I’m jealous of my husband’s lifeless ex-wife. VICKY REYNAL replies

Q: My second marriage is going through a bad patch and it’s my fault. My husband is everything you could wish for – good-looking, fit, and with a great sense of humour. 

He sadly lost his first wife to cancer and she was stunning, adored by everyone (and don’t I hear about it), but for me, worse than that, she came from a very well-off family. I’m not jealous of her looks as I know those went at the end. 

Rather I’m jealous of what she was able to bring to the marriage. She splashed out on their first house together, plus a flat in London. She paid for all the luxury holidays and cars and treated my husband to a life that as a private school teacher he could never have afforded. 

Try to distinguish between a desire to save and a resistance to spending. Which one is the ‘obsession’? Vicky Reynal writes

We met in the same profession but I have modest means and feel a rather limp, second best wife. I find myself always picking fights over money and rather than copying her flamboyant spending, hoard what I do have. 

My husband says I’m obsessed with saving and to relax as we are comfortably off but I’m losing sleep over it all.

Money psychotherapist Vicky Reynal replies: I am intrigued by these fights over money – since money isn’t scarce from the sounds of it so it would seem like you are clashing over different views on spending.

But I think you are implying that that’s only half the story and that something about your underspending is related to your husband’s first wife. Let’s try to unpack that.

First of all, I would try to understand where this ‘obsession with saving’ is coming from. Have you always been ‘careful’ with money? Or is it a recent phenomenon, potentially triggered by the fact that you have more money now than you are used to and so adapting to your new spending power feels unnatural and against your instinct to be cautious with money?

To analyse it, try to distinguish between a desire to save and a resistance to spending. Which one is the ‘obsession’? Psychologically, they are quite different, even if ultimately they result in the same thing, ie: money stays in your account and is not enjoyed.

Thinking of the desire to save – is it comforting to hold on to your money, to feel that pot growing? Does it give you a sense of security? 

Or, thinking of a difficulty spending, is this more about how it feels to use the money you have, to allow yourself to have things, to indulge like you – or maybe your family – couldn’t in the past?

If you grew up in a family where the wealthy and ‘flamboyant’ spenders were criticised, this could add to your resistance to spend. 

If that behaviour was judged, then even if you have the means to afford luxury holidays as a couple, you might feel quite torn about indulging in such a way and a voice in your head might be saying ‘don’t be one of those people’.

If you grew up in a family that prided itself on modesty and restraint, then that too, might make it difficult to mimic the former wife’s spending habits.

Secondly, I wonder how you feel about the money you share with your husband. Since you tell me he is a teacher, it sounds like the financial freedom you now have is a result of his former wife’s passing (maybe inherited money or life insurance payout). 

I wonder if psychologically it is difficult to enjoy and spend this money as freely as if it were coming from a different source. Could it be a sense of guilt stopping you from spending it?

I also ask myself whether this isn’t about the money at all, but rather about insecurities attached to the relationship. What are these arguments achieving? Is it your way of unconsciously orchestrating a dynamic in which your husband says, ‘it’s ok darling, we have enough,’ because what you really want to hear from him is ‘It’s ok darling, you are enough’?

Is the financial abundance that you are jealous of just symbolic? Maybe you worry that your husband’s first wife was a ‘better wife’ and you are looking for reassurance that you are not ‘second-best’ and that he is not dissatisfied with you.

Or is it him you feel ‘second best’ to? If you see your husband as so ‘abundant’ (you tell me he has ‘everything’: ‘good-looking, fit, and with a great sense of humour’), do you feel he is more entitled to the finer things money can buy and you are less deserving of them?

By digging deeper into what is stopping you from enjoying the money you share with your husband, you stand a better chance to change your behaviour.

Money on Your Mind: The Psychology Behind Your Financial Habits by Vicky Reynal is published by Bonnier Books UK and is out this Thursday (9th May). Pre-order from Waterstones now and get £4 off with the code MoneyMind24 at checkout.