OMG, I never thought I'd see the day!
Yesterday I showed him where we netted out in our budget for 2018. Rather than glaze over, he actually asked me MORE questions and asked me to break out specific line items (I had simplified the table so as not to overwhelm him).
Then he asked me to construct a 2019 worksheet so we can work on our budget for next year.
!!!!!!!!
So, I did that and gave it to him this morning, and we've gone through half of the line items so far. He is just now taking a break but we'll be finishing shortly. We're talking 50 individual line-items that he's thinking carefully through and we're discussing like adults! And he's enjoying it! And we haven't had one fight!
I'm going to see if he'll be amenable tomorrow to examining our cash-on-hand for expenses for January and making sure we have the money to pay for the things we've budgeted for. (But I'm not going to PUSH! I don't want to get greedy!)