Responsibility

Five years into my marriage, our checking account was continually overdrawn. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get a handle on it. For months, this went on. I finally did an in-depth analysis of our checking account. It turned out that there were consistent withdrawals from my husband’s ATM card every few days. These withdrawals were for $20, $40, $60. It was throwing our balance off, and since it wasn’t in the budget or accounted for, it was overdrawing our account.

I waited for the dinner to be done, the dishes to be cleaned, my child to be in bed to talk to him about it and find a solution. I approached the subject like it was our problem and our solution. When it became apparent to him that he was the one causing the problem, however, he became irritated and yelled at me and told me that it was my problem and I alone was to find a solution and he stormed out of the room. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t sit down and discuss this as an adult with me; that he would put the entire burden and blame on me! I cried. It took a few weeks, but I did come up with a solution on my own. I came up with the idea of a slush fund. I gave him a cash fund for him to spend each month and I got a slush fund each month. We were not accountable to each other for this money—we could spend it on anything we wanted. Then we had a mutual slush fund we would spend on eating out/movies, etc.

This worked well; until I discovered he was cheating the system. Each time he filled his car up with gas; he would not pay at the pump, but go inside and pay and get extra cash. This became the norm for the marriage. He would never discuss any issue in the marriage. He blamed me for everything. Every issue was mine to solve on my own. He cheated the system at every chance he got.

Recently he took our daughter on vacation. While on vacation, he took her to the water park. He did not put sunscreen on her. She came home with a terrible sunburn. I was horrified and sent him a text asking him how he could be so irresponsible. He texted me back, blaming me. How was it possibly my fault? I had bought her the season pass to the water park for her birthday! He will never change; no matter how far he has to stretch his imagination, he will find some way to blame me for his mistakes and his failures.