My wife hides money from me

My wife is quite selfish. Money is very important to her, even in relationships with me and my family. Due to her selfishness, the relationship between her and my mother is strained.

My life has been materially difficult since I was a child, so I highly value kindness and harmonious relationships between people.

I treat my wife’s family kindly, and I was willing to lend them a large amount of money to build a house. My wife and I now live in an extra room in that house. This is convenient because her parents can pick our children up from school when we’re at work.

With my work, I have to be away from home often and only come home once every two weeks, sometimes only once a month. In the first three years of our marriage, I give most of my salary to my wife to keep. But then whenever I would need a large amount of money, I would ask her and she would say that she’d run out of money.

It reminded me of when she first gave birth and complained to me that she didn’t have enough money and I had to soothe her and assure her that I had enough.

I then became direct with her and said that each of us should keep our own salary and that I would pay for our children’s food, living, and educational costs.

After a few years of hard work, I have saved some money. I started investing in property and then eventually wanted to build a house for my family. But when it came time to gather enough funds to purchase land and build, my wife again became stingy and I had to borrow from my brother and friends.

Then one day, after I’d finally registered the new property, I was cleaning up our bedroom while my wife was at work. While cleaning, I saw that my wife had a beautiful handbag that I’d never seen her use before. I was curious so I opened it. In the bag, I saw nearly VND50 million ($2,107) in cash and a notebook.

In the notebook, there are the details of some of her other expenses – the money she gave her parents to build a house, the money she lent her younger brother, and other expenses, the total of all of which amounted to VND850 million.

I had mixed feelings when I saw the notebook. I am delighted to know that my wife knows how to save money, but I feel sad that she doesn’t save for our little family, and it seems that she is building a path out of this marriage. If she wasn’t thinking of a way out, she would have given me VND50 million so that I didn’t have to borrow my brother.

I have not asked my wife about this money. I have just been thinking. I’m concerned that she is pregnant and if I discuss this with her, it won’t be good for the child.

Dear readers, can you give me advice on this? Should I talk directly about this with my wife or just wait and see?

Thank you for listening and I look forward to hearing your suggestions.