I was married 25 years ago. 1977 and still a women having her own independance in some area's was not a big deal if you married a man who loved you greatly and supported you . And the sex was great.
I knew women who had it much worse my grandmother loved her husband until he died 58 married years and he was a very mean nasty speaking person and greedy with his money and he drank too much and made my grandmothers life horrible, abbused her mentally, but she was a wonderful wife and took care of all her responibilitys. She had 8 kids.
We live in an area of farmers and Amish after I got married at 18.
I am 43 now and I was so in love with my husband and he with me . BUT.
Because we were so poor and we lived on one income and no family that would or could help us. We were on our own.
There was not a place for me to work part time if I wanted to because we lived so far away from the city and towns.
At times we didn't even know if we would have gas money.
Again women working out side the home was still not a big issue. I choice to stay home ,clean and cook and when I got my first sewing machine I made many clothes.
My husband was not home until 5:30 PM each night 5 days a week he worked 60 minutes away. At first I lived to make him happy.
I Made my self look nice before he got home ,fixed my hair and I cleaned our small bare home until it shined. I was so happy to own our very old worn out moble home.
We started to buy it before we were married but had to pay rent on the property.
I washed and hung our clothes out on the clothes line and mended every thing even socks by hand., I cooked nice meals with very little food and had them on table on time for my husband when he came home. I learned every trick there was about saving money. Not making money but saving money.
I wanted to do these things partly to show my self and prove to the world a women could. Since my mother was a bad example of a wife in my eyes.
I did not have a car or could I drive until I was 24 years old and I married and moved away from the town I had known all my life and all my relatives and all my friends and moved into a very rurual area.
I did not desire to drive. I took walks every day and walked to the post office.
The radio kept me humming.
Only on friday nights did we do any shopping for grocerys.
I was just laughting the other day how I thought it was a big deal and treat when we could afford to eat out a Shoneys and I would order what I thought was real sea food clam strips on a Sunday.
I did not have a phone at first or TV or a sewing machine.
My mom was mean and would not allow me to use or borrow the sewing machine I had helped my dad buy with money I worked for and that was Kept in my bedroom as a teenager that I made some of my clothes on.
She did not do much sewing but did not want me to have any thing to do with the sewing machine. She wrote up a will a few years ago for after she died and in it I am to have only her sewing machine.
I have a nice computor sewing machine now who needs that old thing she kept from me.
There was no extra money after I got 20.00 or less for all grocerys and house and personal needed items so I had no checking book. That $20. did not buy extra's like paper towels and napkins and any thing extra only the basic food items.
The personal products were all generic or the lowest priced ones.
I would buy one bar of this and one roll of that for a week. And it had to make due.
We did not drink or smoke or have any hobbies or extra interest that needed money to keep up.
My husband loved me very much but he came from a family that was not good at talking to each other or to me or every excepted me fully as there daughter in-law and they stil made demands on my husbands time for things so it took him several years to get the communication thing down with my husband.
He had to learn to say no to other peoples demands and yes to me.
He was quite and I was bursting at the seams to talk.
I was full of emointions he was not.
I wished at the time for a baby. My husband was just getting the bills paid on time so he did not want to add a baby to our life yet.
I tried to get pregant on accident a few times.
We have not had any babys. For the first 17 years I had no pets to care for no cat.
I thought if I had a baby I would of loved it so much and not been as lonely .
I started to feel empty after the first year of marriage like we were in a stale place.
Then we had a terrible car accident that left me with only a broken jaw in two places. I was in the hospital a week.
Its the first time my husband ever cried for me infront of me when he seen me in the hospital .
My husband had to work for the income most that week. He was not there for my surgery.
I still think he should of been by my side when I came out of surgery.
But that accident changed things for us .
We were now with out a car and went in debt for another car that broke down and had to be junked with in a year.
We grew up while I was recovering from a broken jaw and extremely low weight problem.
We had diasters in our moble home. The septic was over flowing and every time our neighbor decided to wash clothes all day we got the full septic in our bathroom and kitchen it came up all the sinks and over flowed the john.
Tolet paper and crap from the neighbors and ours use to flood our floors. Our neighbor was mentally ill and she did not care.
I was so tiny and hungry and sick with my jaw wired shut and I would run and just cry in my bed until one day my husband handed me a mop and said help me with this mess.
We had water pipes freeze up in the winter so we had no water at times.
Things got better in time.
We moved our moble home to a village a tad bigger and we got to know a few people in village. One neighbor worked at a moble home manufactoring place and he started to give us stuff to fix up our place with.
Our first new carpet was many pieces so well laid and stabled down by our neighbor and husband that it looked like one lenght of carpet.
But the pipes and septic froze one of our first winters there for 3 months we had no water and no toilet. We used an old ladys concrete basement shower that had no curtains around it and the basement had windows to the walk way above and it was winter time. Those were short showers every other day.
We used a bucket for a toilet.
We finally figured out how to stop the pipes from freezing but every thing took money that had to be saved up for.
I started to take action and told my husband that I wanted a telle-phone and a sewing machine and had my first yard sale and sold a few things we did not have much to sell so I sold things like our home made wedding quilt that his aunt made us.
I did not make much money but my husband seen how much I needed these things so in time we had them. A phone and a 100.00 brand new sewing machine that turned out to be a lemon and would not make a tight seam no tension.
When I turned 24 still living in the same place my husband bought a car for 500.00 and said you are going to learn to drive this car and so I did and I do. One of the first things I made my husband when we could afford a different sewing machine was his first new winter coat that he always wore hand me downs as a teenager.
He still has that old dark blue goose filled coat and even though he has a nicer coat he still wears that old coat in the winter even though it will not zipper in the front any longer and I can not mend it any more.
The cat also loves that coat and as soon as my husband throws it down on a chair the cat jumps on it.
We grew in love and got stronger in relationship.
If I had a new baby maybe I would of felt the strain of a having to work at a marriage at a young age with no money and no family to help me.
Take my personal story for what it is. It is true and we are still very much in love. Still have relationship between us he is generous in gifts and he even talks too much some times.
I have my own check book now and credit cards but not for years until there was a bit of extra money for me to have for my own spending.
Things are in my name.
I hope you will both grow in love and respect for each other.
Maybe your husband is so extra carefull about money because there is no extra money.
My husband was and at times it caused a few arguments.
When we were first married he told me how high or how low the heat will be set in the house and I was up set with that control because PA is cold in winter and I was cold natured being too skinny and I decided he had to come to other agreement about this and after I read an article about saving money on heating bills he allowed me to turn the heat up to 68 during the day if I turned it back to 60 at night instead of keeping it at 65 all the time. That is just one example.
My way saved more money.
Do not go thinking I was quite and took every thing sititng down.
I did any thing I could to wake him up at times.
I was fighting for our marriage to work and still do.
My folks were divorced his folks are together but not emointally close.
Just one small thing that I did just last night. My husband packed to go on a trip for business to Okl. It is only an over night trip.
He went to bed before me and got up at 2 AM to leave while I was sleeping but I put a card in his cameria bag to tell him I love him.
It will probably fall out infront of others and I will laugh about that.
I tell him I love him and unlike his folks we still do have sex after 24+ years.
I do not allow him to get away with out making it a regular part of our life.
Jeanie