Would you be upset???**UPDATE POST#51**

[cra-z-4-dizney]

Not trying to start an argument, but several people have posted that perhaps the reason he didn't tell you was that maybe he felt you would take the money and run...

I honestly wouldn't have gotten upset, if he would have said hey listen I got this bonus, but want to keep the money, not that he has to ASK for permission to keep HIS money, but just tell me, I would have been happy for him that he got the bonus.

 

[darrose]

Kinda on your hubands side on this one. You seem to have researched everything he bought and really what he bought isnt that much. Does he ever have the freedom to buy an small impluse item without approval?
Maybe you should put 25/50/100 dollars a month in his allowance that is just for him to spend any way he wants without having to report to you?
Though he should have told you about the bonus, but I can understand him not if he has to ask before buying even minor stuff.

 

[RitaZ.]

My guess is that your husband feels that if he had told you about the money, you would have told him what to do with it, that's why he hid the bonus from you. I'm not saying it's right, but he is probably resentful.

I understand about saving money for a house, but the things that he bought are not extravagant. He did share some of it with you by buying your flowers. I think you've a got a good husband there. What's the point of working hard if you can't buy something that you need or want every so often?

It obviously upset you, so calmly talk to him. Tell him that you are hurt that he didn't share the news about his bonus with you. It may be time to renegotiate the "allowance" and loosen up on the strict budget, life is too short.

 

[nativetxn]

I'm sorry that your feelings were hurt. My husband rarely tells me about the money he has coming in, if I want to know about the money I go to the bank. As long as I can get money when I want it, I'm happy.

Katholyn

 

[drakethib]

I'd probably be a little upset. But, it sounds like your DH has very little control or say so in how the money in your household is spent. So, given the case you've described, I'm not surprised that he would want to spend his bonus his way and not tell you about it. Maybe he could take a more active role in the finances? Maybe then he would be more apt to tell you about his work bonuses.

ITA.

P.S. I am a dude. I keep mad money and so does my wife.

Get him involed in the finances rather he wants to be involved with them or not.

He will then see how you handle things and you can see his point of view of money.

 

[Saffron]

In answer to the title of your thread, initially yes, after giving it some thought, no.

Initially after finding out about the bonus I would have been hurt that he didn't want to share the fact that he got the bonus with me. I wouldn't be mad about him having money that I didn't know about, but that he felt he couldn't share something with me; that he had to keep something a secret from me. I would have been upset about my own self, wondering what I did to make him feel like he had to hide something from me. But ... after thinking about it for awhile, I would come to realize that he did share that he got the bonus with me by buying me flowers. Since you both know how tight your weekly budget is, by him buying you flowers, he was sharing with you, non-verbally, that something happened that he could afford flowers for you, so I'd say he did in fact share information with you.

If that makes sense.

 

[Disney Doll]

I think we're making WAAY too many excuses for this guy.

Reread the OP's posts. They are married and decided together what allowance each would get to fit into their budget. Their budget is in effect in order to help them achieve their marriage goal of buying a house. She gets an "allowance" too each week, and yet no one is up in arms about that. Bottom line...if you (as a couple) have financial goals, you discuss them, discuss your financial status, and maake decisions base don what oyu have vs. what you want. It sounds like that's what they did. They decided on an "allowance" amount (which BTW we did too when we were 1st married, and for the same reason...to buy a house) for each of them, they decided who will take care of the finances. He got a bonus and didn't hare that info withis wife. Didn't discuss it with his wife...not even to say "Hey Hon, I got a $150 bonus and I am going to spend it on some stuff I need for the car".

Secrets are bad in a marriage, because they breed distrust.

If I were you, OP, I'd tell my DH that I found out about his bonus and that I was disappointed that he didn't share that info with me, his wife. I'd ask him the reasons why he chose to keep that a secret. I'd ask himif he wanted to discuss our finances again, and change how we handle them, what our financial goals are, and how to achieve them.

I'd be angry. It's sneaky & I don't like sneaky.

