveness in a marriage. 

Sometimes when I get upset with my husband, I want to talk about it right then and there.  I want him to understand how he upset me and I want to understand why he would make a choice to do something that I felt was unfair or disrespectful.  I’m starting to learn that sometimes people just make mistakes, sometimes we all say things we shouldn’t, sometimes it isn’t the huge deal I am making it out to be.  The truth is sometimes he is in a bad mood, just like sometimes I am in a bad mood. 

Forgiveness in marriage is to recognize that to error is human.  That doesn’t mean you can’t ever feel annoyed or hurt or that every problem you have shouldn’t be addressed and talked about, but maybe you should talk about things when you aren’t angry, give it an hour without stewing on the problem, something I still need to work on, try to see things from their point of view, feel what you need to feel on your own when you can, and then let it go.