Marital Synergy

This past Sunday night, the The Superhero came down the stairs at about five o'clock and asked me "What do you want to have for dinner?".

This is an innocent-sounding question, and indeed on most days at the Superhero residence it would have been. However on this particular day, The Superhero had a special glint in her eye.

Today I'm going to tell you about the all the things that went through my head in the half-second following that seemingly ordinary question, since as unlikely as it may seem, it made me very happy.

First, you need to know about me and The Superhero and money.

I am anal about money. I like to save. I like having a budget. When our money comes in twice month it automatically gets distributed into virtual buckets so we know how much we have to spend on what. I look forward to doing our taxes every year... with pen and paper. These are things that would behoove everyone to do; however, I think it's totally unnatural to actually enjoy these things.

The Superhero, on the other hand, does not have quite the same pickle up her ass. She's an immediate gratification kind of girl. She's unlikely to go more than 24 hours between deciding to buy something and having done so. Like our car. And our house.

Needless to say living with me and sharing money has it's pros and cons. We will never have credit card debt. Our bills will always be paid on time. But in the early days of our marriage, prying money out of my icy grasp for anything more frivolous than buying pasta or paying rent was a challenge, and caused more than it's share of marital strife. It was a common occurrence to leave the grocery store together with big imaginary storm clouds over both our heads.

Over the last 6 years of marriage, some beautiful things have happened to our relationship. A number of aspects of joint lives have sort of locked into place, like puzzle pieces that each have a funny shape but fit just right if you twist them the right way, or running shoes that "mold to your feet", but give you blisters for a while, while you break them in. One of these aspects is money.

Today, this is how money works between us:

• The Superhero is a rule follower. To a fault. I've waited with her on deserted streets in the middle of the night because the "Don't Walk" hand is up.


• I need rules to feel comfortable with money. I can't spend money happily unless I know which bucket it's coming from and how much money is left in that bucket.


• So The Superhero, who spends most of our money since she stays home with the kids and has time to do it, lives within the rules, to a fault, just like with the "Don't Walk" hand. And because of this, I always feel comfortable with whatever she buys.


• But that's not all. The beauty of this, is that The Superhero is a genius at maximizing what she gets within the system. And because of this, I end up with way better stuff than I would otherwise.

Which brings us back to "What's for dinner?". In the 1/2 second following that question, I see the glint in her eye and realize she has something in mind. She wants to bring in takeout (which is something we can rarely afford), probably sushi. And 20% of my happiness comes from that fact that I know I'll be having something delicious tonight that we don't have to cook, and 80% of my happiness comes from thinking about how far we've come in our money relationship, and our relationship in general. I know that we have $90 allocated to last us the next 6 days until the end of the pay period, and there's no way that $30 for sushi fits in there. But I also know that The Superhero has some evil-genius scheme to shuffle the books to make it fit in without going over-budget, and I know I have a lifetime of stress- and guilt-free deliciousness to look forward to as a result.