Husband refuses to communicate with me....

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It's good to know that I'm not the only one alone when it comes to dealing with stuff like this. And thanks for your concern. I'll be screwed if he leaves me now. All I can do is hope that he'll be fair enough to leave me 50/50 of what he has according to Ca. state law. I'll be entitled to spousal support for half the time of our marriage, which would be about 11 years so far.

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I sure do! Thanks.

Even if he chose a lock box with instructions with what to do in case of god forbid something were to happen. He still has over a decade or so to go before retirement, depending what he does, some places early retirement can and does happen.
Most people have directives regarding organ donations and resuscitation directives, knowing there's an envelope with instructions is a small thing in reality. How often does the unthinkable happen? Quite often. My late stepdads father, within a year of buying a new home out of state to move his wife back to her homestate collapsed with a heart attackm. They had just bought their camper for retirement traveling. Things do happen, quite tragically too. My mom became ill soon after her early retirement. She was 55.

Maybe let him know that you don't want him not here but with your own struggles to be less dependent this stuff makes it difficult to not worry about.

I'm just curious......do you act like the irresponsible child that he's treating you like? I hope that even if you read the papers he wants you to sign that you UNDERSTAND what you are reading & don't JUST READ it.

A marriage is a partnership. You should be acting like a partner, not a helpless wife just as much as he needs to be acting like a partner, not a father who feels the need to take care of you & not let you know what is going on financially because it might worry you too much.

I was married to a man I have later realized is ASD. He had no idea how to communicate & got us into so much debt that even on a 2 engineer salary marriage we couldn't qualify to buy a new home. I took over whether he liked it or not at that point. I also have a BS degree in Accounting. I forced him to be an active part of our getting out of debt. I showed him exactly what was getting paid off each month & how much money was available for spending (basically NOTHING). I honestly thought that he learned something, but when I truly needed him to take over the finances, he totally destroyed us financially after my career ended. He was the one that was the child in our marriage & honestly, I resented his behavior beyond what any words can express because I believed that a marriage should be a complete partnership & the other person needs to be completely CAPABLE of taking over if the other one has something that happens that causes an inability to handle the finances.

Honestly, he never did get his act together & after my mom died, I sold her house & got out of the marriage. Moved 2100 miles away. Only to end up getting bit by the IRS for a mistake he made doing the taxes on my inheritance & it wasn't just a little mistake....but he didn't tell me about it. I didn't find out until I had the mail forwarded to my own farm & I got the second notice 10 months later. His comment. Oh yes, got the letter just before we went to look for my farm. Then he couldn't figure out what the problem was so HE JUST IGNORED THE IRS .....really how stupid can someone be???? I forced him to take a retirement fund to pay for the mistake while I was the one dealing with the IRS & all the irritations that causes but I didn't TRUST HIM to be capable of dealing with them as he had already proven that he wasn't capable. I ended up overpaying the IRS & got a check back....it took about 5 years to pay them back & I had even gotten the penalties removed. When I went to cash the check it could only be in a joint account. That was when I learned from the joint account that he was living on overdraft fees to pay all his bills & he had over $1100 in overdraft fees in about 4 months. He had also quit paying the property taxes on the house that we owned together. They added the property tax to the monthly payment amount & he quit paying that so the house went into foreclosure & he lied to me about having talked to the lending company because I talked to them & he had NEVER responded even once to their calls. The lending company was the one that called me to find out what was going on because my name was still on the loan & no divorce papers to show divorce & he was the one keeping the house.

I thought I remembered your husband being a different nationality & culture than you are also. If that's the case, that may have a lot to do with his behavior because in some cultures, women are thought of as property, not partners in a marriage so you might be dealing with a cultural issue.

I'm not sure how you could have stood being treated like that for 20 years.....but then I look at my marriage & wonder how in the world I tolerated his crap for 33 years before I finally had enough ability put together to get out & ESCAPE (which is really what it feels like)

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You're right about what you said. Anything could happen tomorrow. I'm so sorry to hear about what happened to your stepdads father. Also, sorry to hear about your mom. I'll have to talk to him about all of this when things aren't as chaotic as they are now. It will happen though. I need to know what to do and where everything is if I'm ever left to deal with everything on my own.

