Stay at Home Mom, Submission to Spouse & Money

[Deseree]

Let me start by saying, I’m not married myself so you can disregard my advice. But, I have had family in very bad situations and this is hitting way too close to home.

First of all, job or not, you have to have a car. Your husband is allowing you and your children to live in a state of danger by not having one in a rural area. The fact he makes you rely on him to do anything is very unsettling to me.

A car is not a luxury. It is a neccessity.

I agree with some others; in your situation I would try to find something you can do from home-hotel booking comes to mind, but there are a lot of customer service jobs you can do from home, even more now that so many people are working from home.

Regardless, the finances should be shared, you should have open access to his accounts because they are also yours. That’s part of marriage. Men who prevent women from accessing the finances, tend to do it as a method of control. The fact you don’t have a vehicle is testimony to this. In a healthy relationship, finances aren’t a one man, behind the scenes matter-they are discussed openly and handled by the man and wife.

And among these issues, all of which potentially require a or a combination of a financial advisor, a counseller and a priest… I would talk with your pastor about practicing NFP if you haven’t already. My mom had six of us and I’m so grateful she did, but she was able to persue a career throughout it, and we had the means to survive. Generally, the church does not require you to have children during times of mental or financial crisis, of which it currently sounds you are going through both. So after the newborn comes along, I would seek advice; it may be prudent to wait until your are secure financially, mentally and things are sorted with your husband before bringing more children into what you have painted to be a very stormy circumstance.

Please be well, and God bless. Feel free to message if you need a friend in these times.

 

[Irishmom2]

I think SAHMs are really on the very bottom of the social spectrum especially poor ones. But this is your cross and I would say dont worry.

Social spectrum? What does that even mean?

Please, you have no way of knowing what the OP’s cross is supposed to be or what God’s will for her is, so you should not suggest that she should accept where she is right now.

 

[Saintphilomena]

SAHM is very pleasing to the Lord! . . .

One last remark proverbs the valiant woman is describing the Virgin Mary. She brings in cloth from afar is the conversions she brings, and to buy land is her Holy Church being founded. . . .

. . . .Stay at home. life is more difficult and the cross heavy, but its a cross that leads to eternal salvation and a never ending joy and your children will be so happy you persevered. They will praise you at the gate, so to speak. Remember God will never give you more than you can bear. He gives you the graces. Write down right now, all the graces you have received and you will see. . . …

 

[Annie]

SAHM is very pleasing to the Lord!

Have you read Proverbs 31?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

the views on his website do not necessarily represent the views of the Catholic faith. How much more terrified should we be, getting advice from demons?

Are you seriously claiming that people giving advice on this forum are “demons” because they don’t agree with your views, which as another poster already said seem pretty extreme?

I’m not seeing “demonic” advice on here at all. Most of the posters have given the OP good, solid, down-to-earth advice.

People have repeatedly asked you about your cultural background and whether you have a language issue because of the frankly bizarre stuff you have posted in this thread and in several others. The fact that you’re not responding to any of these queries makes me think you’re not posting in good faith.

If you study women’s history you’ll find that women actually did not have bank accounts until the 1970s.

In what country are you claiming this was the case? Do you have a source to post?
Because it sure isn’t true for the United States. Indeed, not only the history of the USA but all kinds of popular culture including movies, books, and Broadway shows depict women having bank accounts at least back in the late 1800s, and I’m sure some wealthy women had them even before that.

 

[Dr_Meinheimer]

Saintphilomena:

I think you need 3 to 4 hours of in home help a day. By someone you know and trust. Do NOT put your kids into the hands of witch strangers.

@Saintphilomena, is there a language issue here? Because some of the stuff you’ve been posting is really out there.

Well, I do agree with her here. My wife and I have a standing rule - no strange witches are allowed around our kids. We debate even the ones we are familiar with coming around, what with the poisoned apples and whatnot.

 

[Xantippe]

There’s been a lot of good advice.

I would add:

–You and your husband need to do a monthly budget every month, planning out your spending. That way you avoid having to go to him for every little thing.
–I would suggest reading Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover and making plans together to work through the baby steps.

Dave Ramsey's 7 Baby Steps - Ramsey

I’d squeeze in “buy second car” as either Step 1.5 or Step 2.5.

 

[al2o3]

PeaceandJoy
Welcome to this community. You said:

“…I know he loves me and he truly wants things to get better. He isn’t frivolously spending money, taking vacations, hanging out with friends or anything like that…”

What a wonderful comment about your husband. It sure cant be easy as you have explained. Please continue to share with your husband your worries, tiredness and frustrations in a loving and open way.

Do you pray together? When couples pray together it is an opportunity to articulate for each other your needs to God who promises His grace unconditionally. It also is where one spouse hears - in a non-threatening environment - the troubles of the other. In our family, each decade of the rosary was offered for an intention. We got to hear the concern of family members when they expressed their intention to God before they led each decade.

I’m not sure it is a case of “putting your foot down” - but others have offered good advice on increasing communication between husband and wife.

