Patricia Grisafi
It’s nice to be able to help friends and family financially if you have the resources — and they’re responsible and will eventually pay you back. Unfortunately, sometimes they just don’t. Maybe they are bad with money. Maybe they’re sneaky. In any case, a hard lesson is learned when a family member procrastinates on paying back a loan.
One Redditor who loaned his wife’s money, WITHOUT HER KNOWLEDGE, to his sister, is finding out that he is, indeed, an a**hole and that his sister is not trustworthy.
“My wife and I have joined finances but she has a savings account her grandpa set up for her before he passed. It’s around 40k in savings. We both work IT jobs and get paid fairly well (I want to note that we do not live in America so wages differ). She’s stated to me that that money are for either an emergency or in case we plan on buying our own house. She said that in case I need money for an emergency I’m allowed to use. I also have access to the account but so far I didn’t use anything,” the OP says.
“2 months ago my sister asked me to lend her 5k because she wanted to pay for her wedding dress but her card had expired and kept declining. I lent her 5k but since I didn’t have the full amount of my own paycheck, I borrowed money from my wife’s savings. My sister said she’d pay me back once her new card was ready which would take less than two days. I didn’t tell my wife this because I’d replace the money in two days.”
“It’s been 2 months now and my sister is putting off on giving back the money she borrowed. She keeps finding excuses on why she couldn’t give it back every time. My wife hasn’t checked the savings account in ages but what if she happens to check it and she figures out 5k is missing?”
The OP’s best friend says to be honest with his wife and accept the consequences of his actions. The OP feels guilty for not letting her know the money is missing and for trusting his sister, who is apparently not trustworthy.
What do Redditors think?
“Your sister not being able to afford her wedding dress is not an emergency. You were scammed, her bank would have sent her new debit card the beginning of the month it expires, not wait to send one after it expired. You’re not getting that money back. And you will probably never get your wife’s trust back either. YTA,” said GlitterSparkleDevine.
“OG, YTA. You ‘borrowed’ the $5,000 from your wife to ‘lend’ to your sister for a non-emergency, frivolous use. The fact that your sister is untrustworthy, and will not return the funds is less relevant (and 100% your responsibility). You need to: come clean to your wife, ASAP; pay her back from your own funds (so that it is your loss, not your wife’s, or as a couple’s, given that she did not agree to take on this responsibility); try to get accountability from your swindler-sister (be it persistence, or public-shaming). Either way, this is on you to fix. Hope you learned your lesson,” advised Crazy-Bovine.
“Did anyone else clock that he didn’t have all the 5k so he took it out of the savings account? He has money – presumably he could actually have given the sister mostly his own money, or at least a decent chunk, but he didn’t. HE TOOK ALL THE MONEY FROM HIS WIFE INSTEAD. Awful,” noted LabFine.
“YTA. You need to tell your wife and start repaying the amount you took immediately. You need to start getting your sister to repay you small amounts, if possible. And now you need to realize that your sister is tapped out and you should never lend her money again,’ said teresajs.
“Not only is paying for a wedding dress not an emergency, you didn’t even give your wife the chance to decide if that money should be used in this way. This was not a situation where you didn’t have the time to talk to her first, before lending the money. Also, NEVER lend money you expect back, especially from family… add that you’ve continued to hide it for months…I’d remove your access to that account immediately, you’ve shown that you can’t be trusted,” said jkelsey84.
Featured Image: Pexels
