Spending Gone Wild: What's a Spouse to Do?

Like many couples, my wife and I have spending issues that sometimes separate us.

But our differences are relatively minor -- a disagreement over a purchase here and there. They don't threaten the bonds that unite us; they don't affect our family's financial health.

Others aren't so lucky. For them, spending disagreements -- especially when one spouse spends irresponsibly over and over again -- are the source of deep-seated anger, a lack of financial security, and emotional distress that over time erodes the intimacy necessary for the relationship to survive.

I am always surprised at how often this comes up, with people I know or with readers who write in to describe their plight. And the question these people grapple with is as simple as it is difficult: How do you deal with a spouse who is a runaway spender?

This is never an easy subject for people to discuss. The irresponsible spender is either angry at the accusations or sheepish about his or her out-of-control purchases. Meanwhile, the other partner feels both scared and foolish, having been victimized yet again.

A good example of this is here in my hometown of Baton Rouge, La. The husband of a woman I know treats the family bank account as though it is his alone, making big-ticket spending decisions solo. He then acts as though his wife is a shrew for getting angry.

Just recently he laid down tens of thousands of dollars on a vehicle without telling her about it first. She complained. He yelled. She then bottled up her anger once again. And the relationship continues to limp along under the weight of the persistent disrespect that bleeds over into almost every aspect of their marriage, she says.

My friend Christie in Southern California lived a similar version of this for the better part of a decade with her longtime fiancé. As a couple, they earned a sizable income, but they never had anything to show for it, because of what Christie calls her fiancé's bizarre spending.

"I dreaded him having contact with outside human beings," she says, "because he'd come home with some harebrained idea. One of his friends owned real estate in North Carolina, so [her fiancé] decided to buy a condo" near San Diego that he wanted to flip for a profit. Only, she says, "he mixed up his financial and emotional decisions, and wasn't sure if he should keep it and brag about owning a second home or sell it."

They ended up spending $20,000 on the mortgage and property taxes and utilities for a year -- never spending a single night in the condo -- before he finally sold. "And," Christie says, "he didn't make any money on the deal."

On another occasion, he came back from a business trip and announced over dinner that he had bought a Corvette in Florida that he was having shipped back. He told Christie the $15,000 car was a great deal because he didn't have to pay sales tax. But, Christie says, he didn't take into account the $1,000 in shipping costs or the nearly $3,000 that California imposed for registering the out-of-state car.

Through the years, he ran through 15 cars. He would break leases and take the unpaid balance on old cars and roll them over into his new car payments. He kept one car for all of a week; another for a month.

"He sent his credit-card bills to his office," Christie says, "because he told me it was easier to do his expenses that way. But I know he was hiding his inability to deal with money."

The biggest problem, though, was not the money itself. "He made me think I was the crazy one," Christie says. "He had me convinced I was the problem, that he was spending because I made him miserable, that I was the harpy because I was trying to keep our financial life running on track."

Christie's now out of that relationship, and says, "In hindsight, I can see that all his spending was about filling some empty space that only came from the charge of a big-ticket purchase."

In theory, she says, you can claim domain over the family's checkbook, and maybe impose an allowance on the wayward spouse. But in practice that doesn't work: It will just create resentment, and, as Christie says, "that's really no way for either of you to live." Her solution: "Get out now. I'm not a defeatist, but you're dealing with a broken person that cannot be fixed. Save yourself."

My friend Denise, a California counselor who helps couples navigate these sorts of issues, isn't quite so pessimistic. She says, however, that counseling is essential, and if the offending partner won't agree to that, "you have to muster up the courage to set a firm bottom line and stick to it."

At the very least, Denise says, "consider separate accounts until the behavior is cleaned up." At worst, you have to ask yourself if this is an issue over which you are willing to separate or divorce.

"If so," she says, "put it on the table and be prepared to act if the behavior doesn't change. These are situations beyond education. These are impulsive, isolating, irrational behaviors -- signs that there are underlying issues that go beyond money that need to be addressed. Something has to happen to fix it, otherwise both people are going to get hurt."