What is the currency on which your family operates, ie, who runs things, how? Is it power based, and who has the power? How do they use it to get things done? Is it negotiation, where everyone has a say? Is it, *gasp* based on love and consideration? If so, who is the generator of that? Just some questions provoked by observations of some people in my life.
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Family Currency
by Satanus 2 Replies latest social family
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Satanus
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rose petal
Satatus, interesting question. 1/ my family (non witness, mother, brother, sister) we operate on love and consideration. 2/ my ex family (ex husband, 2 sons) operates on control, with my ex as puppeteer. He has 2 sons from first marriage who don't talk to him, of my sons only 1 is totally controlled by him. My son (separated from the lovely mother of his sons) has, under my ex's instigation, tried everything to control (let's call her) Angie. My ex actually said that he was upsetting and annoying Angie to get back at me! They have tried every legal trick they can think of, reporting her to welfare services, badmouthing her in her home town (backfired, that one). My ex's new wife, (Phillipine import, no disrespect to Filipinos), after resolutely refusing to go to meetings, has finally relented and is now going. But the interesting thing is, that my ex uses the same tactics again and again, even if they fail. He doesn't think these things through, and uses short term thinking. He basically plays the odds, it worked 20 years ago, maybe it'll work again. But the annoying thing is - it does keep working again and again! Interesting subject - family dynamics rose petal
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bikerchic
Is it, *gasp* based on love and consideration?
Yes! Second marriage and hubby and I had familiar mates before who ruled the roost with iron fists over money so we are both more relaxed and way more honest about spending. There is absolutely nothing I could buy that he would get angry about, nothing! I have to regin myself in most of the time and I do so because now I handle all the money ie bill paying so I know what we have and what we need to pay and at his request I keep him informed.
He did it for the first couple of years and was a bit shall I say absent minded and that didn't sit well with me and my hard earned good credit. He realized I had more time to spend with the finances and I've done it ever since. He brings home his check, signs it and gives it to me to deposit in the bank and when he needs money he goes to the ATM.
We've been financially strapped and yet we never argue about money, who has what or how much who spent on what. We trust each other because we are working toward a common goal. I'm a saver, he's a spender but he's also a penny pincher when it comes to spending I'm not! I guess we balance each other out.
We don't view money as power we've both suffered enough from that in our other marriages and it sucks. When my X was stingy about money it made me want to spend it to get back at him and I did, big time! Bad way to be in a marriage plus then I would hide what I bought because I was literally afraid to let him know....ha as if....stupid! It's a good feeling to know I don't have to hide things and also that when I show my husband what I bought he is happy about it because he knows it makes me happy.