ON THE IDEA OF "FINANCIAL INFIDELITY"

The New York Times today reports a list of "money disorders" burgeoning as we find ourselves reeling from the economic news. Overspending is rampant, but so, apparently, are other "problem financial behaviors," like, it says here, underspending (hoarding, as if we were in a depression); serial borrowing (we all know what that is), financial enabling (giving too much money to adult kids, who are then not motivated to make their own), and so forth. People from all over the monetary map have these problems--including Wynona Judd, who used to buy, she claims, too many cars and Harleys, but now has her verhicle issues under control . But here's what struck me, since of course I'm always fascinated by new data about love: A "problem financial behavior" psychologists have named "financial infidelity"--or "cheating on a spouse by spending and lying about it."

 

Please. By that definition, we're all harlots. Ragingly unfaithful Jezebels. Unless you're married to a guy who knows--really knows-- retail, what woman in her right mind tells her spouse, over a nice roast chicken dinner, "Darling, guess what? The Prada bag I had my eye on was reduced to eleven hundred, but I didn't succumb; instead I spent a mere four hundred at Coach," as though the guy wouldn't still fall face-first into that chicken. Because most men don't see the $400 as a good deal, assuming as they do that handbags cost what they did in the 80s (that is, if they ever even thought about it) and that pretty much any purse in the galaxy could be had for less than, oh, a hundred bucks. Does a man who hasn't bought a shirt for himself since college know what a nice dress shirt costs? A tie? (I tear off tags when I buy my husband clothes, egregious cheat that I am, because otherwise he wouldn't wear it and I would have to live with someone who walks around in tattered stuff from eons ago--and I do mean eons ago.) How about announcing to him what a sweet little pair of women's boots (not designer, even) for Fall cost?  Or a moisturizer, for that matter?

 

I mean look, the idea of hundreds of dollars on clothing and cosmetics repels us all….but men emphatically don't get the maintenance thing--and never have. So why talk about any of it if you can afford (literally) not to?  If you must confess, perhaps do what a friend of mine does: "I report exactly half of what the item costs--which is just what it should cost!" so that her lover can rest happily in the world of shoulds in which he resides and has no desire to depart.

       Discretion, in retail as in love, isn't deceit. So don't call this "infidelity," please. Which psychological problem is worse: Hiding the price of certain things, or causing a nervous breakdown?  I rest my case.  --TLG

Comments

[LuluOnTheZigZag]

Dear Love Goddess,
So, we've got two basic issues here (which can be sub-categorized,but then my answer would be Way too long) : omitting the exact cost of something, or causing a nervous breakdown? "Financial infidelity" seems a rather extreme and ridiculous term...unless of course you buy your lover - your other lover, and not your husband or main squeeze - a pair of cuff links, say, for over a thousand dollars. Here, there is an element of infidelity. If you "literally can" afford to spend extra here and there, the ideal would be that your husband/partner would say, "How wonderful you treated yourself to something you love!" My own does this, and he can't, by the way, always afford to. Otherwise, I am with you Love Goddess - discretion is no where near cheating. And, just think of the money you are saving him: a heart attack would certainly follow the trip to the emergency room, plus the stay in the hospital due to the nervous breakdown once he got the hospital bill;)
LuluOnTheZigZag

[the love goddess]

Dear LuluOnTheZigZag,
Ah, but nowhere did I mention actual infidelity; that is, having a lover-- never mind a lover whom you buy presents for! You make a good point, but if you're buying gifts for a lover who is not, as you put it, your main squeeze, why would it matter if that gift is above or below $1000? Now we're in a whole different ballgame. There's the commitment issue, the financial issue, the whose-money-is-it issue.....
TLG