Why can't my husband spend a coin on his family?

Her husband is a boss in a big company and earns a seven-digit salary, but he will not spend a penny on his family, Juliet Kasirye explores why

 

On the day I got married, I felt like I was the luckiest woman in the world. I have a great job and have been married to Steven for 10 years. We have four children and we are both born-again Christians.

 

However, as soon as we got married, my husband started showing me a side of him I had never known. He does not want to spend a single shilling on the home and the children. 

 

Steven is a chief executive officer in one of the big companies in Uganda and he earns a seven-digit salary. However, my husband dumped on my lap the responsibility of taking care of the children’s needs, saying he was broke and his savings have been set aside for any emergency that might befall us.  

 

I am not for spoiling children, but I believe in giving them a treat occasionally. When our children occasionally ask him to take them out for ice-cream, he admonishes them, saying eating out is a waste of resources. 

 

He has made matters worse by banning sugar in the house, saying it is not healthy to take it. 

I hardly know what my husband uses his money for because he does not drink and comes back home early. 

At first I blamed my husband’s behaviour on his company, thinking they never paid him on time. But I was surprised when I talked to his colleague and he told me that they are paid on the 28th of every month. 

I was so upset, but I had to control my anger because I did not want my husband’s colleague to discover we had marital problems. 

However, as soon as my husband came back from work, I calmly asked him why he did not want to spend a single penny on his family. His reason was he had loans from the bank and the allowances he gets are used to fuel his car. 

 

After supporting the family for seven years, I confided in my aunt about my husband’s behaviour after he refused to change despite my incessant complaints. As if that was not enough, Steven sometimes asked me for money claiming my salary was high, yet I did not have that many responsibilities.  

 

My aunt advised me to buy him an expensive gift on Valentine’s Day to taunt him into taking care of his family’s financial needs. Sadly, the trick did not work. My husband only got worse. 

 

I also recently discovered from my in-laws when they visited that he does not support them either.  

Although my husband is a God-fearing man, he is so irresponsible that his behaviour is affecting our marriage and children. I have had enough, I cannot take it anymore and I want to let go. 

 

Grace is not alone; there are so many women in marriages where husbands do not want to provide for the family.

 

As a couple, seek counsel from experts, as well as religious elders on how to cope with such behaviour, according to Wilber Karugahe, a counselling psychologist at Kyambogo University.

 

A wife can get their husband to open a joint bank account with her, advises John Oridi, a counsellor at Christ the King Church. He says this can help take care of the family’s needs.

 

On one of those days when your husband is in a good mood, cook him his favourite meal and gently bring up the issues of how best as a couple you can shoulder the family’s financial needs. Counsellors advise that as a couple, you need to agree on how you will share out the financial responsibilities.

 

In most relationships, where one partner is stingy, they tend to demand that their spouse does certain things for them and they do not reciprocate. Unreciprocated love tends to make partners dissatisfied with a relationship and they may not be motivated to stay in it for long. 

 

“In some relationships, some stingy men want their partners to give them what they want without them offering anything. However, if a man is too stingy, his being mean can affect his family both physically and psychologically,” Karugahe says. 

 

Psychologists give a number of incidences when women should walk out of a marriage where a man has refused to take care of his responsibility. 

 

In cases where a husband becomes physically abusive when they are reminded of their financial responsibility towards the family, then the wife needs to find her way out of that relationship. 

 

If your children are not going to school because they are lacking school fees and yet your husband is financially-stable, then there is a need to reconsider the marriage. 

 

Men who do not care about their family’s welfare tend to be sexually selfish as well. That is, they may not see the need to meet their conjugal obligations, according to Wilber Karugahe, a counselling psychologist at Kyambogo University. Sex is one of the key components of marriage and if that is lacking, then the marriage is well on its way to its demise. 

 

If a man is too tight-fisted that he would rather starve than spend one dime, then it might be time to call it quits.