I'm very frugal and my husband is a "keep up with the Jones" type of person . I can honestly say he's unnecessarily spent at least $200,000 (probably more) of our money in our time together. I need security in my life, possibly due to moving numerous times after my parents divorce and watching each of my parents run out of money early in their lives.
His latest expenditure was to replace every single window and door in our home, even though some still had years of life left in them. I pleaded with him to replace them in installments in order to reduce the financial impact and the stress our home is under. He went ahead and replaced them all anyway. When the person came to measure I realized after he left our existing window coverings would not fit due to the size of the frame the installer wanted to use so I emailed our salesman (my best form of communication due to my anxiety) and said I wanted the same size frame. My husband told me to leave the salesman alone and he would deal with it. The salesman gave my husband the brush off. I now have to replace window coverings on two doors and 5 windows.
I knew I couldn't handle the noise of the installation in my home so I planned to spend Sunday to Wednesday at my sisters while the windows were being installed. Due to Agoraphobia I haven't been away from my home in 3 years and was enjoying the lack of stress in my sisters home. I contacted my husband Monday night to talk about staying longer, but I wasn't sure how much longer, definitely not more than a week in total. I then received a message from my youngest daughter through Facebook about how rude I was for not giving prior notice to staying away longer and I was sworn at. When I arrived home Friday (away for 5 days) to attend a drapery appointment, I talked to my husband and he admitted to speaking to both my daughters about his unhappiness with my not returning home Wednesday.
I feel I'm literally powerless regarding any type of decision. I feel year after year I've done exactly what my husband wanted and when I realized due to my health I couldn't keep my high paying job and tried to speak up every single concern I've expressed was ignored, only to hear afterwards I was right. We've had marital counselling and when the counsellor suggested a budget my husband got angry with him.
This probably sounds dramatic, but I literally feel I'm dying from the stress of trying to keep up with my husbands materialism. His new motorcycle (purchased this year) has not brought him the happiness he hoped for because the Harley riders don't wave to him. My chest hurts, I hyperventilate and when I try to have dinner with my husband at the table I often end up choking and have had to run to the bathroom to vomit.
I'm sincerely sorry for the negative tone of this post. I'm not sure where to turn.