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I think that he thinks that I act irresponsible and that I don't know anything. I'm not completely irresponsible. As a matter of fact, he can be irresponsible too. He'll pay MY credit card bills late at times as well as the insurance that only I use. He never goes to the Drs.

It's so frustrating! If I had my own money, I'd pay my own bills on time. I manage to pay my store credit cards on time, so I'm not that irresponsible. I also am the one who takes care of our two cats as well. I take them to the vets.

The problem is that I have never lived on my own before, so I have no idea how much of anything works in the real world. I could understand most things if things are explained to me simply by someone who's patient. I don't know the details of how to buy a house or even get my own place, or buy a car on my own. It's sad, but I've relied to much on him for everything and my parents never taught me any of that stuff.

How do people learn all of this? Was it taught to them by their parents? I feel so stupid typing this. You're right, a marriage is an equal partnership. He is a bit on the controlling side, and his nationality might have something to do with his controlling ways. They have traditional husband and wife roles there. Even though the men help out with the housework at times, it's the women's job to take care of the house mostly. And they are also most responsible for raising the children.

I'm sorry to hear about your ex. Wow, what a nightmare! No wonder you left him! He was selfish, clueless, and thoughtless. I hope that you managed to dig yourself out of that mess. So, he ended up getting the house? Maybe part of this was planned it sounds like. Again, so sorry to hear that! I hope that you managed to fix that mess he made!

Honestly this is maybe besides the point here but I was always taught that a woman shouldn't become dependent on a man ( unless for a short period of time when children are young and she might stay home) because one never knows what can happen. And honestly it is never too late. People go to school and learn trade and start working late in life. If one is 40, there is at least 25 ahead of potential success. I would start now. I wouldn't wait another day. I would call vocational rehabilitation in your state and ask for help.

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You were raised right for sure. My parents wanted me to go to college, but they also never really taught me much of anything. Again, do parents usually teach their kids these life skills, or do most people learn these things on their own? I'm really curious to know this!

They also thought that I'd be fine once I got married. Ugh! Money is tight now, so school will have to wait. I'll have to work trying harder to find a job. What places will hire me though with my record? It seems like no one will give me a chance, ugh!

As I already stated, even Target, Safeway, and Ulta turned me down. I can't even get a minimum wage job, ugh! It's not like I'm a felon, but I might as well be one!

What kind of jobs can I get that don't require a lot of heavy lifting (I have back issues), minimum social interaction (as I have social anxiety and am shy), hardly any computer skills (I can type fairly fast, but I don't know about Excel or stuff like that), and is decent paying?

So because of that, a lot is off the table for me. I could go back to customer service work as I can talk to people on the phone just fine. Or do light office work that doesn't require much computer experience. If I can find a place that's willing to train me, then great.

I can start researching stuff on line to find out how to do most things, and I'll start asking my husband how to do more this and that pretty soon. Even when it comes to how to fix things. He told me that I'll must mess things up, so he never bothers to show me anything, ugh.

I've become way to dependent on him for to much, and I need to stop that, I know. I can look around at temp places for now since I don't even know if we'll be still be here a few months from now. This sucks. I wish that someone would give me a break.

Does anyone have any good ideas for at work at home job that doesn't' require any money for start up? No pyramid schemes, Avon, or anything like that please! And the worst ones are those so called mystery jobs and jewelry making scams that require you to pay money for their crap packages.

I'm good at writing and a fairly fast typer. So that'd be great if I could find something like that or some house sitting or pet sitting job as I love working alone and I like most animals. I'm scared of big aggressive dogs though. I can also run errands for people. That'd be better in a way as I'd be kind of scared of going to a strangers house alone.

I'd appreciate any advice on how I can find these jobs and who will be willing to hire me given my background and the fact that I have zero experience with pet sitting and house sitting work. It can't be that hard though, right? Maybe I can just put out and ad on craigslist and see what happens?

I don't really know too many jobs from home. I always recommend people job in a retail. It's not well paid but not its not difficult. I do recommend talk to a vocational rehabilitation and ask for suggestions in your area or find temporary agency. Also how about elderly care. Retirement homes or assisted living homes often need wait staff and care givers. It's not hard although not well paid, you can try that?

