Wait until your wife figures out what the real world costs and what responsibility really is. My wife even had an affair and when the reality struck her about three months into the process, she actually called me to ask me to slow down the process so she could find a job with health benefits. Yes folks, she is so ingrained with entitlement she actually has no clue what she was asking me to do.
She really does not give a rusty F%4# and thinks it my obligation to pay for health insurance while she and her boyfriend feast off the $100K cash settlement I gave her, plus a house and half of everything else……….She really can’t help herself.
You did the right thing by bringing this all to a head.
Stay the course. Good luck
Tom G
I experienced a similar thing. My wife has not worked at an outside job for a single hour, bringing home not even a penny since we were married 15 years ago. I had warned her early on that backup income was necessary in case we ran into a family emergency like illness or job loss. Well, guess what, I had cancer and was not expected to survive, and then became unemployed after I went back to work. I have since recovered and have been working. Yet having experienced two traumatic incidents in a row in short proximity to each other, she still refuses to go look for a job. She has many excuses and claims she looks for work on the Internet every day but has not sent in a single resume…….She hasn’t even created a resume. At first, she said she wanted to take classes and took an online class but dropped out of that (we lost almost $1K of tuition) because she would not do the homework. She will do anything as an excuse to put off looking for work. It’s been 15 years and the resentment is very high.
To the poster recommending the “Two Income Trap” book, the basic premises of that book are:
1. People who have two incomes often fail to save the extra income and instead increase their lifestyle expectations to match or exceed the extra funds that result from the extra income.
2. The spouse earning the 2nd income will need to incur work related costs such as clothing, transportation, and meals which reduce the net cash realized from the 2nd income.
3. Income taxes on the 2nd income reduce the actual amount of extra cash that you realize.
4. There are childcare costs.
5. it IS possible to earn two incomes but save wisely and avoid the two-income trap of spending the extra income.
My response to this book is that while it is possible for a two-earner couple to squander the 2nd income, it is also possible for a single-earner couple to squander the single income. Earning a total household income does not necessarily result in a worse cash flow situation than a single-earner household. As the author indicates, careful financial planning is needed even if you have two incomes.
As for the case of childcare, this is something that each couple should weigh for themselves. It is possible for a couple to end up worse off if childcare costs outweight the after tax cash flow from the 2nd income.
Lastly, in an environment where many households are two earner households and are able to afford to pay more for goods and services, the cost of these goods, services and assets (i.e. housing) will be determined by supply and demand. The higher demand and the ability to pay more for them will raise prices for everyone, whether you are a single earner or a dual income household. So, everyone is affected. There really is no neutral on this one.
