I manage the budget and finances in our relationship; pay all the bills, plan the money, balance the budget every few days. My wife is fine with this when it means the burden of responsibility is on me--the unglamorous work of calculating interest, allocating resources, knowing when the bills are due. (And, for that matter, earning the money--I'm the only one working right now, and we are usually in a happy arrangement of I work and she keeps house.)

But now she has decided that she wants a laptop. I don't think the money is there; she wants to use a credit card. I took a stand that we're not a credit card family over a year ago, which she was fine with until she wanted something.

We do allowances. So she comes back and says, ok, let's buy the laptop today, and you can take a little from my allowance each week until it's paid off. I say no again--we have rules and limits for advances on allowances, and this is way beyond that.

So now she's throwing everything at me to try to get her laptop. She won't talk to me, she has screamed "fuck you" at me on several occasions today, she walked off in the middle of a date and left me standing there. She tells me that I'm on a "power trip" and she thought we were supposed to be partners.

Now she says she wants to be "involved in the finances," because she "no longer feels she can trust me to take care of it." I'm obviously saying hell no to that, too.

But it doesn't stop. It's been three full days of laptop tantrum now. I've never seen anything like this. At what point do I just divorce her already?

(Sorry guys. This started off as a request for advice, but then it just turned into pointless venting. But if anyone has any advice on how to keep your "no" solid through all this bullshit, I'd love to hear it.

I guess I'm trying to figure out where the crack in my armor came from. I guess I've been depressed lately and she spotted the weakness. I haven't been to the gym in two months and I've been whining about my work a lot. Let this be a cautionary tale... hold your frame so your wife won't think she can get away with bullshit behavior.)

edit What happened to my fundamentals? Turns out dread game was the answer. Walk out and turn the phone off for a little while, come back and suddenly she's excited about the idea of saving up her allowance for something.