On business this week -- just talked to DW and was told that all the bills were paid. A few days ago, I shot her an email telling her to put our back tithing (we were 3 payments behind; we are a single income family) in a holding account until I got back. I told her again over the phone, but she didn't get the hint. She paid a huge chunk of cash today.

I can see that this will be a point of conflict. Has anyone gone through this with their spouse?

PS -- I think there are seeds of doubt with DW. I want to keep the peace and not push her away. How did/would you proceed in this area?

I think the decision of many is to split tithing in half and let each spouse decide what to do with the money.

If you want to invest it, give it to a charity, pay down debt, etc. Let her decide what to do with her half.

thanks axeldc ... I think that's good advice even if I'm the only one earning a paycheck. She works extremely hard at home and I can easily make the argument that half the money is made possible by her. That's a fair arrangement. I'll have to break the news to her when I get back. Along with the fact that I like booze ;)

She's still TBM and now working full time too. Before she started working and before my son left on his mission we had a long discussion about finances and mission funding and tithing.

She raised the point that she wanted to pay for his mission and tithing out of the money she would soon be earning. I said "fine, but". I then pointed out that for all the years when I was the sole bread winner the money was always considered "ours" and not "mine". I then asked if she was going to return the courtesy on "her" money. That caught her off guard and I could tell she hadn't considered that side of things at all.

My suggestion was that she could decide what she wanted to do with her share of our money. The follow up was that however much she gave to the church, I would get an equal amount to do whatever I wanted with -no questions asked. That had her carefully thinking things over.

I wasn't telling her she couldn't give, but she recognized the financial burden that would result if we both took an equal chunk of money out of the budget.

Good luck, I hope you find a way to make things work and keep everybody happy.

Stunted

It's always the money...

The Church operates like an Internet pornography site (I am led to believe).
You get the first taster for free but if you want the good stuff, the really good stuff, then you have to stump up the joining fee!

I suggest taking your better half to Salt Lake City to do some shopping at the City Creek Centre. Over a milkshake you could just casually ask if she liked how her tithing (profits from tithing invested = tithing in my book) has been spent?

I don't envy you the challenge, money stuff is always, always a delicate one.

I honestly think it does not occur to TBM's that paying tithing is the source of many of their financial troubles. I was just talking to my TBM mom yesterday about tithing. She was deeply in debt and had to do a credit reorganization, which really put a damper on her credit. Then she ended up really needing to buy a vehicle, but unable to get a loan because of her credit reorganization. Long story short, she still pays her tithing every month, which is plenty to have kept her out of debt in the first place. And she acted almost ashamed to tell me how much she was shelling out, like she was embarrassed both to be paying that much and to admit that sometimes she falls behind. Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don't!!

Sorry to get off topic, but my point is that your wife may not realize what a burden she is putting on your finances by clearing you out to catch up on tithing. My advice would be to be honest with her, look at the numbers with her and tell her that xy and z have to be prioritized to be paid before tithing. If tithing gets paid, we don't pay off this, or we fall behind on that. Tell her you understand that she feels this obligation to pay tithing, but that Mormons were also told to stay out of debt. God would not want you to drown in debt over tithing. Perhaps you could pay all the bills first. You each then get an allotted amount to spend however you wish, like on booze, shoes, whatever. If she chooses to spend hers on tithing, then let her. But her discretionary fund will be gone and she will not have money for any luxuries. Just an idea...