On money management.

Insofar as others, I am claiming this space as my own and am not responding further to garbage bullshit from evil, unstable people who are cruel, judgmental, and frankly sick.

There.

There’s my disclaimer.

Moving on.

I am married, and I am married to a man who cannot manage money.

This has been an evolving understanding.  There have been many issues over many years; nearly all have been catastrophic or heinous.  There was a long period of lying and concealing, followed by those “lesser” lies of omission and neglect, and then outright stupidity and mismanagement.

No matter which way you slice the bread, I live with a man who is incapable of properly managing money.

It is a truly gruesome reality which often leaves me with pennies in my checkbook and a scramble to protect my children from negligence or malice.

The answer has always been to accept this truth, manage the money and move on.

I have been reticent but I know I should not be.

I lived with a man prior to this one who never managed money.  He rarely knew what our rent payment was, or how much was owed on the car, or what was sent to the credit cards.  It was that way for six years.  I accepted my role and did it the best I could.

But when I got remarried, I made it quite clear.  I did not want to manage money out of necessity. I wanted to contribute to balancing the finances with an equal partner.

I don’t have that equal partner and I never have.

Financial instability rises to the level of infidelity to me.  Lying about money is just about as bad as lying about sleeping with another person.  I left a relationship when I was young with a man that in many ways I adored and truly adored me.  It was also some of the best sex I’ve ever had.

But after months – years, really – of watching him never have two dimes to rub together; of living with him at one point and losing our electricity, our car, and eventually our apartment, I could not do it anymore.

I loved him, but I did not love the way he managed money and I couldn’t handle it.

There was always a story he had; a tale of how he had been screwed over and how he would fix it….he would clean more beauty shops (his father’s business) and there would be a few dollars…and if we just skipped the cable bill this month, he could make it up next month, and he’d make arrangements so that our car wasn’t repossessed (it was), and he’d go and get a personal loan and that would fix everything (he would be denied), and on and on it went.

Years later, I looked him up in the public records and discovered that he’d filed bankruptcy with his wife and lost him home to foreclosure.  People don’t change.  His children lost their home – because people don’t change.

I loved him, but I did not love him enough to overlook the financial nightmare he lived in.  I left.  I wanted to marry him, but I left and that was it.

Now I am 15 years into a relationship with a man who is not nearly as good in bed as my ex-boyfriend, who does not have the talent for writing that my ex had, who does not possess the magic salve that for so long my ex was able to give me to soothe my aching worry.

And this man cannot manage money and I am stuck, for many reason that are too long and boring to talk about now.

Does it matter?

Probably not.

I will again take up the reins of our finances. I will again dig us out of the hole he’s put us in. I did this two weeks ago when there was 50 cents in the account.  Now there is $30, and payday is a week away.

$30 cannot make us through a week.

I feel sick and alone.  There is no way out but I must somehow persevere.  I have rarely met anyone so incompetent with money.  Such a failure at life.  I am married to this and it’s hard to understand why I am.

Had I not been exiting from a terrible divorce, I wouldn’t have given him a second look.  I was dilapidated emotionally,  and he was exceedingly kind.  I never should have married him, but I fear that ship has sailed.

Again, I will do what I can to save the sinking ship, protecting my children in the process.