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Okay, I know depending on total strangers to judge a single incident is way too much like my H claiming to go to those other women for marital advice (yeah, that sounds even more ridiculous in print), but my H and I are FINALLY talking about real issues and I'm not certain my point of view on an old issue is correct. Maybe he's right and I am too child-focused?

Anyway the story in a nutshell is this: Our daughter was maybe 10 years old and we'd planned a trip to Disney World with friends. I supervised a garage sale but let our daughter manage it and keep the $90 profit so she'd have spending money at Disney World. At some point before the trip my husband borrowed the money but I didn't even know he had until we were actually at Disney World. She wants to buy something, I ask her where her money is and she says Dad borrowed it. At that point my H's business had failed and he was retraining and working part-time and I realized he may not have the cash, so I privately offered to give him the cash to pay her back. He refused to take it from me and says she has to ask nicely before he'll repay her the money. We're at freaking Disney World and I wanted everyone to be happy (one of my major faults) so I tried to repay our daughter and she wouldn't take it from me.

Am I correct and my H and 10 year-old daughter were in a disfunctional power struggle? Am I a wuss and it's actually better parenting to borrow money from your child and refuse to pay it back until they say please? I'm absolutely convinced this was tied to his lack of self-esteem but my daughter should not have been involved in his issues. Did I really expose my daughter to a man who acted like a child or is my view just warped?

For the record, I am well aware that my H and I didn't manage money, financial responsibilites or communication well. We're still working on that.

Wow, he really borrowed money from her and would not repay her until she asked nicely? why didn't he pay her back as soon as he had the funds? and tell her thank you to boot? she did him a favor, not the other way around.

sounds like a control issue.

Jmho

Wow, what a piece of work!

IMO, if he borrowed the money from your DD, with the promise of paying it back, then what he is teaching her by not paying it back until she says please, is that you don't have to live up to your word. And what kind of crap parenting is that?!

I mean really, if you borrow money from a bank do they have to say please before you start repaying the loan.

I guess you could say that they were in a power-struggle, but I'm on your DD side here.

I'm glad you guys are working on the finances and communication. I'm assuming that this happened quite a while in the past, since you say you're now empty-nesters?

No, your view isn't warped. I agree with previous posters that he sounds like he has power issues. Did they say why they didn't mention the borrowing of money to you in the beginning?

Okay--I'm not crazy. Yes, it happened a long time ago but my H just mentioned that trip and some issues he had with it so it all came back to me. Truly he's mostly a very warm and giving person and he's doing his best to be that kind of person all the time, but there have been moments like that one which have made me wonder. Well, and then there were all those As. :-(

In our talks now I still see glimmers of that kind of thinking and in my happy place I would like him to make a few more tweaks to his thinking. He may not like it but his work is just beginning.

Zayda--I didn't ask why I wasn't told. I really wanted to involve my daughter as little as possible since my issue was with my H. I suspect my H needed cash and was less embarassed to ask her for money than he was to ask me. At that time I was paying all the bills but he was responsible for his own running around money. Ideally we should have been communicating about money but he'd been hiding behind a failing business for years and then postponed responsibility by going back to school for a second degree. I was doing my best to keep the family afloat with no surprise expenses so we kept separate checking accounts. That was a lot of our problem--he felt like a failure but didn't have the strength or courage or whatever it took to make things happen, and prefered to find some woman he could be a hero to rather than be an equal partner so he could feel like a hero to me. That was a major cause of his first A, although his second set of As happened after he'd finally found his way back to his original career and a great job. So what was his excuse then? My best guess is there really wasn't a first and second set of As, just an ebb and flow throughout where he was going up and down the scale of infidelity. I suspect selfishness placed a big role, low self-esteem another, and then his behaviors dragged him down into sexual compulsion.

I blame myself for being avoidant and not making him stand up and be a man. I'm trying not to make the same mistake this time.

That sounds wrong on your husband's part. I'm sorry, no dad should borrow money from his 10-year-old. That sounds backwards to me.

And then to make a big deal out of it? Wow. Just wow.

Sorry if I sound judgmental.