I have not been blogging because I have been struggling. For most of the past couple of months, the husband and I have been fighting over money. It isn’t every day, but it is enough days that it is wearing on us both.
My husband thinks I don’t communicate with him. I feel like I tell him things, but he doesn’t listen or remember. I have started reminding him of when I told him something, and he resents the reminders.
Seriously, this morning, shortly after 6 a.m., the weather guy on TV said something like “I mentioned this at 6 a.m…,” and my husband made a crack that the guy sounds like me. It was not intended to be a flattering comment. It was meant to be snide and hurtful. I hadn’t hear the weather guy, so hubby had to explain to me what he meant.
I feel like I communicate. However, I have also been burnt lately. I tell him something, and he immediately becomes furious with me and refuses to talk to me. He has hung up on me when we are talking on the phone more than once. He has made comments to me that while not outright calling me stupid, pretty much mean the same thing.
A big part of the problem is our checking account. For our entire time together, I have been in charge of the checking account. I haven’t always done a good job. Sometimes I made a mistake. Sometimes I got burned. How many women know that you can write a check at X place, and it won’t go through your account until Y date? I’m sure I’m not the only one, although I haven’t done that kind of thing in quite a while. My husband wouldn’t acknowledge that, but it is true.
We recently had fraud on the account, and I attempted to solve the problem. I started with phone calls, emails and research. Our bank contacted the company that made the unapproved charges, and the company reversed the charges. I thought everything was OK. Three days later the same company charged my account again. This time the amount was one penny less than the original amount.
I discovered that you can tell your bank that a certain company can’t make a withdrawal for X amount, but if the amount varies from X even by a penny, the charge will still go through. There is no way I can tell my bank that I do not approve any withdrawals from a specific company. If this could happen, life would be much easier.
The second fraudulent withdrawal for the amount that was one penny less caused our account to go into the negative, and we were charged with three insufficient fund fees. Nothing was returned, but we had now lost $300 from our account in fraudulent charges and fees.
My husband was out of town, and I was about to leave for Washington DC. I went to my bank to find out what I could do. I learned pretty quickly that the only thing I could do was close the compromised account and open a new one. Without doing this, the fraudulent charges would continue. While at the bank, we attempted to contact the company that was making the fraudulent charges. We were on hold for more than 20 minutes, and when I asked for a supervisor, the company hung up on me. It was clear the company in question was not going to fix the problem.
At the bank’s recommendation, I went through the process of opening a new account. For 60 days, the bank would monitor my old account and transfer over the things that I identified as approved. If anything else came in, I would have to approve it before it would transfer. There was, however, a delay in the time it takes things to transfer — including our automatic deposits.
When I left the bank, I called my husband to tell him what was going on and to let him know his debit card wasn’t going to work. He was furious at me, and I didn’t expect that. He was (and probably still is) convinced that I could have done something else if I had talked to the right person at the bank.
I have also discovered that I can’t talk to him about some things. If I tell him about some things, he immediately shuts me off. He won’t talk to me. He won’t sit by me. Normally, we kiss a lot including before going to bed, when we get up and definitely before he leaves for work. If I tell him about some things, he will punish me by ignoring me and making snide comments. I don’t always know it is happening, but I figure it out when I try to kiss him and he refuses.
We had some fraud issues with our checking account.