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Thanks for the suggestions. I have worked at Macy's in the past. It was OK, but customers can be so rude! One time this guy asked me where something was, and since I was a temp, I said I don't know, I'm a temp that just started working here. He then called me retarded! OMG, how rude!

People can be really mean to you at these place, especially when you're waiting tables! I think that I'm better off dealing with people on the phone. At least I can put them on hold or hang up on them if they get out of line, lol. I'll look into the things that you suggested soon. I don't know if I can deal with old people. They can be demanding, so that will not be a good fit for me probably.

You asked ''how do people learn these things?" You can Google any question you have and websites containing the answers will come up in the search. Just start reading. Google 'Foreclosure process in your state' to start.

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Yeah, I know that, and I have. I meant other things such as life skills. I guess that before people started using the internet, they had to rely on their family and friends to teach them about things.

And they probably went to the library too maybe. My parents really didn't teach me much of anything except for how to drive, kind of. And how to swim and ride a bike. It's not easy growing up like that.

Well parents do teach kids some things but there are many other resources. Plus I don't know how old you are but probably some years passed since you were in your parents household. Plus things change. Whatever they maybe taught you wouldn't even be relevant.

I personally am not very good with finances so I talk to my financial advisor about things like that. Just call them. You can even talk to someone at your bank. Or talk to CPA of whoever does your taxes. I rely on professional help in cases like this.



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I'm in my early 40's, so yeah, lots of time has passed since then. I'm lucky that my husband is really smart. He takes care of a lot of stuff. We also have to rely on professionals sometimes.

We have an accountant who helps us out with our taxes and stuff like that. I should've asked them to teach me these valuable life skills a long time ago. Oh well, at least we have the internet now, so I can look up just about anything at any time-

It would've made life easier for my sister and I if my mom would've educated us about boys and stuff like that. None of my friends had much experience in that area, so it's not as if I could ask them about much.

There's so much that I had to learn on my own, and I definitely learned about a lot of stuff the hard way. I didn't even know that I had any issues until I was 20. Thank god that I saw a show about depression one day that helped me to understand why I was the way I was. I finally got help at that point.

Internet will provide you with general info but if you want to know about your own property and finances call that accountant and make am appointment. Ask yo explain how possible is for you to lose the house and how behind you are with payments etc

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The internet is an amazing tool with so many sites that teach us everything from how to cure dandruff... to becoming a qualified lawyer. What have you been doing all these years? The only useful thing my parents ever taught me was that I didn't want to ever be anything like them.

I was forced to leave my parents home at a very young age…and found the world a very scary place. I also discovered that the only person we can rely on is ourselves. After a string of menial jobs I started frequenting my community library to educate myself and took night classes to eventually become a teacher. I quickly discovered that teaching wasnt for me, so took a night time waitressing job whilst living out of a garden shed in a friends back yard. My days were spent studying architectural drafting at community college, then after 2 years I was accepted at university to complete my qualification in Architectural technology. It took me over 10 years to get qualified....living hand to mouth sleeping on a mattress in a shed, and working at cleaning and waitressing jobs at night.

I appreciate so much in my life now…I do contract work from my home that is 100% owned by me, I have a garden that is like family and my 2 dogs for company. I never take my 'comfort' for granted, so have savings that will see me through in the bad times. Oh yes…and I never ever use my credit card unless I absolutely have to.

Shy Introvert life is hard…and the world owes us nothing. Bad things happen to good people..etc etc. We all grow up believing that life will be a certain way, but reality has a way of brutally squashing those beliefs. I feel that I have been somewhat of a Jonah in my life and been dealt more that my share of savage blows…dreadful trauma, resulting in debilitating mental illness and poor health. But to gain some independance and comfort from the harshness of the world and the people in it... we must be willing to eat a lot of s***

My parents taught me by throwing me in the deep end.


My dad died suddenly which meant I immediately became responsible for tying up his financial loose ends, taking care of our family home and finances.


From what I've observed that's how most people learn.. from living.

Life experience...


