AboutGoldie Expertise Being a wife a mother and a licensed counselor I can answer any question in regards to your relationship with your child or significant other. Particularly questions that deal with behavioral issues. If there is something that really bothers your about your spouse or child's behavior I may be able to give you a behavioral solution.
Experience I have worked as a behaviorist for four years and as a guidance counselor in a high school for two years. As a behaviorist I designed plans to help people change their own behaviors as well as the way others behave twords them. As a guidance counselor I helped parents find ways of controlling their teenagers and developing a better relationship with them.
Expert: Goldie Date: 6/30/2008 Subject: Financial inequity in marriage
Question I'm going to try to make this as short as possible. You'll see the problem:
A year after getting married a 63 yr. old man tells his 61 yr old wife (me)that despite filing a joint income tax return she is entitled to only 46.83% of the refund, not 50% because he makes more than she does so more was withheld.
He tells her if she wants to file a joint tex return with him she must pay 1/2 of his property taxes on a house he alone owns and he will not give her any ownership interest in it.
He insists she save every receipt for every household expense so that he can add it up every week, divide in half, try to remember who bought who a hot dog at Costco and deduct or add that so he can tell her how much her 50% of it is. If he buys something without her along and she's going to use or benefit from it he tells her how much she owes him for it.
He will not allow his wife to put much of her own belongings in his house, most of it went into storage. She cannot rearrange furniture or put one thing of his away.
He comes home and hands her a list of community and non- community property states and tells her he will NOT live in a community property state when he retires.
He tells her he will go ahead and move to one of these non -community property states where it's warmer and she can join him when she can afford to retire.
In the winter he keeps is house cold as a meat locker. But when his high maintenance spoiled rotten daughter comes over he cranks up the heat.... then cranks it down again when she leaves and tells his wife to put on another sweatshirt.
Is this pretty weird behavior or what? We are not poor. But he has made the equal division of our resources into a nightmare lest he think he got screwed out of one dime & it's driving me nuts. He is obsessed by "fairness." Where does this attitude come from?
Janice
Answer Dear Janice
That is definitely problematic. I have to ask you a few questions before I can attempt to answer yours.
What did you agree on when you got married? What happened for the first year? Was he always like this? If not what changed? If he was, how come it bothers you now? What happens if you say that you don't want to live like that?
Marriage is certainly a compromise but this seems more like a bad partnership then a marriage.
