<prompt> Human: Dear Reddit,Im a 37-year old man, married with two children, and my wife and I are coming up on our 10th wedding anniversary. Our marriage has not been without problems, but were working on most of them diligently.One problem that seems intractable, however, is how we handle money in our marriage. Im a self-employed freelancer, so my income is not predictable, but I generally make good money for someone with a BA who works at home. My wife was in graduate school for the first few years of our marriage, then working part-time in her chosen field for not terribly much money. We never really talked about our expectations regarding moneyfinances before we got married - I was raised in a two-income family where my mom actually made more than my dad, while she was raised in more of a breadwinner household mom worked, but never full time and was home with the kids until they were in elementary school. I think we each expected our own upbringing to be the model for our marriage. Back when she was in graduate school and before the crash of 2008, I made significantly more money than we had expenses so I covered the bills with enough left over to have an emergency fund and fund our retirement accounts every year. We considered 100 of her income to be savings, and kept it in a seperate account.Now the situation is different - my industry almost completely dried up in 2009, and is only recovering now, and we went deep into our savings for the downpayment on our house just before that. Meanwhile, she is coming into her earning potential and making more than I do. I also get paid extremely sporadically - I might go three months without a cent and then get a check for a third of my yearly total. With two children and a house, our expenses are also much higher than they used to be.The trouble is that my wife still considers 100 of her income to be savings, and deposits her paychecks in an interest-free checking account that she doesnt actually have a checkbook for. Meanwhile, our household expenses bills, nothing extravagent ran to approximately 200 of my pre-tax income last year. Every time I ask her to transfer money to the joint account, we have a huge fight where she accuses me of being wasteful with money, not being able to provide for the family and says that shes going to have to step in and save this sinking ship.The fights are so aversive that I frequently chicken out and take cash advances from the overdraft account or a credit card to pay our bills. As a result, we now have three nearly maxed-out accounts totalling around 25,000 at between 9 and 13 while we have 45,000 in the savings account. The one concession I do make to savings is that I overpay the mortgage to the tune of one extra principal payment per year. I havent written an IRA check in 5 years, and we have no college savings accounts for our children.She is now starting to talk about taking vacations which we never do and spending several thousand dollars on redecorating projects in our house, and when I say we cant afford them, she counters that shes almost 40 and its time to start living like adults. I learned to build furniture which I enjoy in order to head off a dining room set purchase, and will be illegally renovating our bathroom myself to save on that, but I cant do everything and work and be there for my family. I should add that other than the above, neither of us are big spenders on luxuries.Ive tried proposing that she make a recurring monthly contribution to the joint account, but she flatly refuses. As it actually ends up, however, she and I end up putting in about the same amount per year - the difference is that its a recurring fight rather than an agreement; I never have a cent to my name that I feel OK to spend my deposits are immediately fed to the roaring fire of our bills and credit card debt; while she feels safe having the number in that checking account being comfortably high.Yesterday I reached a breaking point - I went all of January and February without transferring any money from her account, and put 12,000 on the credit cards to cover the shortfall. It wasnt enough, and I bounced our mortgage check yesterday. I still have time to fix things with the bank as it was before the due date, but I cant stand worrying about money all the time when we actually have enough money to cover our expenses if we werent manufacturing this ongoing crisis.I need to find a way to make my wife understand that I will never make enough money to cover even our expenses as they stand now, and find a way to renegotiate how money works in our marriage so we can be financially secure.numbers involved: I make 60-80k pre-tax but I pay SE tax so my rate is high, although in my worst year, 2009, I made only 20k. She was making 16k-20kyear but made 55k last year and is now on track to make 80k or more W2 in 2013. Household expenses for 2012 were around 110k - major metropolitan area so it doesnt go as far as youd think, especially with two young children who need care while we work.TL;DR: My wife who makes more than me puts 100 of her salary into an interest-free savings account that I dont have access to; I dont make nearly enough to cover our bills; and this arrangement is pushing us deep into totally unnecessary debt. What should I do?Assistant: Marriage counseling. If you chicken out during these conversations and its leading you to make financial decisions that are harmful to your family 12k on a credit card when you have money in savings?! you need someone to arbitrate some serious conversations between the two of you about each of your expectations for your marriage.I might also see if you can find a fee-only financial planner napfa.org who will sit down with you for a couple hours and help write out a workable financial plan. Perhaps having a third-party do this will deescalate the emotional issues and help her see things in a more pragmatic light.Human: Ill add that in my marriage, at least, it works best to have one pool of money and one person as the primary controller for all of it. If she wants to be deciding to sock all of her salary away into a checking account, she should also take control of juggling the bills - does she think putting things on credit cards is a good idea? She should have to look at the numbers and draw up a workable budget if she thinks its possible for you to spend less as a family and wont contribute because of that.Assistant: Exactly.And sit down once in a while and talk about your accounts. My wife pays the utility bills because shes impatient and doesnt like me waiting until a few days before its due but I control how money is spread around and the credit card bills. When I update Quicken, I tell her how much we have, and things like dont pay that credit card until next week or stop your dang charitable donations for a couple of weeks hahah. Your wife has to understand the big picture income AND spending before she can get out of this my money is my money problem.Human: The big external problem we have with big picture finances is that neither of our incomes is entirely predictable. Im an illustrator and live job to job, she does fee-for-service healthcare work that even though its paid W2 is a pass-through for the actual money brought into the practice - when patients cancel she doesnt get paid.  <response>: Uh, potentially it sounds like shes saving up for lawyer and knows you wont be able to afford one in a divorce. Just saying. 