Money.... the root of all evil

My partner and I moved into a brand new home 2 years ago last week and I am not enjoying living in it. The reason being, we are struggling with choosing furniture and picking colours together for each room. However, there is more to it than just that. My partner earns more money than I do and he has paid for a few expensive items i.e. the sofa but he keeps reminding me what he has bought and how much they cost. This makes me feel inferior and that nothing in the house is mine. I have lost all interest for the house and it is supposed to be a place we can live and grow in together and add things as we see them. Every time the topic of the house arises, I switch off and I think it shows. Oh and apparently my taste is not very good and therefore, why would I want to buy furniture only for him to turn his nose up. Every conversation we have is about ‘the house’, buying new expensive TV’s, buying ‘hi-fi’ equipment’ buying expensive ‘watches’ and is boring me to tears. YAWN! We’re not having any fun anymore and I find myself regularly snapping at him when he starts a conversation about buying things for the house or wanting to buy me clothes i.e. from ‘Hobbs’. Don’t get me wrong, I love clothes from Hobbs ‘for work’ but not for going out. I don’t feel very modern anymore and I’m feeling a lot older than my years. If I show him an item of clothing I like or tell him what perfume I like, he responds with “that one I bought you was nicer than that” or “why don’t you try this on”? It’s normally not my taste and then he gets annoyed with me for not liking something he likes. “Gosh I’m really sorry but I just don’t like it. It really isn’t much more complicated than that darling”. Quite often on birthdays or at Christmas I have received presents that I have said I didn’t like and because he likes them, he has bought it for me and I have had to take it back. The thing is, it makes me look ungrateful and I’m really not. I just wish he would listen to me. I would be quite happy to receive a nice box of chocolates with some flowers or something that I have actually asked for rather than an overpriced item that I don’t like. It’s driving me round the twist and I’m starting to resent him. What can I do?

Oh, dear. You've given him marriage with all its perks without insisting on the work as earns that privilege - this case, a legally and socially binding vow to share all things relevant and pertinent to a permanent, cohabitational, pairbonded state, including wealth and assets CALLED MARRIAGE - and now you're powerless to resist his bid for total control over you (or so you think). Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are many MANY men who wouldn't take that master-servant viewpoint, meaning unmarried cohabitation is not the problem here. HE IS..because evidently he's not one of those men! Whilst I'm at it: It's not his RIGHT to buy you new clothes and restrict you to only a certain retail outlet with one certain style. It's only his right to give you some money to go clothes shopping with. Conclusion: Controller Alert!!! Shame on him for unfairly pulling rank like that the minute you were moved into "his" domain! Because clearly the prohibitory factors are NEITHER the cost/his finances (or he wouldn't be talking about buying this/that else) nor your taste or so-called lack of it (or he'd be talking about his buying furnishings instead of the latest gadgets). Gottim! He's simply seen his chance to try to become a despot, saying he has all the power of purchasing decision-making because he - not being beholden legally to allow you half-ownership of it - has all the money ("mine-mine-mine-mine-MINE-NOT-YOURS"). So what. Money is not the only instrument of power. You still have things he wants as well, don't you? [wiggles eyebrows] Take back your power. If he's so concerned about basically reminding you so firmly that you're NOT his wife and nowhere near it, then cease doing all the OTHER things a wife or nearly-wife provides, as well. He can't have it both ways. Either you ARE, despite unofficially, husband and wife, in which case you should BOTH get the associative salary and perks, or you aren't, in which case neither of you do (everything becomes but a favour). By all means give him fair warning about being about to take his own rule (ya vull!) to the hilt. He might think twice and drop his campaign if you do. If he does neither? - NO PERKS WITHOUT DOING THE WORK TO EARN THEM! None! Consider yourself a lodger. Pay him fair rent (whatever he'll accept), buy food only for yourself, cook only for yourself, clean up only after yourself, do only your clothes-washing, tidying, cleaning, and anything else you care to call part and parcel of "husbandly perks"... Oh, dear. His sh*tty law looks destined to miss you and instead come round full circle to bite *him* on the arse, doesn't it. What a silly billy he is, gosh how did *that* happen. :-p ...Or move out straight out again (taking with you whatever YOU'VE bought using "YOUR-MONEY-NOT-HIS". That'll learn him. (Not surprised you're growing to resent him. Yeuch.)