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For Love & Money is a weekly Business Insider column answering relationship and money questions. During the final week of 2024, we are highlighting some of the year's most-read columns each day. This question is from February 2024.
Dear For Love & Money,
Our retirement is mainly Social Security. We need a little more. I work outside the home to supplement our income, but I will retire soon.
I figured out a way to divide our house to create a two or three-bedroom apartment to rent out for supplemental income. My husband doesn't like the idea. He thinks I will make finances work without his help since I always have.
He has been retired for six years, knocking about the yard and home while I take care of the money. What should I do?
Sincerely,
Thwarted Planner
Dear Thwarted,
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a vetoer. Vetoers are those people who believe they don't need to problem-solve, strategize, or even bring muscle to another person's ideas. No, a vetoer believes their only responsibility in a given situation is to assess other people's decisions and shut them down if necessary. Note that a vetoer never says "yes," only "no." That's it. That's their sole contribution to the mental labor of life.
Maybe vetoers think this negative contribution is important. After all, someone has to keep dreamers' feet planted to the ground. Someone has to offer a dose of reality to the delusional. But the thing about the deluded dreamers is that they have vision. Maybe it's an unachievable vision, and they have overlooked a dozen holes in their grand plan, but they are bringing something to the table. Meanwhile, a vetoer only takes things off the table.
Your husband is a vetoer. He isn't offering a single idea for making up the looming deficit in your budget. In fact, from your letter, it seems he isn't worried about supplementing your Social Security at all, because you will make the money work like you've always done before.
But not like that. Not in a way that means chopping up your home into rentable apartments. That might be inconvenient and uncomfortable for him. And he has a point — dividing up your home and inviting strangers in is a huge decision that will significantly alter nearly every facet of your lives.
If your husband isn't fully onboard with the idea, then it's a no-go. This is not a question of compromise; either you both completely buy in, or you can't do it. Renting out a portion of your home is far from being a source of passive income.
However, as the other responsible adult in your marriage, your husband is obligated to offer an alternative. If he doesn't, the unspoken demand is clear: "Figure out our finances, honey, because I don't want to. Oh, and by the way, read my mind so you can anticipate which plans I will and won't approve."
This attitude is unfair and irresponsible. The person doing all the work should, by right, also get all the authority. But even that dynamic is far from the ideal. You two share a life; this means your life should also be a shared burden. But it's a burden that you are carrying alone right now.
You're a human being with human limitations. You simply don't have all the skills. None of us do. This is supposed to be a benefit of marriage — pooling your talents with one another, counterbalancing one another's strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately optimizing your ability to carry the burden of life as a couple.
But I can continue preaching to the choir all day about how your husband needs to step up, and none of that will bring him in from the yard to problem-solve the financing of your retirement years. Forcing our spouses to do what we want is nearly impossible, but we can motivate them to care. This is what I suggest you do with your husband.
First, keep him informed and ask for his help. Show him the spreadsheet or budgeting app you use, and forward him your bank statements. Ask him to help organize your finances, take care of the taxes, or decide how much to contribute to savings. Express any financial uncertainty and stress you are feeling, and explicitly ask him to help you figure it out.
You wrote, "He thinks I will make finances work without his help since I always have." The reason you care about the loss of your supplemental income is that every month, you're faced with numbers that remind you just how necessary your supplemental income is to your bottom line. These realities and responsibilities must be as clear to him as they are to you.
Second, leave a space open for him to step into. Which is a pleasant way of saying, stop taking care of everything. Leave things undone. This is never as easy as it sounds, because when you share a life with someone who neglects their responsibilities, you share their consequences. And in some cases, the stakes can be too high.
So, start by giving him responsibilities that, if ignored, have bearable consequences. Put him in charge of your bills. Sure, your water and electricity might get shut off because he forgot to pay the bills, which can be inconvenient and embarrassing, but you'll survive. Meanwhile, for the first time, he will see that you won't always work things out. Sometimes, he has to do that part himself.
Rooting for you,
For Love & Money
Looking for advice on how your savings, debt, or another financial challenge is affecting your relationships? Write to For Love & Money using this Google form.
This article was originally published in February 2024.