Idk anyone who's parents sat them down and explained these things in detail.

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Thanks. I have been looking stuff up. The realtor is still working on things. I don't handle the paperwork, and I don't have his number. He can't tell us much for now. All I know is that my husband spent the only free day that he has off doing paperwork for the house.

My husband is very confident that we won't loose our house. He has an uncanny knack for knowing what will and won't happen usually, so hopefully he's not wrong about this. He is very smart, and he seems to know what he's doing. I sure hope that he's not wrong about things! It'd be devastation to loose our house!

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I hate to say this, but I've been to reliant on others most of the time. I haven't really tried to better myself in the past few years, but that will change soon. I'm starting by working on my health. I'm much to stressed out to handle much at this time, but I'll take baby steps one by one.

I'm sorry to hear that you had to leave the house at an early age. I'm glad to hear that you are now better off and that you own your own home and that you were able to get the job that you wanted. Sorry to hear about your health issues. You are wise to save your money and not use a credit card unless you have to. I need to start doing that more often.

[QUOTE=Trippin2.0;5034142]My parents taught me by throwing me in the deep end.


My dad died suddenly which meant I immediately became responsible for tying up his financial loose ends, taking care of our family home and finances.


From what I've observed that's how most people learn.. from living.

Life experience...

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I'm so sorry to hear that. Also, sorry to hear about your dads death. It sounds like you manged to take care of things w/o much help from anyone. You're right about that, life experience does teach people a lot about things. I have also had to learn about a few things the hard way myself. You're a strong person for sure.

I immigrated in my 30s. So whatever my parents taught me would be irrelevant as its a different country, continent and language. We can't really learn that stuff from parents anyways

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Oh my, thought I was the only one who learned this. My dad had little education & could just barely support my mom & me. My mom refused to work the menial jobs she was only educated to do because my dad didn't want to work at all as long as she was working afterWW II.

One good thing there was no credit cards back in those days like today so they didn't get themselves in bad financial trouble. My mom was so helpless depending on my dad for everything I wanted to be nothing like her as I didn't respect her for being so helpless & how limited it made my life growing up. I HATED feeling sheltered. Wasn't thrilled with my dad for so many reasons basis had to do with lack of education which I THOUGHT was the basis for the way he was. I fought hard to be nothing like them so I fought to be independent.

Not sure how much of that is personality or not. I have a friend who grew up in a dysfunctional family & if someone told her she couldn't do something, she rolled over & didn't do it. If someone tole me I couldn't do something, I did it to prove them wrong.

I got my validation & sense of pride from my teachers. She got it from relationships of others. I was an only child & was used to having to learn things by doing. She had brothers & got her value from helping her mom, not learning on her own but from what others were willing to teach. Guess finances were a bad issue in her family & had a H who took over everything so now she feels incapable of being financially responsible in resenting that in her divorce it took away her being financial well off which makes it more difficult.

The independent women I know Even married seem to be a lot happier in their lives.

My ex H had a high IQ, but was useless with anything that required common sense but could FAKE it real good so he nor anyone else knew that he didn't know what he was sure he knew....so don't trust your H to be capable. My ExH got us into a bankruptcy situation but couldn't handle it when he came right down to it. He was as useless as he claimed to know what he was doing. He BS'ed really good

Communication is key in ANY relationship. If the two of you can't/don't/won't communicate, you won't make any progress in the relationship - be it positive OR negative. I would wish for you to have some direction, so that you are not seemingly stuck. I hope things go better for you sooner rather than later.

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Sorry to hear about your parents. It's good that you became a strong and independent woman. So, how is your friend doing now? Also, sorry to hear about your ex. I do believe that my husband is very smart, and I'm sure that he knows what he's doing. We've been through similar situations before.

Just not to the extent to where it got so bad that we ended up getting a foreclosure notice recently. I hope that everything will work out like he says it will. It'll be devastating to loose the house. I like the area. It'd really suck to have to live in an apartment after all this time. And it won't be easy finding a new place to live either, ugh.

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That's so true. He's not the best communicator, so there's not much that I can do about that. He's always been secretive, ugh. Thanks, I hope that things get better soon too.