The following excerpt is from a question I received from one of my newsletter subscribers named Kevin.

Kevin asked a very important question that many couples struggle with. Since he gave me permission to post his question on my blog, my hope is that Kevin’s question will ring true for other couples going through similar struggles.

Now I have to make a disclaimer here, because I know that Kevin’s question does not apply to ALL women. Some women are the sole providers of the household and they don’t need to rely on their husbands at all for financial support.

But there are also many women (and men) who do enjoy spending money, which puts the couple in a bad position financially, forcing them to live “check to check.” THAT, is what this post is about.

It is important to note that it is the CONCEPT and advice that is important here, not “who is doing what”.

Okay here we go…

This was Kevin’s question to me….

“Larry, I found the last two newsletters hit the mark on what my wife and I are going through. Though the last one left me with a question. As you stated women are the shoppers, buyers “American Women are the largest economy in the world”. How is it then the man’s responsibility to provide financial security?

In your opinion does he do this by allowing her to spend his earnings as well as her own? If she is in charge of spending, is it not her responsibility to budget and therefore provide financial security?”

-Kevin

My response to Kevin…

Hi Kevin,

Great question and I’m so glad you asked it. Contained in your question is the idea that if women are the ones who are wired to go out and buy provisions for the family, then they should be relied on to not waste resources that the providing man earns.

A man is wired to provide financial security and a woman is wired to make a nice home. For some women, a VERRRRRY nice home, and that takes money. Lots of money. It turns out that the longer a man is married, the more money he makes compared to single men as reported in The Case For Marriage (Gallagher & Waite). Because you have this insight, you can see that it’s a woman’s desire to create a wonderful environment for the people she loves, which causes her to buy more nice things, which drives a man to earn more.

Here’s the answer you want. She should control her spending and stay within the family budget. But here’s the problem. Your wife knows that. She consciously and factually knows it’s important to control spending, knows it’s bad to spend more than you make and bad to go into debt. The strange part comes when your wife cannot explain how when QVC comes on TV, and they start talking about how wonderful something is, that she picks up the phone, presses six numbers and increases your credit card debt another hundred dollars.

When pressed for an answer, she doesn’t have one. The answer, the one she is not ready to hear, is that in order to control spending, in order to control anything in your life, you need to control your emotions. If you didn’t get that gift in your childhood, you’ve got to learn it as an adult. This is the reason I offer my free email course, The 7 Secrets of Eliminating Your Negative Feelings in 60 seconds.

http://www.selfesteemsecrets4women.com/self.html

This will help your wife learn how she’s wired and what must be controlled inside so she can keep her promise and not spend more than you earn each month.

But the question of what she will do, each time she is offered another spending opportunity still comes down to this. “Do I spend now and feel immediately good or do I deny this emotional urge to spend and feel the reward of financial security later?” Ultimately, you can’t MAKE her answer that question each time. She has to see the consequences for herself.

Thanks Kevin.

Larry Bilotta

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