[Continental]

Hello everyone!

I'm a first time poster but have been lurking for quite a few months, I quite like this site as there seems to be a fair few 'call it as they see it' types posting, and that's what I'm really after.

Anyway, the situation...

I'm married, male and 41. My wife is 39, we have no children. We own our home, paid the mortgage off some years ago. About 4 months ago I was made redundant from my job (£29,000), my wife continues in her job (£24,000). I said at the time that I wanted to take a break from work entirely for a while (maybe 3-4 months) as I've always worked and my last position was extremely tiring and had been making me grumpy and irritable in the extreme.

I had a £3k payoff from the job so could continue paying what I always had into the joint account (she pays the same and everything done jointly comes from that account, from household bills to food). That £3k is now down to under £1k.

Recently I decided to start a job hunt and to that end mentioned that I wanted to take £2k from our joint savings (£12k) and transfer into the joint checking account to cover my half of the joint expenditure for the next few months - just in case my job hunt goes poorly. I already owe the joint savings £900 as I took that out to pay for a holiday at the start of the year, before I knew I'd be redundant. So in total I'd owe the joint savings £3k.

My wife took this very badly and we had an argument about it - pretty much our first ever argument about money in the 12 years of our marriage.

My reasoning was that I didn't want her to feel that she would have to pay more to cover me and that I'd feel happier knowing my half of all the bills etc would be covered for at least six months.

I do have my own personal savings but just before my redundancy I converted most of them into artwork (I've always dealt in art and am confident of buying for investment), and if I had to liquidate a piece/pieces to raise the £2k I'd probably make a loss and I didn't really want to do that until the market has recovered somewhat.

Anyway, sorry for the length of this, but am I being unreasonable or is my wife within her rights to go mad about it?

Opinions appreciated!

 

[rj700]

What are her specific objections? So what were your arguments for taking the loan and her arguments against taking the loan?

Without those specifics, I can understand some objections since you let your reserve start get down low before you started looking for another job. The "smart" thing to have done would be to start looking well before your reserves ran down or when you first lost the other job. Since the job market is very difficult/uncertain, it was unrealistic for you to expect to land a job right away.

Has the art really lost so much value in the last 4-6 months that selling some (not all) would be so bad? Did you offer to repay the "loan" from savings with interest or just pay it back flat?

Have you actively started your job hunt? If not, I would view this as a big concern.

 

[NaturallyMe]

I guess everyone views and see things differently. My husband is a good provider, always has been, and I have his back no matter what through the thick and the thin of it. Money is just that MONEY it comes and it goes, we can't take it with us when we leave this world. If you are a good provider and a good husband and you put into this joint account I don't see the problem with what you withdrew unless im missing something.

You both were blessed and smart enough to have saved up 12k, the savings is their for times such as these. You are still young enough to bounce back and replace it as well as continue building it up correct? What would be worse, needing it and not having it? or having it and being afraid to use it? ...

Yes you could sell the art, but as you said you would take a loss, so why do that when you can wait to do that. Its not like you took the money and did wrong with it, you used it for the needs of he household that you both share, as well as you plan to pay it back. I guess I really just dont see what the fuss is about .

But if you feel like it will cause a rift in the marriage or have her angry simply take the loss on the art and place the money back, but me personally as your partner I wouldn't want you to do that because it would still take away from our household of money we could of had, had you waited, which is what you are trying to do.

In the joint account of the 12K how much did you put in?