My husband's spending has made me a workaholic, and we both hate it. What now?

A reader writes in: One working overtime to ward off debt is making them both unhappy. How can they break the pattern without going broke?

• For Love & Money is a biweekly column from Insider answering your relationship and money questions.
• This week, a reader feels like they have to overtime to keep up with their husband's spending.
• Our columnist advises having a conversation, then making some potentially hard choices.
• Got a question for our columnist? Write to For Love & Money using this Google form.

Dear For Love & Money,

My husband is a shopaholic. I think it's turned me into a workaholic. He hates that I work so much, but I feel like I don't have a choice because I'm working against racking up unnecessary debt.

Sincerely,

Grudging Workaholic

Dear Grudging Workaholic,

Before I start doling out advice, I want to address your use of the labels "shopaholic" and "workaholic." These are terms that refer to real addictions. I don't know if you were using hyperbole to make a point or if you chose those words because they best describe your situation, but regardless, I want to begin by suggesting that therapy should be your first step.

Addiction is so often tied to the guilt we have over the choices we make that it's easy to believe recovery is as simple as making better choices, but addiction is a compulsion we experience for multiple reasons, and the best choice you can make for yourself isn't to simply "do better" but to instead seek professional help and encourage your husband to do the same. 

As for my solution, you know For Love & Money's go-to advice is always: Have a conversation with your partner. In your case, having this conversation seems especially urgent. That said, I've been married long enough to recognize that you've likely tried talking to your husband about this half-a-dozen times and nothing has changed. I still think another conversation couldn't hurt, but make sure you go into it with specifics, honesty, and an open mind. 

In your situation, those specifics may mean pulling up the debt you're running yourself ragged trying to work down and offering him a realistic strategy for decreasing his spending as well as suggesting a hard number he can work towards that will make you feel less pressured to work so many hours. 

Be honest, because your husband can't address problems that have been held back.

Your husband probably has another perspective

As for the open mind, I say this because if your husband wrote me a letter there's a good chance it would paint a different picture of your situation. I imagine it would say something like, "I never get quality time with my partner because they work nonstop. My partner blames this on my spending, but we're looking at the same numbers and where my partner thinks we're dangling off the precipice of bankruptcy, I think we're doing just fine."

This isn't to say your husband would be right in the estimation of your finances I've imagined for him, I'm merely pointing out that his perspective is likely very different from yours, and since he's the man you married, I have to assume you value his perspective. But it's easy to lose sight of the value our spouses have to offer in the middle of a fight we are determined to win. Your husband's version of your shared reality is an opportunity to locate and address your blind spots; be open to it. 

Remember that you always have a choice

Speaking of which, let's talk about what you can do to solve your dilemma beyond a single conversation. I feel like I should add a disclaimer to this next part: When you say your husband has a spending problem, I believe you. But your husband isn't the one seeking a solution, you are. Therefore, I can't advise your husband and you can't fix him; your husband has to do the work to make his own change, and you can only fix yourself.

You called yourself a "workaholic," which tells me that you recognize there may be some disproportionate anxiety contributing to your work habits but you also said you "don't have a choice" because you are trying to keep up with the "unnecessary debt" your husband is accruing. But we always have a choice. 

Your three-sentence letter is fairly dripping with exhaustion and I hate that for you, if only because what you are trying to do is unsustainable. Your husband has a spending problem, a problem you referred to as an addiction. Working yourself to death trying to earn money faster than he can spend it is like repairing a roof in the middle of a rainstorm — except when it comes to marriage and money, your efforts aren't just futile, they're enabling. Here's what you can do: stop working so much. I know the unnecessary debt stresses you out, but I promise you, you have other options. 

Such as doing it your husband's way. Your husband is an adult who understands how money works. Let him work the extra hours it takes to cover his spending habits. It sounds like your fear is that he doesn't seem to grasp how debt works, but this is where you have to challenge your own anxiety and trust that your spouse will get his act together before it's too late. But I get it: Your finances are shared, thus his financial choices affect you, and if he proves himself unworthy of your trust, you're still left working your tail off to solve the problem he caused ... but this time with bad credit.

This leads me to your second option: You can separate your finances. On a practical level, this doesn't have to mean divorce; it can mean canceling your shared credit cards, moving your incomes to separate accounts, filing your taxes separately, and splitting your financial obligations down the middle. This doesn't mean that down the line you still won't find yourself rescuing your husband from the sea of his own financial mistakes, but if that happens, at least this way you will be safe aboard a lifeboat.

Which of these options you choose will depend on trust. Your use of the word "shopaholic" tells me at some point he lost that trust, and whether he can have it back is up to you.

As for me, I'm rooting for you both,

For Love & Money