My husband and I are in the middle of renovating our house, and that in itself has been extremely stressful at times. The budget keeps changing, the ideas keep changing, and we are having trouble agreeing on certain furniture, design, etc., which is why we got an interior designer to help us.

We are definitely spending much more money than we thought, which I’m trying to be open about, but all I wanted was to have furniture in our semi-empty home, and apparently I’ve made it very clear to him that it’s my top priority. I want to be able to host my friends and our family. I want him to be able to host his friends as well. We basically went from picking furniture to redoing the entire house’s floor and our huge built-in bookcase.

My husband makes tips at his job, and even though I technically make more than him salary-wise, he makes more because of the extra tips. I have a second job for extra money, which was at first used to help pay my debt, but now I’m in a very good place with debt and am almost done paying it out. In the past, I did have issues with spending money (I was an art teacher in a public school, so I was having to use a lot of my own money for supplies, etc.). I racked up quite a bit of debt but have worked very hard to pay it down. My husband even helped pay for some of it, which I’m very grateful for.

Recently, I bought more packages off Amazon. Things like new pants for work (I’ve gained weight), face wash, a gift for my mom, etc. Nothing crazy. I’ve been trying to work on getting back into shape, and so I also bought some dumbbells so I don’t have to spend money on a gym membership. This caused an argument between us because he thought I was buying too much stuff and said I have way too many things in the house (out of all of my girlfriends, I barely have anything). Our house is pretty empty. He started going off about how I can use my body weight to get in shape and I don’t need dumbbells, how he’s always been skinny because he’s active (his job, not because he works out), and how I don’t need to do any of that and it’s a waste of money. I had bought some weights before that I didn’t really like or use often but wanted to sell them for a different set (only $60). He just couldn’t wrap his head around why I want to have the weights and how it will help my body.

He’s been asking me for the last few days how much money I have in my other account (my checking account for almost 20 years), and then said I need to take out $200 a month to help with the renovations because he’s been using all of his tip money. I ended up agreeing, but something felt off. I know as a wife I should want to be able to contribute more money, but a part of me wanted to also have my own little spending money because I work extra days of the week for it. I work 6 days a week (includes full-time job). I of course want to help, but with our joint account, I still have money leftover after all of my bills that can go towards the renovation. So, now I ask you, am I the asshole for wanting to keep the back pocket money to myself? Or is this what marriage is?

TLDR: my husband wants me to use the money I earn from a second job (wasn’t intended for bills recently) towards our house renovation because he’s uses his tip money from work to go towards our house. The amount he wants me to put down is more than half than what I make in a month at my second job. I only make about $300 extra a month at the part-time job.