The Money Thing

Not unlike many marriages, mine suffers from money conflict.  Depending on which one of us you talk to, you could get a whole lot of evidence against the other on who the culprit is.  But, I really want to stand before you in truth and the truth is my husband bleeds green for me.  I have really struggled with getting on the same page with him on how our finances should be handled (or in my case not handled).  I have really opposed John in saving, waiting and focusing on the long term.  Not only have I been at odds with him in these matters – I have been at odds with Him too.  This is no small thing.

I have known women who find themselves controlled in their marriages by money.  I have known women who don’t feel worthy of spending money on themselves.  Sometimes my own spending has been just pure passive aggressive behavior.  The problem can be especially acute to the stay-at-home-mom types, like me, who don’t have a paying job that would help quantify what their net worth is in the financial world.  Because of this I have gone to extremes. I spend money when I feel like on whatever I feel like and take little heed to what my husband thinks about it.  Most of the time I feel justified.  But am I?

I really have a desire to be in a deeper relationship with my man.  Not just a good functioning relationship but a “cleaving” type relationship.  My dictionary says that “cleaving” means; 1. to adhere; cling to 2. to be faithful and “adhere” means;  1. to stick fast; stay attached 2. to give allegiance or support.  I haven’t even mentioned what the bible says about cleaving.  Cleaving could also point a little to submission.  Yes, I said it. Because it would seem that with out yielding and submitting I am not truly giving my support and allegiance.  Question; Am I submitting myself to my husband’s authority in this matter? Answer; Most definitely not.

This is what my Heavenly Father has been working in me; the desire to be able to surrender this area to my husband and trust that we will both be better for it.  I have a great desire to give up what the world finds important materialistically speaking and embrace only what God finds important.  It has been a struggle.  I will do really well for awhile and then really bad.  It is a cycle for me; another long trip “around the mountain” as Joyce Meyer would call it.

Not coincidentally, I fell down hard at a retail store the other day (this is figuratively speaking).  I was waiting for that typical fight to start over what I had spent when my husband got home from work.  He is the kind of guy who loves to check all our accounts regularly so I know that he knows what I did.  But, the fight didn’t come.  Instead, I received a loving email from him in my inbox the next morning that simply said, “I thought you would be interested in this article, 10 Signs You’re a Credit Card Addict, Love, me”.

I read the article and was pleased to find that only three out of the ten signs seemed to resonate with me personally but if that wasn’t enough to take pause, the real kicker was this particular bit of wording used in this article by Allison Martin from Money Talks News.  She writes,

“Desperate times call for desperate measures, and perhaps it’s time for you to desperately seek help with your credit card addiction.”

Um, am I Desperately Seeking Sally?  Yes.  And do I believe in coincidences?  No. I will tell you that God knows exactly how to talk to me so that I will listen.  And He spoke.

So, I decided to do something about this problem that I have been wholeheartedly contributing to.  I decided to cleave to my husband and submit to his authority in the financial aspect of our marriage.  I decided to trust him (and Him) and to set myself free from the guilt and responsibility of mismanaged money.  I decided to see this thing through to find out if there is greater intimacy to be had by my doing so.  And let’s not forget, I decided to obey my God.

John (my husband) took me out to dinner for date night and after a glass of wine and a deep breath, I reached into my purse and pulled out a small stack of plastic wrapped in a purple ribbon.  Yes, it was a stack; five to be exact (don’t look at me like that – only one was currently carrying a balance).  I pushed it across the table to him and his eyes bulged out a little at the five credit cards he unwrapped because most were sorta gotten in secret (sign #6 in the article).  Anyhow, he calmly tucked them into his shirt pocket for safekeeping.

I explained that I would strive to be a better communicator and that if I felt I needed to charge something in the future I would come to him, ask him about it and then retrieve my credit card from him for approved purchases.  I also told him that I expected him to respect me as well and talk over his future expenses before making them.  At the very least this would force me to have the conversation and to hear his reasoning behind the “no” if there is one or cause him to take responsibility for the money spent if the answer happens to be “yes”.  He asked me what brought all this on and I told him I read the article he had sent me via email that morning.  He laughed and said that he hadn’t even read it himself but thought it would be funny to send to me.  In other words, he didn’t send it, God did.

You might think that I surrendered my spending to John for the sake of a happier more fulfilling marriage and that is a partial truth but really, I surrendered it to God.  It’s God’s economy that I want to be functioning in, not the worlds.  In Shane Claiborne’s book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical,  he talks about the story of the rich man that came up to Jesus asking what he needed to do to get into the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 19:16-30; Mark 10:17-30; Luke 18:18-30).  In Shane’s words,

“The story is not so much about whether rich folks are welcome as it is about the nature of the kingdom of God, which has an ethic and economy diametrically opposed to those of the world.  Rather than accumulating stuff for oneself, followers of Jesus abandon everything, trusting in God alone for providence.”

In whom or in what do I trust?  Is it God or is it plastic?  Why am I accumulating stuff for myself when I should be abandoning everything!  Yikes, I need to fight these worldly desires and look to store up my treasures in heaven instead (Matthew 6:20 KJV).

Later that same evening, as I was getting up from the couch, a sore hip that chronically gives me trouble made me wince and I said to my hubby, “Ouch! I think I need my credit card back so I can go see the Chiropractor this week.”  We both laughed.  Really?  It had been only two hours since I relinquished them.  How long can I go without the plastic as my go to?  With Jesus’ help I hope to go all the way.

Stay tuned . . .