Dear Eric:I am a 52 year old divorced man, without a stable long term relationship for a few years now, but for the past four months I have been dating a woman in her forties, “Marie”.
We each owned our own house and never thought of living together, or even considering ourselves a real couple, but we each had a key to each other’s house.
On several occasions, Marie pointed out to me that I didn’t have a television at home and she found it rather odd that I told her I didn’t need one. She also pointed out to me, quite politely I must say, that she found my interior decoration rather bland since she tends to favour bright colours in her own home.
One Saturday, I came home from work to find that Marie had unexpectedly come to my house, rearranged all the furniture in my living room, installed a large flat screen TV mounted on the wall, and painted two of the walls dark brown!
She expected me to be very happy with this situation. Not only was I not happy, it was quite the opposite!
I took my house keys back, handed hers back, and told her I would leave the television on her doorstep the next morning. She was furious at my response to her “generosity” as she saw it.
So what I’m wondering is: did I miss something here?
– Channel changer
Dear channel: You didn’t miss anything, but it looks like you dodged a bullet.
It’s one thing to have an opinion about a loved one’s home or decor. It’s another to walk in there and put up a tarp.
Marie has clearly watched too many surprise home renovation shows. But not Joanna Gaines. (Sorry, that TV reference probably doesn’t ring a bell.)
We often talk about the need to respect other people’s boundaries in order to have healthy relationships. We’re mostly talking about emotional or internal boundaries, so it goes without saying that you shouldn’t drill a mounting bracket into someone’s wall without asking permission first. She’s lucky you didn’t send her a bill for the repainting.
Dear Eric:I have an amazing boyfriend who has really shown me that this is the man I want to have in my life for the rest of my life. We have been together for 6 and a half years and are currently living together.
My family loves him and my friends get along with him, but he sucks with money and is in debt because he is stupid with his money. I can’t trust him financially in any way and it drives me crazy. It scares me for the future with him.
I’ve been saving to buy a house and hope to start looking in early 2025. And I’m afraid I’ll have to take the plunge alone.
I see what he spends his money on because we sit down every payday and go through all his bills, so I’m not worried he’s hiding anything.
How can I get him to stop spending and start saving?
– Expensive relationship
Dear relation: Don’t come within 10 feet of a mortgage with this man until he’s ready to play an equal role in your shared financial well-being. Don’t even walk past a bank together, just in case.
“Their best bet is to build a system that bypasses old habits and imposes new ones,” Sam Erdman, founder of Anchor Wealth Advisors, told me. Managing money is “usually not a knowledge game, it’s a behavior game.”
Both of your behaviors should change here: you are doing too much and he is doing too little.
The first thing Erdman encourages you to do is have a conversation about your values. “They can start by talking about their dreams for the future and why they do what they do. This will help them understand each other’s perspectives.”
Once you understand each person’s values, you can develop a plan to live those values.
Here is a path traced by Erdman:
- Figure out where he’s spending too much.
- Reconfigure these numbers based on what he wants them to be in the future.
- Create bank accounts that will be funded according to the budget: one to pay all recurring monthly expenses, one to hold money for future non-monthly expenses, and a spending account for it.
Finally, you don’t have to combine your finances if your values aren’t aligned. A financial coach or advisor can draw on Erdman’s advice, as can less expensive or free resources like Vicki Robin’s book “Your Money or Your Life.”
Send your questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or PO Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram @oureric and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.
