Question.....

My wife "takes care of our finances" and it's leading us down the road of divorce. FWIW - I make about 4 x her salary. Everything is a joint decision if it somehow benefits her, otherwise "we don't have the money" is a common response. Super irritating and I'm at the end of my rope with entire thing. - Sorry to rant

I think it should be a joint venture

God has always willed that the 'pecking order' should be the husband providing/protecting the household and the wife nurturing the future generation and helping the husband to remain strong. But I also see a rise in the fact that some women have had to pick up the slack due to being forced into the workplace when their first desire would be to stay home and raise the kids and look after them (plus the household).

In the UK shortly after WW2, due to the loss of lives by men sent to war, it was on the backs of women that the economy was jump-started until the service men could get back to old professions. War widows etc were forced to remain though due to the fact that they were the only members left to look after the household.

Society has changed since we were kids, though.

I don't agree that it is purely down to the feminist movement of the 70's as to why it appears as though women are rushing into the job market or taking over the payment of bills. Sometimes as someone else said, it could just be the fact that like a PA, some wives might be better at managing the finances since they would be aware of where the resources at home would need to be channeled. If the husband worked long hours I am sure that in some homes, he may 'delegate' the affairs of the home out of trust for his helpmate. A Proverbs 31 woman didn't stay at home making it look pretty, while her husband multi-tasked himself into an early grave. She was clearly an intelligent woman who knew how to use her skills to help her husband build a strong household.

Also if you have a man who chooses to not look after his own, who is happy to throw all his wages away gambling instead of feeding his kids, who chooses to not manage his funds correctly to where his own children go hungry, who fails to treat his wife as Christ loved the church to where she herself is neglected - should we then condemn the female who has to take care of household bills, who has to make sure the kids DO eat/have clothes, and who has to then work in order to take care of things?

I'm just saying as I dislike seeing generalisations and whilst there is a percentage of women who have a 'Jezebel' like nature and are career-driven at the expense of others, there are equally a range of women who for whatever reasons are forced to work in order to make ends meet especially when their husbands may get laid off work etc.

I think that men and women have different giftings that complement each other. There's things one can do that the other can't so whoever you end up with, talk through stuff your both good at, then make that decision.

I run my own business & employ my DH (Yes we really do work together & have done for 10 years now)
He gets paid salary (about 2x what he could make working elsewhere) & bills get split so he deals with some things & I deal with others.
It works well for us

My wife did finances for probably the first 15 or so years of our marriage, I have done it for the past 10 or so. During those first 15 years my wife only worked about 5 years and 40 hrs a week when she did during that 15 years I worked 70 to 110 hours a week and was in the army and deployed a bunch, so I didn't know anything about the bills or what we owed or anything, my wife bought our cars our furniture, our first two houses and she hated every bit of it. I do it all now and hate every bit of it.

Hi David, interesting observations...

david rodriguez said:

Do men just bring home the paycheck, give it to their wives, and let the wives do all the financial matters? I remember growing up that the married people of my adolescent growing up days, that the women did not really care to take care of the finances but preferred that the husbands take care of them.

Click to expand...

I don't know if there's a trend toward women taking care of financial matters...speaking only for myself, I think it depends on the family unit as to who does what. For instance, if the wife is more skilled financially and enjoys it and the husband agrees that she take it on, why not? Or vice versa? Speaking to the latter part of the quote, do you think that perhaps there was a societal "expectation" that husbands were to take care of their wives ie. financially? I'm not sure that wives "expected" that they be taken care of but went along with it because women traditionally stayed at home with the kids.

david rodriguez said:

Now it's not uncommon for both the woman and the man to make decisions for the household together, in that order. (First woman, Second man)

Click to expand...

Hmmm. I've seen articles on "egalitarian" marriages (couples "co-lead" with mutual agreement, mutual submission) vs. "complementarian" marriages (different, complimentary roles, husband leads); are you referring to a rise in numbers of egalitarian marriages? Or something else?

I paid bills, my husband paid bills...just depended on who was free to do that chore.

I usually take care of the bills but only because my wife is by her own admission not very good at it. We both work and our checks go together. We never paid much attention to who's money goes where. It's always been "ours."

My husband takes care of everything. I hope I never have to do it.