 

[amyup]

How can people not comprehend spouses getting allowances? Those that don't have allowances do you have an extreme surplus of money every month to buy whatever you please? We both have an allowance every month because this is our "slush" money, we buy whatever we want and don't have to tell the other where our money went. This keeps us on our budget and it works great for us. I don't think the OP is a control freak for having a set budget.

As for the OP question I would be upset. My DH gets bonuses at work, they are his to spend (except his yearly bonus which is our vacation fund) as he pleases. I do think it is great that he bought you flowers though! Consider it your bonus!

 

[darrose]

He obviously didnt try to hide his purchases from her. Personally, the oil change thing should be part of the household budget so that should save her a few dollars for some other necessities in their household budget.
And he
left the piece of paper in plain sight where she could reach inside his hat and read his private piece of paper with ease. So perhaps he wasnt as sneaky as some think he is. If he was trying to be good at being sneaky he should probably not bought the flowers. That one seems to be a dead give away that he got some money that his wife didnt know about.
Now I agree he should have told her about the bonus. But perhaps
that the reason he didnt tell her is because he doesnt have any allowance be it $25, $50, $100 that he can choose to spend as an adult man. If he gets an allowance it sounds like that chunk of money is spent on set stuff and he has no freedom to "wing" it. Or
Perhaps the reason he didnt tell her was because he felt she would be upset about a bonus because it wasnt a raise?. Dont know.
All I know is that I wouldnt want to be treated like a kid and not even be able to buy a cup of coffee with my "mad money" without clearing it with my hubby first. Yuck!!!!
Though saving money for the down payment of our home took us awhile too. We didnt get to go to Disney at all during that period of our marriage, but have a lot of fond memories of outings with our little bit of "vacation money" spent closer to home.
This is certainly a thread where I would love to hear the hubbies version of why he didnt tell her about the bonus. I personnally would have told my hubby about the bonus. I hope the OP will update us on why he didnt tell her about the bonus.

 

[kadaten]

This would have been such a NON-issue in my house. If I found out DH had gotten some money I didn't know about, the conversation would have been something like "Hey, honey, cool deal on the bonus! What did you do to earn that? Way to go!" His response would probably be along the lines of "Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you.....they really liked that last report I did so they gave me a little mad money! Wanna go out for dinner tonight?"

By the way....I do ALL the finances. DH doesn't even know how much he makes any more, and enjoys that he doesn't have to think about anything. (It stresses me out sometimes, but that's our arrangement. He MAKES the money, and I SPEND it. And I gotta tell you, it isn't much fun to "spend" it at the power company, the gas company, the phone company, etc.! He gets money at the ATM whenever he needs it, and I tell him to give it a rest whenever he's getting close to excessive (which varies with the bills each month). We DID have a time when he was on a set allowance and it was what worked for us at the time. He was overseas and needed a little spending money but I needed the accounts to be predictable as we made a lot less back then, so we agreed he'd take a certain amount out of the ATM every Monday. It was the perfect arrangement for that time. He had the money he needed, and I had the money to pay the bills when I needed. We've tried the allowance thing with him home, but found it didn't work for us (neither one has much discipline!). What works for us? I don't carry cash at all....I spend it if I do. He gets $$ at the ATM and I tell him if the account is getting too low and then he eats out a little less. It's what works for us. That's what's important.

To the OP....don't stress about it. I'd honestly assume he forgot to mention it, and would approach it just as I said in the first part of this post! Good luck!

 

[cra-z-4-dizney]

And he left the piece of paper in plain sight where she could reach inside his hat and read his private piece of paper with ease.

I feel in an open marraige there shouldn't be private stuff...we should share everything with each other, I wasn't routing through his stuff trying to find something

So perhaps he wasnt as sneaky as some think he is. If he was trying to be good at being sneaky he should probably not bought the flowers. That one seems to be a dead give away that he got some money that his wife didnt know about.
Now I agree he should have told her about the bonus. But perhaps
that the reason he didnt tell her is because he doesnt have any allowance be it $25, $50, $100 that he can choose to spend as an adult man. If he gets an allowance it sounds like that chunk of money is spent on set stuff and he has no freedom to "wing" it. Or Perhaps the reason he didnt tell her was because he felt she would be upset about a bonus because it wasnt a raise?. Dont know.
All I know is that I wouldnt want to be treated like a kid and not even be able to buy a cup of coffee with my "mad money" without clearing it with my hubby first. Yuck!!!!

