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According to the Federal Reserve, “92% of American family disposable income is spent on paying debts.”[i] Think about that: of every extra $100 the average American household manages to scrimp together, $92 of it will go to paying debts. They only get to actually spend and enjoy $8 of it.
When you look at it that way, it’s easy to see why there’s so much financial strain on so many marriages, including my own.
How has my marriage gotten far off track? And what does it have to do with debting? Well, of course, my spending habits have landed us in a huge amount of debt, and that causes financial, and emotional, strain in the marriage. Also, my constantly being in a rush due to time-debting certainly doesn’t help the stress and anxiety level in my home.
That said, I am realizing that my money debting and time-debting are actually fairly straightforward. What it comes down to is, I need to not spend money I don’t have, and I need to keep better track of the money I do have. Then, I need to be careful to allow more time than I think I need to complete tasks, and not lose track of time. All of that is challenging, but it’s also fairly straightforward.
Not so with self-debting. The self-debting is more subtle, more pervasive, and more difficult to root out. It’s not as tangible as time or money-debting, so it’s more challenging to work on. If debting is broadly defined as giving away what you don’t have to give, than money- and time-debting are pretty easy to measure, relatively speaking. It’s much harder to measure self-debting.
For example, if I only have $10, I know I can’t spend $12 without debting. It may be hard for me not to spend the $12, but at least I know what I’m doing if I choose to spend it. I’m choosing to borrow $2, in addition to the $10 I already have. I’m going to have to pay back that $2 some time down the road, plus interest, and I better think long and hard before I take on that debt.
It’s the same with time; if I only have an hour to talk with you, and I talk with you for an hour and ten minutes, I know I’m borrowing from someone else’s time, or my own time. Again, it may be difficult to resist, but at least it’s quantifiable. I know that if I spend that extra ten minutes with you, I’m time-debting. I can then choose whether or not to do that. This awareness is empowering, because it creates the opportunity to make a choice, whether I want to debt or not.
But self-debting is harder to measure. How do I know when I’m too tired to talk with my wife? Isn’t part of being a good husband making time for her, even when I don’t feel like it? Isn’t part of being a good father changing my son’s sheets when he wets the bed, even if all I really want is to go to bed myself? Isn’t part of being a good friend answering the phone when a friend is in need, even if I’m exhausted from talking to clients all day, and really just need some time for myself? I think these are all good examples of doing the right thing, but where do you draw the line? At what point does being a good person become self-debting?
I don’t know where the line is, but I have definitely crossed it. I have done so repeatedly, and habitually, so often, and for so long, that I don’t even know what my wants and needs are anymore. It stinks for my wife, because she doesn’t know, either. While she has certainly done some things to contribute to our marital issues, I have to acknowledge that I’m the biggest offender. I set her up with my self-debting. I go the “extra mile,” and give her things I don’t have to give (sometimes things she hasn’t even ask for), and then I resent her accepting them. That’s where the line is between being a good person and being a self-debtor. It’s when you exhaust yourself. And then you have expectations that you will be treated a certain way in return, and when that doesn’t happen, you resent it.
And I have to admit, I resent her for not drawing the boundaries for me. Crazy, right? I sense she is looking for the boundaries; she wants to know where my boundaries are, where I begin and she end. She wants to know where my lines in the sand are. But I can’t draw them. I am so chronically indebted, such an emotional pauper, that I can’t make those distinctions.
The way I survived my childhood was by being whatever my parents needed me to be. This is the ultimate form of self-debting, and while it got me through my childhood, it is absolutely killing my marriage. I can’t seem to take my place as a man, a father, or a husband. And I have no idea whatsoever what to do about it. I can only pray it’s not too late, and that an answer will come to me.
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