I'm a SAHM, married for 20 years, with two young kids. My husband comes from a family who'd rather look well off than be well off and I come from a millionaire-next-door family, so our childhood personal finance lessons were quite different growing up. I had to get him on board with saving early on in our marriage and he's quite good at it now. And while our financials are in decent order--manageable mortgage, zero other debt, college funds going--there's one area that bugs me: the investment accounts. We have it divided up so that I take care of the personal/household finances and budget and he does the investing and manages retirement/taxable accounts. We had looked into having an adviser doing this, simply because our emotions and defenses go on high alert with each other when it comes to financial expectations--but made the decision to do it ourselves after interviewing some pretty lame advisers.
I am straight up with him every month about our expenses and % saved. In fact, I have him make the transfer to the investment account, so he has a hand in it and is aware of where we stand for the month. Now, when it comes to the investment accounts, I don't feel like the same level of communication is there. I can review the retirement accounts and from what I see, they're still limping along. If I ask about this then I'm hit with defensiveness and "well, do it yourself" or excuses that other investors or the market is doing worse. He always makes it seem like we're ahead of the game, but from what I see, my accounts are about break-even for the past 6 years, including my contributions. I also believe he's exaggerating the amount in our non-retirement account by a couple $100ks. I keep asking about this and the numbers keep changing, so something isn't adding up. This is the one account I don't have access to, despite him telling me to look up the info if I'm so concerned. I've requested the user name/password so I can check it out tonight.
This is so incredibly frustrating. Right now, I run the numbers with the lower numbers (based on the account info I pulled up today)--not the exaggerated ones-- and it says I'm still at 99% for retiring at 57, so things aren't dire--that's still 15 years away. I just don't know what to believe and if I should let this go on. Maybe it's an ego thing and he's embarrassed that he hasn't done as well investing as he thought he should or he's trying to protect me by hiding info about losses. All I know is there's a serious trust issue going on.
We run around with this same argument a few times a year--me asking for updates, him telling me stuff, me asking for proof or questioning the % returns, both of us getting upset by the end of it.
And I don't want to make my husband out to be the bad guy. He's a good worker, great father, and all-around good guy. He has a good, trustworthy reputation in his field of work, is highly looked up to in his industry, and has proven that he won't compromise his integrity for the sake of unethical higher ups. I know he's just trying to do the best he can, but I don't know if he's trying to make things look better than what they are or what is going on. But it's like a fisherman telling the story of how big a fish he caught.
So, I guess the advice question I have is has anyone dealt with anything like this before? Or what would you recommend for the next step? Or how do I approach this without either of us raising the defense shields. You'd think after 20 years we'd have this figured out.
I am straight up with him every month about our expenses and % saved. In fact, I have him make the transfer to the investment account, so he has a hand in it and is aware of where we stand for the month. Now, when it comes to the investment accounts, I don't feel like the same level of communication is there. I can review the retirement accounts and from what I see, they're still limping along. If I ask about this then I'm hit with defensiveness and "well, do it yourself" or excuses that other investors or the market is doing worse. He always makes it seem like we're ahead of the game, but from what I see, my accounts are about break-even for the past 6 years, including my contributions. I also believe he's exaggerating the amount in our non-retirement account by a couple $100ks. I keep asking about this and the numbers keep changing, so something isn't adding up. This is the one account I don't have access to, despite him telling me to look up the info if I'm so concerned. I've requested the user name/password so I can check it out tonight.
This is so incredibly frustrating. Right now, I run the numbers with the lower numbers (based on the account info I pulled up today)--not the exaggerated ones-- and it says I'm still at 99% for retiring at 57, so things aren't dire--that's still 15 years away. I just don't know what to believe and if I should let this go on. Maybe it's an ego thing and he's embarrassed that he hasn't done as well investing as he thought he should or he's trying to protect me by hiding info about losses. All I know is there's a serious trust issue going on.
We run around with this same argument a few times a year--me asking for updates, him telling me stuff, me asking for proof or questioning the % returns, both of us getting upset by the end of it.
And I don't want to make my husband out to be the bad guy. He's a good worker, great father, and all-around good guy. He has a good, trustworthy reputation in his field of work, is highly looked up to in his industry, and has proven that he won't compromise his integrity for the sake of unethical higher ups. I know he's just trying to do the best he can, but I don't know if he's trying to make things look better than what they are or what is going on. But it's like a fisherman telling the story of how big a fish he caught.
So, I guess the advice question I have is has anyone dealt with anything like this before? Or what would you recommend for the next step? Or how do I approach this without either of us raising the defense shields. You'd think after 20 years we'd have this figured out.