We both get a $75 a week allowence, which is more then enough money to BLOW and I do NOT tell him what to spend it on, if he wants to buy a cup of coffee, then he can. After all, I am a SAHM, so really I don't make any of the money, but that is what HE wanted.

Though saving money for the down payment of our home took us awhile too. We didnt get to go to Disney at all during that period of our marriage, but have a lot of fond memories of outings with our little bit of "vacation money" spent closer to home.

Although we are saving for a house, we BOTH feel we should make memories with our children, and we BOTH love WDW, so that is why we choose to go there. We always use codes and get discounts, so it isn't that expensive. As a matter of fact, we chose to rent a shore house for a week this past summer and spent more there then we would have if we went to WDW.

This is certainly a thread where I would love to hear the hubbies version of why he didnt tell her about the bonus. I personnally would have told my hubby about the bonus. I hope the OP will update us on why he didnt tell her about the bonus.

So you want an update huh...well, I asked him about the bonus tonight, well, it turns out that he has been saving his "weekly budget" because he will be away with his mom during our anniversary(Oct 25th) and was planning a special weekend for us for when he got back. I actually saved my "weekly budget" to send him to WDW with his mom for 6 days for his birthday which is the 30th of Oct. He said because I did something special for him he wanted to do something really special for me, and that he felt bad because he wasn't going to be here for our anniversary. He did apologize for not telling me, and also told me he felt really bad for keeping it from me. God I love him...

He obviously didnt try to hide his purchases from her. Personally, the oil change thing should be part of the household budget so that should save her a few dollars for some other necessities in their household budget.

An oil change is in our car maintnence, which when I asked him why he bought that stuff with the money, he said because he didn't want to take it out of the budget because he knew I was trying to save money for WDW and that he had the money so therefore bought the stuff he needed.

I just wanted to set the record straight. I do not CONTROL the money or my DH. When we got married, HE said he wanted me to take care of the bills and the money. We BOTH agreed on a weekly budget that was our own money to spend for the week on whatever we want. I do NOT question nor care what he spends his extra money on. The rest of the money went into the checking account, and the savings account. I am a little baffled about how many people accused me of being a control freak, and treating my husband like a child. We love each other and respect each other.

All I said was that I was upset that he did not tell me about the bonus, not the fact that he "blew" it. I did not care at all that he spent the money, and by the way, the flowers were georgous, I just felt because I thought he felt like he couldn't or didn't want to tell me about the bonus.

 

[momof2inPA]

Your husband seems sweet. I think you owe him an apology for doubting his intentions. He wasn't hiding the bonus from you, afterall. He was trying to plan something special and, to be honest, you kind of ruined it for him. I'm glad everything worked out.

 

[darrose]

Thanks for the update Your hubby sounds like a sweetie I thought it didnt sound like the mean kind of sneaking around. Glad to hear it was all with good intentions

Wow, and what a great year for you guys to get to go to the shore and WDW in
the same year. My family loves it when we go to WDW for the first part of our vacation and then to the beach. Though that combo has only happened 3 times for us so far. Perhaps in 2007. LOL

 

[QuiltTeddy]

Your husband seems sweet. I think you owe him an apology for doubting his intentions. He wasn't hiding the bonus from you, afterall. He was trying to plan something special and, to be honest, you kind of ruined it for him. I'm glad everything worked out.

I totally agree with you.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Awww, I hadn't read your original post, but how sweet that he was thinking about you. I would have had a lot of the same feelings that you had. If he knows that you doubted him then I agree that you owe him an apology and a nice night tonight...

 

[minmate]

I'm glad there was such a sweet intention behind all of this!

As for the term "allowance" -- I think it's the term that bothers me more than the idea of a set amount of "free money" in the budget each week. I guess b/c "allowance" is something I link so closely with a child who is "learning" how to handle money.

Either way, if you have the same ideas on your finances, more power to you... that's great, whatever you decide to call it!