Hi Monique, It is so nice to get your response and I very much appreciate it. It helps a lot. It just helps to have these things repeated (and repeated…..), it really does. I do know the theory, but it is obviously hard to embrace it and then even harder in situations “when the pressure is on”. So I think the more repetition, the better! 🙂
I am trying to think what ways I can better approach in general communication and actions around money with my husband. It is incredibly challenging because of the Cuba context. I do not have much income and it is not consistent,but it is so much more than 99% of people could ever earn in Cuba, including my husband. I have completely supported him since the start of last year, also because he was in prison for a year and now is on parole. He can´t go back to his old work and he can´t work to earn any kind of income that would be more than 1$ day and now this seems not an option because he can´t have money in his hands (and that is what is needed to buy things to resell, organise transport, etc.). So he is incredibly frustrated that he has no income and has to rely on me (since he left home when he was 12 to earn his own money and always had until he met me). At the same time he likes to spend money and has never learned how to save (although he says he wants to) and so he also has a lot of demands on my money. I say “my” money now as I was willing to share it all in the marriage, but then with the gambling and his ways of spending so much anyway, I needed to control it and separate it and it also feels more like mine as I am the one working, the savings were all mine, and my family were sending me money. It would of course feel very different if he weren´t a cg and hadn´t gambled tens of thousands in the past 18 months. If we can reduce the friction around the theme of money in general, with every day things, then this will reduce the stress for both of us, and definitely for me, and make things much easier. Often, the stress my husband feels, and also ensuing arguments, are a trigger for him to go off and gamble. I realise that if he is truly embracing embarking on recovery then he would accept all the control of finances, and be willing to work with me on it. And he is trying, I think, but he finds it very hard, and I do too. I don´t like the power dyamics, I don´t like feeling I need to be so in control, and I also know that I still resent it when he seems to be spending more on things than I do/would for myself and yet has lost so much of the money we would have had (I am working on this and he is trying to be better with money). I don´t want the focus on money, I want it to be on emotional well-being (and…yes…focussing on peace), but I truly struggle with our communication around this. I will need to “police” the money and only give him small daily amounts (whatever I seem to give him he spends it all!) and also hide/lock away anything that he could pawn or use as collateral for a night of gambling. He is aware of this, but he is also so used to just being in charge of all of this in his life and so he finds it incredibly hard too. We then both struggle with all of this and the tension is there. It is of course a very different situation than him having a job and money being able to be paid directly into specific accounts, and those which his access to can be controlled. I am…the bank and the credit card companies! Any suggestions you might have would be very helpful.
Thank you! And thank you again for your post…just so lovely to read and so encouraging.