Separating family finances

I need some advice now concerning our finances. My wife and I are doing sort of an "in house separation." I have moved into one of the kids bedrooms, and that kid is sleeping with mommy. Everyone is cool with the arrangement. I still store my clothes and stuff in the master bedroom, and take showers in the master bedroom's bathroom, but in my new private bedroom I sleep, read, play video games, etc....I go there to be alone and to sleep in peace. My wife and I only interact enough to run the house and take care of the kids. Occasionally we find ourselves in the kitchen together, or watching TV in the living room together for a short time. Past few days have been a bit less volatile.

I'll give some background on this financial question..... up to this point, we handle the family finances with a joint checking account and a joint savings account. We are a one income family....my income. I use software to track our finances, which means that if she uses the account, I need a receipt so I can enter the information into the computer. She interprets this as controlling sometimes, and wanted to run the program. So as an experiment I installed it on her computer, and we both ran the program in parallel. After 4 days she fell so horribly behind and did not keep up with it....which confirmed my fears of handing the finances over to her. So I continue to run the finances. I don't do like my parents did....my dad used to give my mum a set amount of money each month, like an allowance. I don't do that. She has full access to the accounts, just needs to tell me what she's doing, and I ask that she discuss large purchases BEFOREHAND, not so I can say no, but so I'm not blindsided by it. It's worked out pretty well, even in crappy times. I shoudl also add that when I was single (after my first wife died but before I got married), I paid a close family friend 800 a month to provide childcare for me while I worked. It was a sweet deal.

During one of our heated arguments lately, I blurted something out that came out wrong and offended her. I was trying to draw a comparison, to show how much our relationship has degraded, and I said "You don't even act like a wife around here. You act more like a live-in housekeeper, because you do fulfill your role as a mother, you make great meals and take good care of the kids and house stuff, but you don't act like a wife." And she completely mis-interpreted that and then came back with "Well if I'm a housekeeper, then I'll just take out 400 from each paycheck, so that I can be paid 800 a month like your old childcare provider was paid.

I did not think she meant it, but when the 15th came, she went to the bank, on payday, and took out 400. She provided me wtih the receipt when she came home. I told her "i'm surprised you really did this." Then I told her that if she is going to do that, that she has to pay for her cigarettes and personal stuff that I don't approve of out of it, and she refused. She keeps using our joint checking acct to buy personal items, and is just hoarding the 400. I told her this upset me and we have not talked about it for days.

In the past, when things have been bad, I have opened separate accouts and put my share of the money in it to protect it, because I did not know what she was capable of. Doing that upset her. When things got better, I rejoined the accounts. I want to do that again, given the way things are going.

Here's what I want to do....I want to go up to her on Friday and apologize for my housekeeper remark, and then ask her if she intends to continue doing this 400 thing. If she agrees to stop, I'll keep the accounts joint. If she refuses, I want to open up my own private accounts, have my direct deposit go into my accounts, and then put the 400 into her account (which was our old joint acct) and let her work with that...essentially cutting her off from stealing from the family budget. I also want to split our savings account, because she brought a large sum of money into the marriage, and i want to leave her with only that money. My share is not that much more, but it's a little more, and i want to protect it.

I expect this to cause a fight, and upset her, but what can she do about it? Nothing, really. What do you think about my plan? Good? Bad? I need to protect my share, especially when she has declared her intent to steal from teh family funds and hoard the money. If she paid for her stuff out of her 400, I'd leave it joint. I'll pay the bills, gas up the cars, buy the groceries, etc. But she woudl not have access to my money to buy cigarettes and personal stuff.

Another thing....recently she has given a large amount of money to her family/friends to "help them out" without my approval. Let y equal that amount. Let x equal the amount of money she brought to the marriage. I want to leave in her savings account a sum of money z = x-y

Is that fair to do?

I agree that saving the marriage is paramount, but what about when you are dealing with a person who is spiteful enough to drain the account? I fear she is capable of that. Many good couples actually do separate finances. I don't want her to hoard this money and drain my reduced funds by continuing to purchase things I don't approve of, such as cigarettes, with regular family money.

Freeport, I understandwhat you are saying. But I don't have lots of money, and if my accounts get drained, I can't adequatly care for the 5 kids that we have. Plus, even though there may be fireworks in the beginning, separating our finances will take away another thing to fight about....since one of her chief complains is that she thinks i'm too controlling iwth money.

Any other input?

Ok it's time to request more advice.

I stated that my wife threatened to take $400 out of each paycheck and hoard it for herself, while continuing to tap the joint checking account for her minor incidentals. I gave her several days to cool off, and then made an apology and several humble requests to call off this biweekly withdrawel. I asked her not to continue doing it (after she did it on my Sept 15th paycheck). She flat out refused my appeal. She said "It doesn't work that way." This tells me that she is just bent on revenge and sticking it to me. Then she cut off the topic....said she won't discuss it with me anymore. However, she still states that she wants to be civil and not fight.

Part of me wants to cut her off from the accounts....to put my share of the money into an account she cannot access, and to open a new checking in my name, have my pay direct deposited in there, and then simply transfer 400 to her each paycheck. Then she will only have access to that. I expect a huge battle from her if I do this, but at least my funds would be protected. I have not told her I am thinking about this yet, but she probably knows I am, because I've done it in the past.

Part of me does not want to endure the fighting, and just let her do this biweekly withdrawel, to keep the peace, however I'll be very upset, and although she has shown no indication that she intends to drain the accounts, I'd be living under the constant irking in the back of my mind that my money is not protected. She still states she does not know what she wants, and does not know if she wants to continue the marriage or not. I am torn here.....can I get some input please? Should I separate the finances and dig and and get ready for her onslaught? Or should I just let her do what she is doing and trust her, to keep it a little more peaceful?

I know I've posted a lot on here about my troubled marriage, and I value what everyone has to say, so please feel free to pour out thoughts here, to help me out.

With respect, quasicentenial, I don't think that's the advice we need. When our marriage was good, and even when bad, we had no problems doing our finances. this is a very recent development, that she has decided to in my mind steal money from the budget and hoard it, for whatever reason I don't know. I need a quick solution, and reading books won't bring it.....thanks anyway. Please reread original post to get more background on my current problem.

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