I can assume you are young and at the start of your life together. I know of one (very employable professionally qualified) prayerful mother who “chose” not to work - but to raise her children and family in nuturing prayerful love. Life was very very hard on one small income for many many years (yes one rusty car ). Decades later the family is in a more comfortable position. When it is put to the mother that they could have made ends meet much sooner with that second job, there is no hesitation when she responds that she has absolutely no regret. She valued her nurturing role so highly that no income could compensate her sufficiently. Just shared as an example to give you hope as you make very difficult choices facing you.

In difficult times I just resort to storming heaven in prayer. God always provides. I will remember you in my prayer. God bless.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

My late parents were the opposite. +Dad brought home the money and gave it to +Mom. (And both of their names were on the bank accounts & investments.) I’ve always said that if my mom and one of my coworkers were in charge of the U.S. Treasury, there’d be no such thing as the federal deficit.

The only thing +Dad did was do the tax returns. He’d make investments but always talked about them with +Mom and occasionally her brother (my uncle who passed away last year). Mom let him handle that because she didn’t know much about investments. She handled the day to day budgeting for our family.

When we were little, my father’s former pastor (who was blind) would pay my mom to do his laundry so she made a little extra $ which went to help pay off the mortgage (that was $ 77 & change/month ). Now if only my mortgage was $ 77, I’d be in great shape…

And ask the Little Infant Jesus of Prague, Our Lady and St. Joseph to help you.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Margaret_Ann]

I think @Saintphilomena might be referring to the link to Dave Ramsey. He has good advice for saving money but there is a Protestant view running through his programs. I wouldn’t call him a demon though 1) because it’s uncharitable and 2) it’s ontologically incorrect.

 

[blackforest]

Ramsey doesn’t offend me in the least. He’ll throw out the occasional Bible verse in that free-wheeling, personal-interpretation Protestant style. But seriously? I have much greater Friday fish to fry. His financial advice is sound.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

My Protestant in-laws enjoyed Dave Ramsey. I never heard anything particularly Protestant in his money advice though, about 90 percent of it was basic common sense.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

that women don’t need a car because it might give them ideas.

Yeah, I have to say that insisting that a woman needs to stay home and not have a car and not have a job and not be involved with the family money and she’ll be much happier and be doing what God wants, etc, sounds like a domestic abuse situation to me.

 

[blackforest]

She’s a brand new poster with no other history and hasn’t returned to comment here. Prayers may be in order.

 

[1ke]

In what country are you claiming this was the case?

I think she may be referring to the US before the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974.

Her statements are not accurate about bank accounts.

But it is the case that women couldn’t get credit without their husband’s permission, or a male co-signer for the unmarried, before the ECOA in 1974.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Understood, but her statement was that women couldn’t have a bank account before the early 1970s. Which is wrong. My mother wasn’t exactly keeping her pay in a sock under the bed when she was a single working woman in the 40s and 50s. Her dad or male relatives werent cosigning for her bank account either, as she was living hundreds to thousands of miles away from them and people didn’t just hop on a plane in those days. The poster was telling the OP to learn women’s history and then giving a completely wrong picture of it themself.

 

[Sarcelle]

I followed his baby steps and it is serving me well now that I’m unemployed.

No debt and an emergency fund while unemployed is way, way better than debt and no savings.

 

[Sarcelle]

Regarding women not being able to open a bank account on their own, does it apply to all women or only to married women?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

It doesn’t even apply as broadly as “all married women”.
There’s a ton of misinformation about this stuff on the Internet.

First of all, a lot of writers and websites wrongly trace the ability of women, or married women, to get their own US bank accounts to either the Equal Opportunity Credit Act of 1974 or some unspecified time in the 1960s. The Act of 1974 primarily dealt with credit cards. (I am also old enough to remember in 1974 credit cards were relatively rare and there were a lot of men who also couldn’t get them because you needed to be in a certain economic class to get one or else have your employer get you one. It wasn’t like it became by the 80s when companies were sending people’s dogs a free Mastercard in the mail.)

The fact is that the banking equality laws in the 60s and 70s were meant to do away with gender discrimination for the banks and in the jurisdictions (probably state level) where discriminatory practices or laws still existed. It didn’t mean that women, married or single, absolutely couldn’t get a bank account on their own before then.

Many women were able to get an account way before the 60s or 70s if they

• found a bank friendly to women, such as the one in San Francisco in the 1920s that served only women and employed only women (although the shareholders were men), or others that were actually chartered by a woman (in one case, a former slave); or
• had a significant amount of money to deposit and/or clout with the bank; or
• had their account set up by their employer (which again indicated they would be depositing significant regular paychecks, it was a good deal for the bank); or
• happened to live in a jurisdiction where the law was friendly to women having their own accounts - some states and some banks were likely better at this than others.

Every time some webpage posts one of those “Women couldn’t have a bank account until the 1960s or 1970s” articles and opens it to comments, there will always be women posting in the comments saying “This is wrong, I had my own bank account in the 40s or 50s” or whatever. The simple fact is there was no blanket rule and the laws that were passed were just to guarantee that the lady in some backwards area where banks weren’t female-friendly had the same opportunity as the lady who lived somewhere else with access to friendlier banks.

 

[Sarcelle]

Thanks.

Learn something new every day.

I thought women were legally considered permanent minors back in the day.