Why Does She Spend So Much? When Money Becomes a Marital Conflict

A couple arrived at my clinic visibly tense and emotionally charged.

What had happened?

It was an old argument between them, one that had accompanied them for years. The subject was money.

“We’ve been married for sixteen years, and I’ve never seen my wife take responsibility for our financial situation,” the husband said. “She spends money in alarming amounts, without stopping to think for even a second. Everything is urgent for her and cannot wait. Our house is filled with things no one actually needs. Every morning she wakes up with a new idea.”

“Next to her workplace there’s a shopping center,” he continued. “On her way home she has to stop there, and she comes back with things that, believe me, no one is missing.”

“I have to admit that she buys me gifts and pampers me. I suppose I should be grateful and thank Hashem for her caring. But instead of saying thank you, all I want to do is take the bags and return them. I don’t want gifts. I didn’t ask for them, and I don’t need them.”

“Just last week we had a cold snap, and she decided to buy everyone scarves, gloves, and wool socks. I see them lying around the house. No one even uses them. We put on a coat and go out. What do we need all this extra stuff for?”

“A few days later she rushed out shopping again and came back with six art books. For her, it was absolutely necessary because the kids were bored. You’re welcome to visit our house and see if anyone has even opened those books.”

Her Side of the Story

I turned to the woman and asked how she felt hearing her husband’s description.

She didn’t hesitate for a moment.

According to her, she was married to an oblivious husband. “No one interests him,” she said. “I wish that once, in all our years of marriage, he would buy me something without being asked. I’ve never received attention from him. Everything I need, I have to ask for, explain, and plead for.”

“He doesn’t even see the children. He thinks they should just grow up on their own. Children need activities. They need someone to think about them and spoil them too.”

On the surface, the conflict seemed to revolve around finances and how much was appropriate to spend on the children.

The Easy Answer That Solves Nothing

I could have ended the discussion with a single sentence. I could have explained that it is the nature of the world: a woman enjoys renewal and investment in the home, while a man is naturally focused on earning a living. It is normal for him to forget to invest in the home, and normal for her to want to care, buy, and provide.

They would have calmed down.

But nothing would have been solved.

And I would have missed the opportunity for a deeper process.

So I chose to take another step.

The Question That Changed the Direction

I turned to the woman and asked, “May I ask you a question that requires honesty and courage?”

She agreed.

“Before you met your husband,” I asked, “did you already have a strong need to shop?”

She fell silent, embarrassed. After a few seconds, she gathered herself and answered honestly.

“Yes,” she said. “Even in my parents’ home, when I didn’t have my own money, just being involved in shopping, even for someone else, calmed something inside me.”

And this is where real reflection begins.

When Defenses Reveal Emotion

To better understand what lay beneath this behavior, I asked another question.

“When you shop, what do you buy the most?”

Without hesitation, she answered that she buys an excessive amount of clothing for the entire family.

“I buy, then exchange, then return, and then buy again. I feel terrible about the amounts. On the way, I keep explaining to myself why it’s urgent and necessary. I throw away the receipts and tags right in the mall trash. When I get home, I hide everything deep in the closet.”

You probably recognize this pattern.

Yes, this is addiction.

When a person describes a need that is never satisfied, a need that only grows the more it is fulfilled, we are dealing with an addictive cycle.

Rethinking Addiction

We usually associate addiction with cigarettes, alcohol, the internet, or drugs. But addiction can take many forms: work, food, cleanliness, shopping, prestige, attention, even reading.

Anything that does not bring true satisfaction, and instead demands more and more, is a sign that a person has entered the cycle of addiction.

You might think that as a therapist, my goal now would be to help this woman stop shopping.

Surprisingly, that question does not occupy me at all.

What occupies me is the deep pain that the addiction is trying to cover.

What the Shopping Is Really About

Addiction is not the problem. It is the solution the soul has found for unbearable pain.

I gently asked her what emotion she was trying to soothe through shopping.

She asked to give an example.

“Last week I bought my son winter shoes,” she said. “After a long search, I found a pair I really liked. I felt calm and happy, paid, and left the store. A few minutes later, I passed another shop and saw even nicer shoes in the window. My heart sank, and the war began.”

“I was convinced that if I bought the second pair, I would feel better. But I felt uncomfortable returning to the first store after all the time I had spent there. I also felt bad for my son, who was exhausted and didn’t care at all. And honestly, I felt terrible about myself. I just felt awful.”

I asked her, “How do you think you would have felt if you bought the second pair?”

She answered quietly, “When my kids look good, I feel good about myself.”

The Pain Beneath the Purchase

“How do you feel about yourself, on a scale of one to ten?” I asked.

“Awful,” she replied. “Maybe a two.”

“And since what age have you felt this way?”

It turned out that from a very young age, she had lived with a deep sense of low self-worth. The endless shopping was an attempt to escape from herself, again and again.

This conversation was only the beginning of a long process. The need would not disappear overnight. There would need to be space for self-acceptance, for recognizing the immense lack and the attempt to soothe it.

A significant part of the suffering in addiction comes from self-rejection. “What a terrible person I am,” and from there, the need to feel good intensifies, and the escape becomes more urgent.

Seeing the Whole Picture

You can now understand how complex the emotional world behind this conflict truly is.

Had I focused only on who is financially responsible, or who cares more about the children, I would have missed an entire inner world.

And sometimes, missing that world is the most expensive mistake of all.

Rabbi Aryeh Ettinger is a counselor and founder of a school for training couples counselors.