Is it normal to be convinced i'm going to ruin my husband's life?

Here's some background: I am a child of divorce (not a huge impact) who has seen my dad's life be progressively worsened by three terrible marriages (huge impact). My parents divorced when I was approximately 8 years old. My mother left him for a guy she met at work. It was handled extremely poorly and publicly. My younger siblings and I were, unfortunately, privy to every detail of their split. We sat in the car and watched as my dad confronted our mother at her boyfriend's house. We also saw him, crying, toss his wedding ring out the car window on the way home. We then watched him burn our mother's wedding dress and mementos in the driveway when we got home from that trip. Fast forward a few years and he marries Stepmother 1.

Stepmother 1 turns out very quickly to be a drug addict and runs my father into poverty. They split after a few years.

Enter Stepmother 2. Stepmother 2 is also a drug addict (he has a way of attracting pieces of crap - he is extremely codependent). She runs him even farther into poverty - he has to declare bankruptcy after their divorce.

Stepmother 3 (current) is wonderful, amazing, educated, loving, supportive, and actually makes more money than my dad. No problems there.

That brings us to now. I am in my first (and hopefully only!!!) marriage. I've been married to a wonderful man for just over two years. The issues here are that 1). I am mentally ill, 2). a recovering alcoholic, and 3). terrible at finances. We've done everything we can to address these issues, respectively: 1). I take Effexor every morning and see my psych Nurse Practicioner regularly, 2). I have been sober for 17 months and 15 days, have completed the 12 Steps with a sponsor and attend AA meetings regularly, but the third one....

My husband is in charge of our finances completely - at my request. My financial education growing up consisted of my father sitting me down and cutting up a credit card in front of me, telling me "Don't ever, ever, ever get one of these." Every adult in my life except for my grandmother has declared bankruptcy. I do not handle money well. My husband, a baccalaureate in Business, does. So he runs our checkbook, gives me a budget, etc. Here's the thing though: every time I have to spend money on something, or a mistake of mine costs us money, or I have something unexpected or even expected expenses (dentist visit, car repairs, etc), I feel like it's just another handful of dirt in my husband's grave.

I'm irrationally convinced that, as a woman, I am doomed to ruin my poor husband's life. It seems as though all I do is cost us money. I work, a few days a month, but am currently in an extremely demanding academic program. For the past year, before school started I was working 60-80 hours/week at a local hospital to help pay off debts and save money for just this period of time. That doesn't help me though when I see him stressed out, hunched over Microsoft Excel working on our budget for the week. I feel like a burden. I have offered several times to quit school and simply go back to work but he has begged me not to, as it would be a death knell for any sort of career/salary advancement. This is true, and it would be short-sighted of me, but I feel like it's my only option sometimes. He simply tells me the best thing I can do is give 100% of my efforts for school.

This most recent wave of anxiety has been triggered by the fact that (at his behest) I finally caved and bought myself some new underwear (I find it pointless to spend more than $3/pack on them and even then I hate to do it because it seems a waste) and instead of the website automatically applying our rewards, making the order FREE, it charged our credit card because I didn't select the option to apply the rewards... leading me to spiral into "this is what happens when I spend money on myself, of course".

IMPORTANT NOTE: My husband has not ONCE ever said anything to me about "ruining his life" or even making his life difficult. He loves me, is caring, supportive, and sweet. Actually, that kindof makes me feel worse because he's so wonderful and I feel like such an inherently awful woman.

Is this sort of internalized hatred normal? How do I tackle this fear? I am crippled with the thought of making his life so much more difficult than it has to be. He's currently on the phone with customer service to cancel said underwear order because I have to study for an exam and I'm overwhelmed with guilt.

Voting Results
36% Normal
Based on 33 votes (12 yes)
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Comments ( 2 )
  • Ellenna

    Please stop beating yourself up and setting yourself up for failure. YOU ARE DOING FINE! You are NOT an awful woman, only a normal flawed human being with a difficult past to overcome. Can't you accept your wonderful partner's evaluation of you and not your own self-assessment, which is inevitably warped by your past experiences.

    Professional counselling to deal with the aftermath of your childhood experiences would be a VERY good idea. You're familiar with 12 step procedure: would Adult Children of Alcoholics be of help to you as well as counselling?

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  • dirtybirdy

    Good lord, woman, you're going to run yourself into an early grave if you don't get a grip on this. You are stressing yourself out over stuff that's all in your head. You've done the right thing by having him deal with the money because you knew you'd mess it up. That's a big step right there. You also know that your thoughts are irrational so that's step 2. I'd say your going down the right path. Slowly but surely, and that's huge. Knowing is half the battle!

    You know that your family has made huge mistakes and it's your job now to try not to repeat them. It seems to me like you know that and you're doing the best you can. Keep it up! And relax :)

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