Limit on gifts favors his family

Dear Carolyn:

My husband and I have recently started saving for a home, which means clamping down on our budget. I suggested we set a per-person amount to spend on birthday gifts for immediate family. Anything above that amount would need to come out of our personal “fun money” stash. He, however, thinks it’s fair to set a per-family amount, to be distributed evenly over the members of that family.

I have four siblings, and he only has one. With his arrangement, each of my siblings would get a $20 gift, while his brother would get an $80 gift. My husband heatedly argued that it’s not fair that I “get to spend so much more of our money” on my family. But in my mind, we both share one big combined family. And his arrangement says his brother deserves nicer gifts than my siblings.

Am I out of line? Or is he being unfair?

– Confused Wife

Give them all cards and spend $160 on good marriage counseling.

Not because this is such a big issue, but because it’s such a small one. You’re high-temp arguing over 80 bucks?

There’s room for different, reasonable opinions on gift expenses and friends. Accordingly, partners who trust each other are flexible about this and other small stuff.

Partners who don’t trust each other, on the other hand, will fight over small stuff as if their entire selves are at stake – because, in a way, they are.

Both of you need to give equal weight to your needs, the other’s needs and the needs of the marriage – and both of you need to trust that the other is doing this, too. Without both of these elements, you will approach issues in your marriage, large and small, with an eye to protecting what’s yours – meaning, with an eye to winning the argument and getting what you want instead of finding an outcome that serves you both, even if it wasn’t exactly what either of you had in mind.