My husband and I have been married for 12 years, and we have two young children. Around the time we got married, he started a business and went all in without discussing it with me first. For about eight years, the business was extremely profitable. It grew to more than 20 employees, several stores, and a small factory.
At the time, I also had a high paying job. After I became pregnant, I changed careers and worked part time so our family would have health insurance. Most of my income went toward groceries. We lived frugally with his parents and saved a significant amount of money. But my husband also moved money into accounts I cannot access. I do not even know where those accounts are or how much is in them.
When I became pregnant with our second child three years ago, I discovered that my husband had gone an entire year without paying himself. I worked three jobs while pregnant to cover the cost of the birth. Eventually, I bought a house on my own because I could no longer live with his mother. I went back to work two days after giving birth.
During my pregnancy, I finally broke down and asked him for financial help. That was the first and only time he ever yelled at me. After that, I stopped asking.
Earlier this year, I told him we needed to combine our finances. My income was covering about 85 percent of our household expenses, while our shared savings covered the rest. I told him that without about $1,000 a month from him, our savings would be gone by August.
It is now September, and the savings are gone. My husband has offered to contribute $10,000 from another stash of money that I still cannot see or access.
Am I unreasonable for wanting to stop financially supporting him and his business? This has been going on for nearly four years. I have no idea how much money he has, where it is held, or what his plan is because he refuses to discuss any of it with me.
He has taken on more childcare, which I genuinely appreciate. But I am exhausted from carrying almost the entire financial burden while being kept in the dark about money that is supposedly part of our marriage.
The problem is not that your husband needs to contribute another $1,000 a month. The problem is that you have been married for 12 years and you do not know where your family’s money is.
That is enormous.
Money was made. Money was moved into accounts you cannot access. Then the business stopped providing meaningful income to your household, while you worked three jobs while pregnant, paid for your own childbirth, bought the family home yourself, and returned to work two days after giving birth.
When you finally asked for help, he yelled at you. The important part is what happened afterward: you learned not to ask.
Now the shared savings are gone exactly when you told him they would be, and suddenly he can produce $10,000 from money you cannot see.
So stop arguing about the thousand dollars. You need full financial transparency.
You need to know what accounts exist, what is in them, what the business owns, what the business owes, what debts exist, what taxes are owed, where previous profits went, and what your actual household financial position is.
This is not you demanding control over his business. This is you refusing to remain financially blind inside your own marriage.
His childcare contribution matters. Caring for your children has real value. But increased childcare does not make financial secrecy acceptable.
The $10,000 does not solve this either. Where did it come from? How much more exists? Why was that money unavailable while the shared savings were disappearing?
You need an actual financial meeting. Everything comes to the table: accounts, statements, business records, debts, taxes, assets, income, and expenses.
Given how long this has gone on, involving an independent financial professional makes sense. Getting your own legal advice about any financial exposure you may have also makes sense.
Then you need to decide together whether this business is actually viable, how long you are willing to subsidize it, and what his responsibility to the household will be going forward.
You have spent years adapting yourself around decisions you did not participate in.
That cannot be the arrangement anymore.
You do not need another mysterious $10,000.
You need the truth.