I hope I can put my thoughts coherently here. I'm feeling financially controlled and manipulated. Not in the usual way. I'm well familiar and have lived the kind where purse strings and spending are controlled to keep you in a place beneath them. This feels different. 

I hope I can explain this fairly. My DH is incredibly generous. Especially with his adult children. I estimate he gifts around 10k per year to them by a little here a little there, this is mostly in cash or "official" loans that are then forgiven . For the most part I'm ok with that. It is His money, whatever. 

We are, well he is nearing retirement. I'm about 7 years away. Here's my dilemma. I'm feeling more and more like his occasional generosity extended towards my children is so that he feels above reproach for his extra generousness with his. He also has a double standard in some respects. Because he is the main bread winner and I bring in really, a pitiable amount compared to him I feel like he occasionally uses his generosity to manipulate me. I'll list a few examples. 

He regularly takes his adult children out to eat. One nearly weekly. Fairly pricey places. Sometimes he takes quite a crowd of adult children and adult grandchildren out. I estimate it's anywhere from 250-500$ a month he spends. Again, he earns a healthy paycheck and it's his money. He's encouraged me to do the same with my children, (and put it on our household credit card that he pays)  which occasionally I do treat them, on average one or two times a month. I'm not really a huge fan of it because I wasn't raised that way and think the costs really add up. I bought lunch for myself and two of my boys just this week for around 60$ which is about par for the course for us. 

Yet, quite often DH wants to discuss our budget, our retirement planning, he has spread sheets and everything. Occasionally I notice that all of MY and my 20 year old sons expenses are listed. “Entertainment” “streaming” “clothes” “gas” etc. Yet he never accounts for HIS extra expenses. There’s no bar that says “weekly lunch with my kids” or "bought 200$ in groceries " for him LOL. 

We had an incident today, that kinda brought things to a head. I heard him talking to his oldest son about tire prices for oss vehicle. So I asked. Why are you pricing your 40 something year olds sons tires out for him? And are you paying for them? He said “oss is so busy so yes I was and I’m “loaning” him the money” 

Normally I would let this go and not even say anything buuuuut here’s the clincher. My 20 year old son who lives with us needed to buy tires for the first time a couple months ago. DH heard us talking about it and heard me say “let me know I’ll go with you” he (DH) somewhat  agitated pulls me aside and says “let him figure it out" you don't need to go with. "Let him call for prices, he's a big boy now " my son did do all the calling, and paid for them as well. The ONLY thing I did (which was what DH heard)  was go to Sam's with him to scan my card. I’m so frustrated by this double standard.

I know this is a "problem" many would love to have but it's feeling more and more manipulative to me because I can't bring up any financial concerns because as he often reminds me " I'm generous with your kids too"