It seems like the meaning is actually more satirical... the husband does "love" the wife, and he wants to show that, yet to achieve their now customary "dreams" of middle-class life he wastes his day(s) concerned with money. It started innocently enough, as most families do, with a desire for financial security and the "American Dream" yet the husband's, and I use the term liberally because he doesn’t have malicious intent, and it is of negative connotation, rapacity, money becomes his only form of interaction with his wife. His only way to show affection.
It seems like the meaning is actually more satirical... the husband does "love" the wife, and he wants to show that, yet to achieve their now customary "dreams" of middle-class life he wastes his day(s) concerned with money. It started innocently enough, as most families do, with a desire for financial security and the "American Dream" yet the husband's, and I use the term liberally because he doesn’t have malicious intent, and it is of negative connotation, rapacity, money becomes his only form of interaction with his wife. His only way to show affection.