To the man who accepted a house and refused a haircut

Dear husband,

You didn’t write to me. You wrote to several thousand strangers, and they took about ten seconds to decide you were in the wrong. I think you have a point. I also think that giving someone a house is rarely as innocent as it looks.

Your story, as you told it: your wife’s inheritance bought the house outright, a car each and some retirement savings. She stopped work to be at home with your daughter. You work 36 hours a week and pay the bills. You’ll pay for your daughter, but not for your wife’s gym, sewing, clothes or haircuts, because they don’t benefit you. Your own gym and video games are different: “I pay for those with my money.”

I believe you never chose to be the only earner, and that you’d rather be the one at home. There was a grown-up conversation open to you. What can we afford? Could I change my hours? You skipped it and handed her a rule.

A budget tells two people what they can afford. A rule tells one of them what she is allowed to want.

Why the rule? My guess is the house. In a family that works, everything goes into one pot and nobody keeps a tab. “My money” tells me someone has started one. Once there is a tab, her column has a house in it, and you could work for the rest of your life and not catch up.

Gratitude draws you towards a person. Debt makes you want to get away from them.

You can’t get away from a wife. You can shrink the gift (it was her nan’s money, so it cost her nothing) and list what she owes you (36 hours, the bills). Then you can make her ask. While she waits for your answer, you are no longer the one who was given to.

When we feel small, holding something back is the quickest way to feel big again.

Your wife has a case too, and you made it for her. By your account she went back to work when the baby was three months old, and it was hard on her health. Then the nan who raised her died. She gave the biggest thing she had, she looks after your daughter every day, and she is being told no about a haircut.

Now the part people would rather skip. Being the one who gave more is a strong position. Nobody can criticise you, and you never have to ask for anything. In my practice people say, “I give and give, and I get nothing back.” They are usually right. But the giving was hardly mentioned at the time, and the other person has waited years to hear what it will cost.

Your wife says the inheritance “counts as her contribution”. She may be completely right. The moment she says it, though, the house stops being a gift and becomes a bill. And if it came with a hope she never said aloud, a different life at home, that was a deal only she knew about.

Neither of you can enforce a deal the other never heard.

So each of you has something to hold over the other. She can say, remember what I put in. You can say, remember who pays this month.

I can’t tell from your post whether you want a fairer arrangement, or whether you also want her to pay for the one you have. And I can’t tell whether she’d be content with level scales, or whether she’d miss being the one who gave more.

Sia